Floor Tiles: Encaustic, Geometric & Quarry

Encaustic tiles are a ceramic tile where the pattern is inlaid into the body of the tile. The patterns were made up of different colours of clay, heated into a liquid (slip) and poured into a mould and fired. Encaustic tiles were first developed and used in the medieval period. It was in the Gothic Revival of the Victorian age that brought them back into popular demand.

The tiles were often unglazed but were very hardwearing, being thick and heavy and were often used for floors in churches and cathedrals, great houses, railway stations and public buildings including the Houses of Parliament. Hull Museums Collections

Encaustic tiles

Geometric tiles

Geometric tiles are small plain tiles set in a repetitive pattern of two or more colours, using a very fine grout line between.

Domestic properties from 1870 to around 1910 usually had a modified suspended timber floor. Joists were laid at the same level as those for surrounding boarded floors, with battens and pugging boards added at the bottom of the joists to form troughs. The troughs were then packed with a lime pugging, and the tiles laid on a wet screed of around half an inch (12mm) pulled over the top. Victorian & Edwardian Tiles Floors by Peter Thompson

Quarry tiles

Traditionally red or grey made from hard unglazed clay. Found in kitchens and other areas that recieve heavy wear and tear.

Plain coloured tiles were often laid in staggered courses like brickwork, or diagonally, rather than in the square grid pattern favoured today. The Victorian Society