The Lacock Cup is go on show in Wiltshire - the first time it will have been seen in the county since it was bought for £1.3 million from Lacock Parish Church.

Salisbury Museum will be the first of five museums to show the cup  from Saturday, January 31, until Monday, May 4, in the exhibition Secular to Sacred: The Story of the Lacock Cup.

Made in the fifteenth century, the Lacock Cup is a rare masterwork by an unknown silversmith and is one of the sole surviving examples of a 15th century silver feasting cup.

In 2016 it will be shown at Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, as part of what is being called the British Museum's Spotlight Tour.

A replica of the cup will go on show at the museum in Long Street, Devizes, from April, with a new First World War exhibition opening there in the autumn. 

The cup is on permanent display at the British Museum after being bought for £1.3 million from Lacock Parish Church jointly by the British and Wiltshire museums.

It had been on permanent display at the British Museum since 1963 but the church sold it to raise money for repairs in 2013.

At the time David Dawson, director of Wiltshire Museum, said it was a coup for the museum to be jointly involved with the British Museum on the acquisition.

He said: “It is a privilege to be working with the British Museum to jointly acquire this important cup.

"This is the first time they have bought an object with a small, independent museum and it recognises the importance of both the Lacock Cup and the Wiltshire Museum.”

The cup is believed to have been crafted in the 15th century with nearly 1kg of silver bullion believed to have been used to fashion it into a feasting cup for a high-ranking nobleman.

Gilded at the base and the top of the lid, measuring 35cm high and with a smooth hammered surface, it is said to be an object of “outstanding elegance and simplicity”.

Kim Chittick, exhibitions officer at Salisbury Museum, said: “Salisbury Museum is honoured to be the first of five museums to display the Lacock Cup, to work in partnership with the British Museum and to have the chance to reveal this fascinating and complex story to our visitors."

Unmarked, probably made in London, the cup is of international significance because late Middle Age drinking cups have become so rare due to many of them being melted down as fashions changed.

This one was given to the Church of St Cyriac in the village of Lacock immediately after the reformation and served as a sacred communion cup there for over 400 years.

It survived the turbulent reformation, when most church silver was confiscated, and avoided the notice of reformers.

Adrian Green, director of Salisbury Museum, said: "As the cup is from Wiltshire it is entirely appropriate that the first museum it visits will be Salisbury."

The Spotlight Tour is supported by the John Ellerman Foundation and Salisbury Museum received assistance from the Churches Conservation Trust and Salisbury Cathedral to bring the cup to the city.

The cup will be on show at:

  • Salisbury Museum, The Kings House, 65 The Close, January 31–May 4
  • Palace Green Library, Durham, June 1–August 31;
  • Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service, dates to be confirmed October 2015–January 2016;
  • Nottingham Castle Museum, dates to be confirmed February 2015–April 2016;
  • Wiltshire Museum, 2016 dates to be confirmed.