On The Tiles: Why Collectors Love These Victorian Beauties

We were on holiday in Tunisia and if we fancied a break from lazing around the pool, the tourist rep said she was arranging a free trip to see some Roman remains. It wasn't much of an trip - in the heat of the day we walked crocodile-style a few hundred yards from the hotel down a dusty road - but the pay-off was a sight that has stuck in our memory.
    The rep was carrying a bucket as we picked our way through the what looked like a building site but it wasn't for donations for the tour guide. After asking us to stand aside, the guide dipped the bucket into a trough of water which he flung across the ground. As it washed away the sand, there revealed to us for the first time was a magnificent marble mosaic floor. A closer look showed that the ornate patterns were made up of tiny square-shaped pieces of coloured stone tiles, called tesserae. It must have taken hours of painstaking work to lay.
    Perhaps that's why we collect tiles like the ones pictured here. After all, they owe their existence to the Romans. Ours are somewhat younger, though, dating from Victorian and Edwardian times but, in our opinion at

(Pictured: A selection of tiles designed by William de Morgan

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