A builder has shared the disturbing reason he found an old roof tile with children’s handprints on it.
Tomas Nordemanoski, who works at construction company Touchstone in Surrey, was removing tiles from a roof when he eerily noticed a child’s handprint on the back of each tile.
Take to Instagramthe builder shared the video, which quickly received more than 200,000 views.
Tomas suspected that the handprint could have been made by a child ‘not older than seven years’.
He theorized that children actually made the tiles in the Victorian era, before child labor was abolished.
Tomas Nordemanoski, who works with construction company Touchstone in Surrey, found children’s handprints on Victorian roof tiles and shared the disturbing reason
It was not until 1933 that Britain passed legislation restricting the use of children under the age of 14 in the labor market.
In the clip, Tomas said: ‘We stripped this old Victorian tiled roof and we discovered that all the tiles have small children’s handprints from the Victorian era.
“Kids used to make these.”
As he handed over the handprint, he said, “Look, that’s the palm, the fingertips, for the scale look. That’s no older than seven years. Seven or eight years old.
‘All the tiles look the same, you can even see the fingerprint swirls.
‘Fun fact: tiles were made by Victorian children.’
He captioned the post: ‘Children’s handprints on these old Victorian roof tiles. From before child labor was abolished. Crazy times.’
However, many rushed to the comments with their own theories, with some disputing that children had made the tiles.
One person said: ‘Back then, men’s hands and feet were much smaller. They could be men’s handprints.’
He theorized that children actually made the tiles in the Victorian era, before child labor was abolished
Tomas suspected that the handprint could have been made by a child “not older than seven years” as he showed a few tiles with similar markings.
However, many rushed to the comments with their own theories, with some disputing that children had made the tiles
Another says: ‘It should be noted that earthenware clay shrinks again during drying and firing, sometimes by up to 20 percent.
‘So a finished piece of 16 cm could have been 20 cm freshly made. The same goes for those handprints. So maybe nine-year-olds, instead of six- or seven-year-olds.”
Someone else wrote: ‘Adults make them. It shrinks in the oven oven. I saw them being made.”
A fourth wrote: ‘Victorians were smaller people, especially as we fed the working class less and the sound shrinks as it dries during baking you’ll probably notice this is a man’s hand.’