Last week we published a history of the Staunton chess ... a union of art and craft. The pieces are stripped of any symbolic meaning and reduced to pure form. Their designations –bishop, knight ...

But one character stands out: the bishop – with his demeanour and tall hat with a letterbox-like slit. From warrior elephants… The origins of chess go back to 6th-century India, where ...

It was a relatively weak piece that could move only one square diagonally. When chess reached Europe in the 9th century, the ‘vizier’ and ‘elephant’ pieces were rebaptised into the Queen and the ...

When chess spread to Europe the piece became known as a Bishop, as the tusks looked like the points of a bishop’s mitre. She said the chess piece was found close to Wallingford Priory ...