

One of the most spectacular medieval tiled floors in Europe, buried and forgotten for centuries after the monks of Cleeve Abbey in Somerset built themselves an even smarter dining room in the 15th century, has gone on permanent public display under an oak shelter.

A 12x5 metre stretch survives of the floor, which was laid in about 1270 with hundreds of expensive encaustic tiles, depicting elaborate heraldic designs including the coats of arms of Henry III and his rich and powerful brother Richard, first Earl of Cornwall (the king had given him Cornwall as a birthday present).

“They are a ridiculously rare and good survival,” said Jeremy Ashbee, head curator at English Heritage, which has care of the Cistercian abbey. “There’s nothing else like this expanse of such high-quality tile in its original position surviving from the 13th century in England, and very little comparable anywhere in Europe. This floor is truly a medieval work of art of international importance.”

The floor was rediscovered by chance in 1876 but reburied to protect it, and only excavated again in the 1950s, when an attempt was made to find a solution that would protect the tiles and allow public access.

The state-of-the-art shelter built by English Heritage Photograph: Andrew Maybury

For decades, the floor was covered in winter, and exposed again each summer, until monitoring in the 1990s revealed that the changes in temperature and humidity were causing serious damage, pitting the glazed surface and, in places, leaving the softer clay underneath vulnerable to erosion. Earlier attempts at conservation, including lifting some of the tiles and relaying them in concrete in the 1950s, had caused further damage.

A marquee was installed over the the floor as a temporary solution, but the threat to the tiles was judged so severe that some experts felt that the floor should be buried permanently.

Instead, a barn-like timber building has been installed over the entire expanse of the floor, with seating and viewing platforms, natural light and timber louvres to control ventilation.

“If you have a treasure like this, it would be a tragedy to hide it from view,” Ashbee said. “Monitoring will continue, but we believe this will preserve the tiles well, indefinitely.”

The monastery had been through hard times – at one point some of the monks were alleged to be leading a band of brigands – but was rich enough again in the 15th century to build a grand refectory on a different site. Although such costly floors were often lifted and relaid, the monks buried theirs, and so it survived the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, when, at many religious sites, any building materials that could be recycled were sold.

The surviving buildings became a farm, with a farmyard protecting the hidden treasure.



“The main consideration of the new building was conservation, not aesthetic, but it works wonderfully well,” Ashbee said. “The oak is already becoming silvery, chiming well with the surviving stone buildings, and the light inside is just gorgeous, to die for. The monks would be amazed.”