We do not meet much Saxon pottery in England of any importance until we come to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, when some of the best efforts in tile making and decoration are seen in the beautiful floor-tiles of the early Gothic period. Many examples of these tiles have been preserved in the British and other Museums, and some are still _in sitû_ in Westminster Abbey, Malvern, Ely, and Gloucester Cathedrals, and Chertsey Abbey. The designs are often heraldic in character (Fig. 69), and consist of geometrical, floral, animal, and architectural forms. Badges, shields, and texts are also found as decorations, and sometimes the human figure is also represented. The earliest are of one colour, or two, as a yellow or a dull red, and the later ones have several colours. They are generally called “encaustic” tiles. [Illustration: Fig. 69.—Encaustic Tile, from Monmouth Priory. (B.M.)] Slip wares were made extensively at Wrotham in Kent as early as 1650, and at Staffordshire, Derby, and other places in England even earlier than this date. Many of them are of quaint and uncouth forms, and are generally covered with a rich green, brown, or yellow glaze, made from copper, manganese, or iron oxides. Curious two-handled, three or four-handled mugs or _tygs_ used for handing round drinks, posset cups or pots, plates, dishes, candlesticks, jugs, and piggins were made in these wares, and decorated with “slip,” which is a mixture of clay and water used in the thickness of cream, and which is dropped or trailed from a tube or spouted vessel, on the surface of the ware, forming the decoration according to the fancy of the designer. The colour of the slip varied from light to dark (Fig. 70). [Illustration: Fig. 70.—Tyg of Wrotham Ware.] The dish of Toft’s ware (Fig. 71) is a specimen of the slip decoration, date about 1660. Toft was a potter who had his kiln at Tinker’s Clough, near Newcastle in Staffordshire. His work is decorated with coloured slip on a common red clay, with a wash of white or pipe clay, upon which the decoration was laid in red slip; darker tints were used for the outlines, and sometimes white dots. The lead glaze used gave a yellow tint to the white clay coating. [Illustration: Fig. 71.—Dish of Slip Ware; by Thomas Toft. (S.K.M.)] Marbled and combed wares, &c., were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which different coloured bodies were mixed in the paste to form a mottled, marbled, or variegated appearance.