Expert opinion
Rev Charles Drummond Stookesin his History of Crondall & Yateley states:
With regard to the actual date of its manufacture, experts say it is undoubtedly late 16th century work and probably of Flemish origin.... At current prices (1905) the Cup has been valued at anything between one and three thousand pounds.... Its worth lies in its workmanship.
W. W. Watts F.S.A., formerly Keeper of the Department of Metalwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum, wrote in the Connoisseur 1927:
the cup is without doubt English, dating from the last years of the reign of Elizabeth ... this very wonderful piece of Elizabethan silversmith's work ...
Subsequently Mr Watts strengthened his attribution. Writing to Mr Henry Curtis of Pirbright, who had made a painstaking study of the White family, Mr Watts stated on 12 Feb 1936:
I think you have made a very convincing case for Richard White, of Pirbright, the Queen's cuppmaker, as maker of the Yateley Cup. He is certainly far more likely to have made it than William Geale. I should have attributed the cup to him in my Connoisseur article had I known of his existence; but, as you say, I had not seen your reference in Notes & Queries of 18 Sept., 1926
An attempt was made in 1959 to ascertain whether the Crystal Cup was a Tudor steeple cup. Two letters from a Dr N.M. Penzer have been carefully preserved by Sydney Loader, perhaps because they had been mistakenly attributed to the famous Nicholas Pevsner. Dr Penzer's letters ask a series of questions concerning the measurements and the details of the reconstruction by Hunt & Roskell (100 years ago) concluding that:
It certainly seems as if there has been amazing carelessness in not checking measurements before doing the work.
Dr Penzer states that he wished to come to Yateley to see the Cup. We now have no record of his final conclusions.
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