If you have an antique item that you would like to submit for consideration to be featured in a future issue, please contact me at CATreasures2026@gmail.com.

This month we are featuring one of the oldest items in my collection.  It is a 16^th Century wooden religious statue that I purchased while I was stationed in England twenty years ago.  It was found in Bury St Edmunds, East Anglia, and was examined by the local museum in Bury St Edmunds.  The museum curator confirmed that it was a carved 16^th Century statue depicting a Catholic priest in his robes holding a chalice and a long sword with an “S” shaped hilt.  The carving coupled with the style of clothing and the “S” hilted sword all confirmed a date of circa 1500.  The statue may depict a Catholic saint or a Knights Templar.  The statue would have originally been painted but all traces of original paint are long gone.  It is riddled with wood worm holes, which is common for items in England from that period.

The statue most likely adorned the altar or some other items in the Bury St Edmunds Cathedral.  Beginning in the 1640s, Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan-controlled Parliament banned the observance of Christmas and destroyed all religious images in the English churches.  They destroyed stained glass windows, altar pieces, and statues.  These churches which were all originally painted with vibrant images from the Bible, were now all covered with whitewash.

This statue was most likely saved by someone during this period and was eventually mounted on a Victorian period base.  The statue is 18 and ¾ inches tall.