Chester

Strangely compelling

Back in August, I posted about an extravagant garden ornament at Peckforton, Cheshire in the form of a large stone carving of an elephant bearing a turreted castle on its back. I mentioned that the symbol of the elephant and castle was a medieval motif (which survives, for example, in the names of some pubs) and that one example of the medieval period was a wood carving in the choir stalls of Chester cathedral. Going through my photographs today, I found an image of this carving and thought it was worth a post of its own.

The stalls at Chester were made in the late-14th century (1380 is the usual date given by historians) and, although they were restored in the Victorian period by George Gilbert Scott, still retain much of their medieval woodwork, including misericords and striking carvings at the ends of the rows of seats. It’s clear straight away that whoever carved the elephant in my photograph knew a lot about contemporary stonework and fortifications – as how could they not, working on high-status buildings such as Chester cathedral. The carved castle has a clearly delineated entrance arch with portcullis and corner buttresses; this rests on a substructure adorned with a pair of cusped blind arches – just the sort of forms that the carver could see all around him in the cathedral. Beneath this a strap extends around the animal’s girth to secure everything place. If you were a medieval artist carving the castle-like howdah on an elephant, this is pretty much what you’d come up with. But how would you think an elephant should look if you’d not seen one, and had been told that it was a beast of burden big and strong enough to carry a castle on its back? This carver conjured up a body that looks rather horse-like, a strange smallish head with an outsize eye, and a trunk looking like an overgrown worm. The creature is bizarre, but not quite in the way that an elephant is bizarre.

How did contemporaries see the elephant? No doubt the monks who commissioned the carving knew how medieval bestiaries describe the elephant as chaste, courteous, and helpful to mankind. He was also seen as a symbol of Christ because of his ability to raise men up, but he was a worldly helper of humankind too, because he could carry men at arms into battle in his castle. Chester’s elephant keeps good company with the dragons, wyverns, unicorns and wodwoses that can be found nearby, placed there either for instruction or simply for delight.

Peckforton, Cheshire

Elephant and castle

The image of an elephant with a castle on its back is an ancient one. The Romans famously used war elephants that could carry soldiers and medieval manuscripts show elephants with howdahs that take the form of castles, with turrets and narrow windows. Few Europeans back then had actually seen an elephant and some of the illustrations are very fanciful, but the 13th-century English king Henry III had an elephant in his collection of animals at the Tower of London, a gift from his French counterpart Louis IX. Today, we’re most likely to know the Elephant and Castle from the signs of pubs and from the name of the eponymous area of South London, with its pub sign, shopping centre, and underground station.

Inn signs bearing elephants with castles would have been found in the 19th century too, and antiquarians would have been familiar with their use in heraldry. Uses like these may have given the Victorian stonemason John Watson the inspiration for the large stone elephant and castle that he carved in Peckforton, Cheshire. The first documentary evidence for this carving comes from 1860 and says that the work was made about two years before. Why did he carve it? Did it have any practical use? What was the inspiration? No one knows the answer to these questions. There’s a story that the castle was originally a beehive, but this seems highly unlikely – any beekeeper would find it hard to climb up and get the honey and the windows were originally glazed, making access difficult for keeper and bees alike. I think it’s just a rather large garden ornament that could have been inspired by a coat of arms or an inn sign – or perhaps by the carving of the same subject in the choir stalls of Chester Cathedral.

There’s something joyous about the sheer size of this garden sculpture. I wonder how many people turn off the A534 to find it in the village of Peckforton? I’m rather glad that I did.