WHEN Ivy Eden found this medieval pot, she thought it might make a nice little vase despite being damaged, and she put it on her mantelpiece with flowers in it.

It was just as well she didn't try drinking out of it as well.

For she has now been told by experts that the object was a 14th century urinary pot. Mrs Eden, of Huntington, found the pot while she was visiting her sister at Thixendale in the Yorkshire Wolds.

She said a house was being built next door on a site where a medieval building had once stood. The pot appeared to have been thrown on to the border of her sister's garden during construction work, and she guessed it dated back to medieval times.

"I put it on my mantelpiece and put a few pansies in it," she said.

She only found out about its original use when she visited the archaeological dig going on behind the Central Library in York, and asked an expert there what it was. "I thought it was old because of where I found it, but I'd no idea what it was used for!"

Updated: 10:37 Saturday, September 20, 2003