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Welcome to Tile Heaven. Spend a little time and enjoy the amazing range of colours and designs as we show you the greatest selection of antique tiles on the web.

 

See victorian tiles of all styles from famous companies like Minton, Wedgwood and others, tiles from the arts & crafts and aesthetic movements, art nouveau tiles, majolica tiles, transfer printed tiles, handpainted tiles and many more unusual tiles, mostly from England and from the period 1860 - 1930.  

 

 

 


Mintons

Antique tiles are great display items that can find a place in almost any home. Easy to display, the straight edges mean they easily sit on a shelf or can be easily framed and similar to plates they may also be mounted on plate stands or in plate hangers. Plates are probably the most similar collectables but tiles offer a vastly greater range of designs and colours.

 

Antique tiles make a great and unique gift and are highly decorative. With brilliant glazes and bright colours antique tiles have a near universal appeal, they make a more personalised gift than a product from a regular store and with such a range of designs there are tiles to suit almost every taste and interest. It is no wonder that there are many collectors of English antique tiles around the world but there are many more people who just have a few nice tiles to display and use.

 

Make a feature, antique tiles can be used to make that special centrepiece or focal point in a backsplash or table top, a few great designs can make all the difference to an area of plain tiles and antique tiles are still often less expensive and better quality than bespoke contemporary tiles. Tiles have a traditional use as trivets or tea pot stands and flat tiles are well suited to the role. All our tiles have been professionally cleaned and have at most very minimal adhesive residue remains so can be readily installed or comfortably sit on display stands and in frames.

 

Antique tiles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are unique the brilliance of the glazes is unequalled in more modern tiles. Many processes then used are now prohibited in modern tile manufacture due to health and safety concerns for the workers.

 

With fewer things to spend money compared to nowadays a higher proportion of income was spent on homes and much of that was on the hi-tech decorative objects of the day. Tiles were prominent features in homes of the day and highly prized, around 1900 an average worker could buy two fairly ordinary tiles with their daily wage, just one of the best tiles in the larger sizes of 8' x 8" or 12" x 6" could cost close to a week's wage. Tiles were used both for installation and as pure objéts d'art as is witnessed by the tiles from around 1900 that we see in their original frames.

 

The range and diversity of Victorian and Edwardian tiles continues to amaze even after over 30 years we still see tiles we have never seen before almost daily. The camera and screen can not fully portray the wonder of many of the tiles, like a print of a great oil painting does not do justice to the master. Whilst not all of the beauty can be captured much of it can, so why not browse away and have some fun :-)

 

We are confident that here you will see the best selection of quality antique tiles you will find anywhere, we are careful with our buying, concientious in our cleaning and scrupulous with our descriptions. The comment we get most often regarding condition is "better than described", our good condition is better than many others excellent, our mint condition are mint, not mint with just a few chips and ......

 

Antique tiles are usually classed as 'architectural antique 'or 'decorative arts', few of our tiles have been removed from walls or floors so decorative arts is a more accurate description. They were literally works of art fitted in to and enhance larger items, to add brightness and colour to the furniture and fireplaces that they were fitted in.

 

Search Tile Heaven

Looking for a particular artist or company or any other detail? Use your favourite search engine with the search term and the site name, for example to find Lewis Day type like this:

lewis day site:tile-heaven.co.uk

 

We have thousands of links on this site and we are human so the occassional error occurs, if you find something that doesn't work please let us know. Thank you.

 The altogether page is updated first when new tiles are listed, updates to other pages are effected soon afterwards. New and updated items are at the top of the page.

We do not sell plain floor or wall tiles, we rarely sell encaustic tiles.

