Four Celtic knots, one in each corner, beaten up out of the brass and set into a ground hammered so densely it reads like rain on water. This is the Celtic revival in metal, the Glasgow and Iona tradition that ran through Scottish Arts and Crafts in the early decades of the last century, when a tray like this lived by a front door and held cards, keys and the day's small business.

There is no maker's stamp, which is ordinary for Celtic-revival brass of this kind, so we point you to the school and the date and stop there. The knotwork does the rest of the talking, and the colour the brass has earned over a hundred years is left exactly where it landed.