Friday, September 18, 2020

Painswick, Gloucestershire

Pointing up, standing out

Painswick, one of the most delightful of Gloucestershire’s small towns, is perhaps not as widely appreciated as Cotswold places like Broadway or Chipping Campden because a main road runs through it and the tight knot of lanes off the main street reveals no village green or market place where people can gather or sit and take in the view. But Painswick has something just as good: the most delightful churchyard for miles, a generous space well populated with beautifully carved (although now very worn) Cotswold stone tombs, interspersed with a small forest of yew trees. There are said to be 99 yew trees, attempts to grow a hundredth having ended in failure; it’s also said that it’s impossible to count them – the total is different every time. I’ve limited myself to admiring the yews without being tempted to put such legends to the test.

There must be dozens of tombs and gravestones, too, many of them dating from the 17th and 128th centuries, when Painswick was at its most prosperous because of the wool trade. Many of the grander tombs commemorate wool merchants or clothiers. One stands out as rather different. It’s this pyramid, which marks the grave not of a clothier but of John Bryan, who carved of many of the monuments in the churchyard. He died in 1787.

It’s often said that the English fascination with ancient Egyptian culture began in the early-19th century, after the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon (in 1798) and the work of Jean-François Champollion, Thomas Young and others on decoding hieroglyphic script. However, Egyptian culture held a fascination for some people in Britain well before this period, and whoever created Bryan’s tomb in the late 1780s was clearly one of these forerunners. True, Bryan’s tomb doesn’t have quite the same proportions as the ‘typical’ Egyptian pyramid – it’s taller and thinner than the Great Pyramid of Giza and its neighbours. Bryan’s pyramid is closer in shape to the pyramids built in late antiquity at Meroe on the upper Nile in Sudan, though I’ve no idea whether they were at all well known in 18th century England. Perhaps the builders just wanted to give the carver’s memorial a little extra height, so that his grave is marked with a monument that can clearly be seen among the clusters ofd lower chest and ‘tea caddy’ tombs that he helped to create.




8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bryan was a stone mason, but perhaps there was a connection with freemasonry?

Another early pyramid tomb / grave marker in England is the one built in Nether Wallop in 1748 for Dr Francis Douce, well before his death in 1760. His cousin Sir Paulet St John built one on Farley Mount a few years before as a memorial to his hunter, which won the 1734 Hunters Plate under the name "Beware Chalk Pit".

More here: https://www.davidcastleton.net/english-pyramid-tombs-mad-jack-fuller/

Sally Johnson said...

I was thinking exactly what Anonymous suggests.

Hels said...

Many of the grander tombs commemorated wool merchants because of the successful wool trade. But who designed and paid for the important tombs? The wealthy wool merchant during his own life time? Or the children after his death?

Jameso said...

The proportions remind me of the Pyramid of Cestius (and supposedly the lost one at the Vatican)-- perhaps that's where the inspiration here came from. It looks like the Roman ones may themselves have been inspired by the Nubian pyramids, so just one more remove...

Philip Wilkinson said...

Hels: Questions that have occurred to me too! I believe a lot of medieval and early modern tombs were commissioned and paid for by the person commemorated, but don't know if this was still the case in the 18th century.

Philip Wilkinson said...

James: Yes, that influence is possible. I think the Painswick pyramid is a little taller in proportion to its base than the Cestius one, but not that different. And of course the masons and clients of 18th century Gloucesterahire were quite capable of making their own aesthetic decisions – they didn't necessarily copy things directly.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Anon and Sally: Yes, a link with Freemasonry is possible.

I didn't know of the relationship between Paulet St John and Mad Jack Fuller. I've seen Fuller's tomb at Brightling, but not the Fuller monument to 'Beware Chalk Pit', though I've read about it.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Anon and Sally: Yes, a link with Freemasonry is possible.

I didn't know of the relationship between Paulet St John and Mad Jack Fuller. I've seen Fuller's tomb at Brightling, but not the Fuller monument to 'Beware Chalk Pit', though I've read about it.