Medieval Floor Tiles Returned to Monastery 60 Years After Boy Took Them

A man who stole 700-year-old floor tiles from a Medieval monastery when he was a child has finally returned them to English Heritage after finding them inside a candy tin where they’d been kept for nearly 60 years.

Simon White was a nine-year-old boy when he took the pieces as a souvenir from Wenlock Priory, in Shropshire, England during a family vacation in 1967.

The retired surveyor’s family kept the three decorative tiles—dating from the late 13th to early 14th century—stored inside a 1920s Thorne’s Creme Toffee tin.

Thursday the missing pieces were handed back to the heritage site after Simon rediscovered them recently in the attic while rummaging through some of his belongings.

Simon said he had always felt guilty about stealing the historic tiles as a boy after being encouraged by his dad, so he was delighted to return them to their rightful home at the 12th-century Anglo-Saxon priory.

“I can still remember the day this all happened as a youth with my father ‘standing guard’,” the 68-year-old told SWNS news agency. “Heaven knows what he would have said if we’d been caught.”

“He literally stood over me while actively encouraging me to take these tiles. I stole three of them, which in hindsight was a dreadful thing to do.”

“Back then there was no visitor centre or CCTV and you could wander around these places willy-nilly for free.

“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 three months ago in a battered tin.

“It was first time I’d laid eyes on them in 59 years.

“The delicious irony of this is, now that I’m retired, one of my hobbies is archeology and the local society I’ve joined is likely to take a dim view of this.”

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