Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

An Elizabethan cardinal’s seal ring, 16th-17th century, the large gilt metal ring with an oval bezel bearing intaglio detail of a male profile, probably a pope wearing the camauro, within a beaded border, the bezel between caryatid shoulders, ring size approximately U. £1,000-£1,200

This ring was found at Deerhurst, on the outskirts of Tewkesbury.

St Mary’s Priory church, Deerhurst, was built in the 8th century, when Deerhurst was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. The church was restored and altered in the 10th century after the Viking invasion of England, and enlarged early in the 13th century and altered again in the 14th and 15th centuries. The church has been described as "an Anglo-Saxon monument of the first order". From the Anglo-Saxon era until 1540, St Mary's was the church of a Benedictine priory. After dissolving the priory the Crown leased it’s manor to a George Throckmorton and it remained with his heirs until 1604, when it was sold to Thomas Cassey of Wightfield Manor near Apperley. Deerhurst also contains the 11th-century Odda's Chapel, about 200 yards southwest of the St Mary’s, which remained in use until the 16th century.