Man returns 700-year-old tiles stolen from medieval monastery after 58 Years in toffee tin

Much Wenlock, Shropshire: A man who pocketed 700-year-old floor tiles from a medieval monastery as a child has finally returned them to English Heritage after finding them tucked inside a candy tin where they’d been kept for nearly 60 years.

Simon White was nine when he took the pieces as a souvenir from Wenlock Priory in Shropshire during a family vacation in 1967. The retired surveyor’s family stored the three decorative tiles, dating from the late 13th to early 14th century, inside a 1920s Thorne’s Creme Toffee tin. On Thursday, the missing pieces were handed back to the heritage site after Simon rediscovered them recently in his attic while sorting through old belongings.

Simon said he had always felt guilty about stealing the historic tiles as a boy after being encouraged by his father, and was relieved 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,” he added.

English Heritage confirmed the tiles will be examined by curators and conserved. Officials said they were grateful for their return and noted that even small fragments help piece together the priory’s history. The Wenlock Priory ruins, founded as an Anglo-Saxon monastery and later rebuilt as a Cluniac priory, remain open to the public.