The pre reformation Chalice made of Silver gilt around the early years of 15th century is one of the finest surviving examples of church craftsmanship from a time when so much was destroyed by King Henry VIII's 8 commissioners during the Reformation in 1539. Round the bowl's exterior is engraved the Latin inscription from Psalm 115 verse 13. Calicem salutaris accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo which translates as The cup of salvation I will raise and I will call on the Lords name. The foot or base of the chalice is being indented and ornamented with an elegant band of small pierced quatrafoils. The sloping sides of the foot are engraved alternately in old Gothic text characters with the sacred letters I H C and X P C. One of the sides has been cut out crudely and replaced with another piece of silver gilt of inferior workmanship. This is because the front face of such a chalice would have carried an engraved representation of a cross or crucifix which would have been seen by all the congregation during the celebration of the mass when the priest raised the chalice up. In the Protestant Reformation of 1552 King Edward VI established a commission to visit churches and appropriate gold plate and jewels. However in every parish a chalice was left but the engraved crucifix was no longer acceptable to the Protestant ritual and this portion of the foot was cut away and the I H C monogram inserted. In April 1996 the chalice was amongst a number of objects stolen from Leominster Priory. However the chalice was later discovered left on the altar on another church in the middle of England. Sadly it is no longer on display. Thieves, stole, theft, plunder, treasure, recovered, found, restored, precious, fragile,
