Tobacco pipe, clay pipe

Bowl, incomplete. Moulded decoration, superbly impressed: along bowl seams, on front only, a hand in gauntlet holding together a rose branch (to right) and thistle stem (to left), beneath a crown; on back of bowl, above a ribbon with motto DIEU ET MON DROIT, a Garter wreath with motto HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE, enclosing Hanoverian Royal arms (three lions passant (England) and single lion rampant (Scotland) in first quarter impaled; three fleur-de-lys (France) in second quarter; harp (Ireland) in third quarter; two lions passant (Brunswick), single lion rampant (Luneburg) and single horse courant (Westphalia) in fourth quarter impaled), the whole supported by lion rampant and unicorn to either side, and surmounted by a crown. A large group of similar pipes was excavated at St Peter's Street, London, in 1995 (site code: SAL94). Atkinson and Oswald (1969) type 26. The heraldic device dates this pipe to before the Acts of Union (1800), when England's claim to the throne of France (represented by the fleur-de-lys) was finally abandoned.