Man who pocketed tiles from medieval priory as boy returns them 60 years later

Fragments of a priory’s medieval tiled floor that spent almost 60 years stashed in a toffee tin after being pocketed by a nine-year-old boy during a family outing have finally been handed back. The three pieces of decorative clay tiles, dating from the late 13th to early 14th century, were taken as a souvenir by Simon White during a family visit to Wenlock Priory in Shropshire in the late 1960s. White, now a 68-year-old retired chartered surveyor, found the fragments in an old toffee tin during a house move and owned up to English Heritage . He told officials he recalled his father encouraging him to take the pieces but had always felt a little uneasy and was delighted when he rediscovered them. “I can remember the day this all happened with my father standing guard,” he said. “Heaven knows what he would have said if we’d been caught. What happened to the tiles afterwards I’m not really sure, but they survived numerous house moves and assorted family upheavals only to turn up in my loft earlier this year in a battered tin.” English Heritage was particularly thrilled that one of the fragments had a dragon motif on it, which was previously unknown at the site. Photograph: English Heritage With the help of family diaries, White worked out that they probably came from Wenlock Priory and contacted the site’s custodians, English Heritage . Matty Cambridge, assistant curator at the charity, said medievalists had concluded White was right to pinpoint Wenlock as the scene of the act. …