I have recently had the good fortune to fine a top quality photographic postcard of the Elizabethan Nonington Church communion cup and cover which clearly shows the cup and cover in great detail. The postcard appears to date from the 1920’s or 1930’s and would have been sold in local Nonington shops.
The following information about the communion cup and cover is taken from a booklet published in 1938 by the then vicar, the Reverend Roger Bulstrode. When compiling the booklet the Reverend Bulstrode used information from his immediate predecessors at St. Mary’s, namely research undertaken by the Reverend Wilfred Powell and the Reverend Sidney Sargent’s ‘Brief Notes’ of 1912. The cup and cover are now kept at Canterbury Cathedral and is sometimes displayed in the Crypt.
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“Our cup, made in 1562 or 1563, is a very good specimen of the Elizabethan Communion cups of which 90 remain still in Kentish Churches. In other counties they were not adopted as early as in Kent-1562 is an early year. In many counties the old chalices were used until 1570, and Communion cups came in 1571-2 or later.
“The cover is inscribed 1591 [under the engraved name “Nuningtun”, author’s note], but is without date letters. The bowl is very deep in proportion to the height of the cup, with the reeded ornament usual on Elizabethan cups. It often occurs between the stem and the foot as well as between the stem and the bowl. Our Other cups and flagons are plated: one alms plate of pewter and one paten or plate of silver dated 1729. The first mark on the silver plate is hard to decipher, but may be a flower. It is probably the maker’s mark. The other marks are (2) a lion passant, (3) date letter for 1729-30, (4) leopard’s head crowned.”
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There is a sketch of the Nonington Church Cup in the Kent Archaeological Society’s Archives. Unfortunately the sketch is not dated and the artist is unknown, but it most likely also dates from the 1930’s.
