Top floor: Minton tiles inspire a remarkable devotion

It’s only since I moved to Staffordshire that I’ve come to appreciate that some of the finest works of public art aren’t on the walls of great buildings, but on their floors. Staffordshire, of course, is the home of Minton tiles — one of the most successful British exports of the Victorian era.

The company was founded by Thomas Minton in Stoke-on-Trent, but it was his son, Herbert, who cracked the tile market. In the 1820s Herbert became obsessed with the idea of making medieval-style encaustic tiles, which create a pattern using different colours of clay rather than a glaze. Encaustic tiles are centuries old, but were too expensive to produce at scale. It wasn’t until 1840 that Herbert discovered the method for mass production that made it possible to create the most beautifully intricate tile patterns at a fraction of the cost.