 


Art Nouveau

Majolica

Transfer Prints

Arts, Crafts and Innovations

Aesthetic

Pictures & Portraits

Floral

Blue and White

Gothic

Fine Art

Wedgwood

London

Trivets

All Together

Sets of Tiles (for Fireplaces etc)

Large tiles, either dimension greater than 6"

Small tiles, either dimension less than 6"

 

 

Information - click on any title below

Order and Shipping
FAQ
Buyers Feedback
Contact us
Tile registered design identification service
Tile identification and appraisal service
Majolica
Handpainted
Stencilled Slip
Tube Line
Applied encaustic
Émaux Ombrants
Lustre
Barbotine
The Minton Companies
What is Majolica
Chr Dresser Tiles
Attributions
1001 Art Nouveau Tiles CD
1001 Art Nouveau Tiles CD Errata
New Essay: Making a Splash
Condition
Chip
Crack or Hairline
Crazing
Surface Marks
Partial hairline
Manufacturing Imperfections, Flaws or Factory Faults
Stun
Fireplace Tiles
Verso, Back, Reverse
General Comments
Iridescence

 

Art Nouveau, the first art movement that allowed true freedom for artists which combined with new technology produced the most amazing tiles ever.
Aesthetic tiles from designers who worked with industry to produce the best possible tiles. The widest ranging styles of the 19thC which were affordable.
Arts, crafts and innovations. Fully hand made or hand decorated tiles and innovative techniques which extended the spectrum beyond print and majolica
Japanoiserie In 1868 trade opened up with the rest of the world when the previously rarely seen unique nature of Japanese art influenced artists worldwide.
Pictures and portraits. The durability of tiles made fine line art in places unavailable to other materials. Most popular in the 1870s and 1880s.
Transfer prints. The primary medium of 19thC wall tile decoration superceded by majolica in the 20thC, many were hand coloured.
Majolica. from 15thC origins processes advanced but the name remained the same culminating in the brilliant lead glazed wares of the early 20thC
Blue and white. From the earliest days of transfer printing a popular colour combination on ceramics. Many were made/decorated by pottery companies.
Gothic the first 'new' style of the Victorian era at the birth of industrial tile manufacture. Fun and bright designs not sombre as the name now suggests
Floral tiles with a strong nature study emphasis, botanical likenesses of the brilliance of nature. Most popular in the last two decades of the 19thC
Tube lined. The process of piping an outlne like icing a cake and filling with glazes a premium price technique for art tiles, limited editions and panels.
Mintons. Herbert Minton started making tiles around 1830, nephew Michael Hollins took over in 1840, later nephews Robert Taylor and Colin Campbell also made tiles.
Marsden. A hero of 19thC and 20thC tile design and technology George Marsden spent his time and efforts making the wares rather than promoting the brand.
Josiah Wedgwood & Son were involved in tile making since the days of the founder in the 18thC. Most seen are transfer printed from the 1880s.
The Pilkington Tile Co mostly made wall tiles for the construction boom at the turn of the century and comparatively few decorative tiles.
Fine Art. Exceptional handpainted and other tiles by artists, designers and companies of great repute and unattributed decorators in very good or better condition.
Trivets and pot stands. A natural extension given the use of ceramics in tableware and the added durability of tiles many tile companies made purpose made pot stands.
Small Tiles smaller than 6" x 6". From mostly being used as borders and fillers in the edwardian era it was fashionable to set strong designed tiles amid a field of plain tiles.
Large Tiles larger than 6" x 6", mostly 8" x 8" from the 1870s and 80s and 6" x 12" from the 1890s and 1900s. Many handpainted, 6" x 12" were difficult to make and expensive.
One colour. Show great modelling and moulding skills and glaze technologys at times having a magical 3D effect. They had some of the best glazes of the times.
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Panels, groups of tiles that form a set, from two to hundreds. For that unique feature in an installation or mounting as objéts d'art.
Fireplace sets. Mostly sets of ten or twelve or equivalent for traditional british cast iron fireplaces
London. Tiles made, designed and decorated in London. In the capital of the world's largest empire there was great demand for bespoke designs.
Miscellaneous items. Books, frames, advertising items and anything else that looks interesting and antique tile related.
All Together. All of our tiles on one page, over 1000 tiles so it takes a while to fully load.

Tile Heaven on CD
No or slow internet connection? Whilst we have been boosting image quality our pages have been loading more slowly for those on dial-up. It's easy to forget what dial-up speeds are like having broadband but there are still many places even in Europe and North America without broadband.

Peruse the site where there is no internet access, on a laptop whilst travelling, while away those hours on a plane or on the back seat of a car.

We burn a CD of the site when you order so it is fully up to date. Buy anything within three months and we refund the CD purchase price.

 

 

 

 

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