Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

The lion and the unicorn, 1

The practice of displaying the royal arms in churches became widespread during the reign of Henry VIII, after the king broke with the pope and the Roman church and appointed himself as the leader of the church in England. Royals arms were put up in churches (often under the chancel arch, where the Rood had formerly been) under Henry and his son Edward VI, although the Catholic queen Mary I ordered them to be removed. They were brought back under her successor Elizabeth I, often destroyed or removed under Oliver Cromwell, and restored once more with the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. Many remain from these periods and from the later Hanoverian rulers, although generally not beneath the chancel arch but in some slightly less prominent place inside the church.

These coats of arms are often worth a good look. Though most are painted on boards, there are some on canvas, as well as carved wooden ones and examples moulded form plaster. Often they reveal work of character by a talented local artist (most are unsigned). The skill with which the animal supporters on either side of the shield are depicted is often telling – they’re heraldic beasts, so don’t have to be realistic, and the lions, especially, are often strikingly painted or carved. The artists could also show their skill in the depiction of the scrolls, leaves and flowers that are included.

My photograph shows one of my favourites. It is of carved wood and it is huge – it occupies the entire space beneath one of the curved arches between nave and aisle in the parish church at Wisbech. The arms are those of James I of England, who, as James VI of Scotland united the two kingdoms under one criown. His heralds added the Irish harp and Scottish single lion to the shield, in addition to the three lions that had been used on the English royal arms for several centuries. Since I first saw it, I’ve admired the characterful faces of the two beasts and the vigorous portrayal of their bodies. The scrolling foliage around their heads is also impressive.

The arms of James I are just one example of several that I have admired during my years of blogging. Those interested in such things might like to seek out my posts on the arms of James at Abbey Dore and those of Edward VII at Onibury. Together they are a timely reminder in this Jubilee year of the commitment of British monarchs to the church over a long timespan. Like the one at Wisbech, both of these are carved. I have a painted one in mind to post here soon.

Dartmouth, Devon

Lionwork

In the list of things I’ve meant to post, for ages, but not got round to, the south doorway of Saint Saviour’s church, Dartmouth, must be near the top. As so often with medieval church doors, it’s the ironwork that stands out. Indeed ‘stands out’ is putting it mildly. This ironwork gets up and roars at you, ‘Look at me! Have you seen the like?’*

What we’re looking at above is the the top half of the door, which shows one of two strap hinges in the shape of stylised heraldic lions. As well as incorporating the working hinges (at the tail end), the lions help tie together the half dozen wooden planks that make up the door. They stand in the branches of a tree, and their extended bodies look heraldic.

This lion’s face is crudely drawn and, frankly, not very leonine, although there are traces of jagged lines, presumably to indicate a mane, incised on the creature’s chest. The tail, doubling back on itself, its thin length ending in a tufted tip, is clearly a lion’s tail, however. Such tails (and the raised front paw) are very much drawn from heraldic convention, witness the three lions passant guardant on the English royal arms.§

The tree the lions stand in has gently curving branches and a few charming notched and serrated leaves. It’s the style of these leaves that suggests to most authorities† that this ironwork is medieval, and probably 15th century. The date on the door, 1631, may indicate when a major repair was carried out. Whatever the date, this ironwork is a terrific example of English craftsmanship producing something satisfying – a strong image that also makes for a strong and effective door.

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* Special thanks are due to the Resident Wise Woman, who got busy with her camera while I just stood there in amazement.

§ They’re certainly not literal copies of heraldic lions – there are lots of details that would make a herald send them back to the drawing board – but surely that’s where the inspiration came from.

† Such as the inspector who wrote the listing text for the building, and the most recent edition of the Pevsner volume for Devon.

Enstone, Oxfordshire

Passing wonders

This drinking fountain is on the roadside at Enstone – actually in Church Enstone, which stands slightly apart from what I take to be the ‘main’ village, although, as is clear from the name, it’s where the parish church is. The fountain was designed by G. E. Street, with carvings by Thomas Earp,* and was built as a memorial to Eliza Marshall, who died in 1856. When I first saw it, my eye caught by the band of acanthus carving, I thought of it as ‘a horse trough’, but it’s actually three troughs, at different levels, with lion-mask spouts taking the water from one to the next. So far, so ingenious, I thought – a clever bit of design, taking advantage of the slope in the ground, and providing a no doubt once well-used facility for passing traffic as it made its way through the village.

It struck me at the time that the lion masks were rather more badly worn than the rest of the structure, and I wondered if they were carved from a different stone – the lions, looked at close to, seemed less pinkish in colour the the other carved sections, although the differences in colour are probably due at least in part to the presence of moisture and the growths of lichen. Then, my memory prodded by Pevsner, I recalled the Enstone Marvels, a series of waterworks, cascades and grottoes, built in the 17th century at an another nearby hamlet, Neat Enstone, and visited by Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria. On the main road there’s a cottage, one part of which is built of chunky and deeply vermiculated masonry inset with niches, which may well be part of a grotto from the Marvels.§

Spectacular waterworks were, as they say, a thing in the 17th century. For example, Salomon de Caus, a French Huguenot engineer, published a book in 1615 called Les Raisons des forces mouvantes, which illustrated an early form of steam pump as well as various elaborate waterworks, fountains, grottoes, and the like. He and his brother, architect Isaac de Caus, worked in England and Isaac was an associate of Inigo Jones. The fact that such experts in the field spent time in England, and that the king was interested, goes some way to demonstrate the fashion for such works, mostly now long vanished. As for the Enstone Marvels, we know about them from Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677). This much I knew, but the further possible link between the Marvels and this Enstone drinking fountain is drawn by the author of the website Polyolbion, who has images of both the cottage and the lions on the drinking fountain.† These beasts indeed have a baroque look about them and might just possibly be a bit of inspired, historically important, bit of recycling.

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* A specialist in architectural sculpture and a regular collaborator with Street

§ The cottage is visible from the road, but not easily photographable without the kind of intrusion I was not prepared to make.

† The relevant page from the Polyolbion site is here.

Tate Britain, London

Looking down again

Among my recent posts, one of my personal favourites (and if web statistics are anything to go by, one of my readers’ favourites too) is one I did in August about the mosaic floors in the National Gallery, created by the Russian-born artist Boris Anrep, starting in the 1920s.* Anrep adorned one other London gallery, the Tate (now Tate Britain), and these mosaics are just as fascinating, though not quite so easy to see.

The Tate was damaged in a Zeppelin raid in World War I, and after the hostilities ended needed a new floor in one of the octagonal corner galleries. Boris Anrep, who was yet to do his bigger floors in the National Gallery but had established himself as a mosaic-maker of some flair, offered to make a mosaic floor for the room. Better still, from the gallery’s point of view, he was prepared to work for nothing if no funds could be found.

This suited Charles Aitken, the gallery’s keeper, although as it turned out he was able to secure some money for Anrep’s materials, and Anrep settled on illustrating eight of William Blake’s proverbs, this being a room, at that time, where some of the gallery’s considerable Blake holdings were displayed. The proverbs are of course very Blakean: ‘Exuberance is beauty’, reads one; ‘If the Fool would persist in his Folly, he would become wise’ is another.

There’s quite a lot of tension in these mosaics. In ‘The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion,’ the lion has a bottom-up pose, a spiky mane, and prominent claws: a well-fed and powerful feline. The fox by contrast in long and rangy, with matchstick legs: providing for yourself can be a hard business. ‘Expect poison from standing water’ has a different kind of tension: the female figure seems about to drink, but the restraining hand of God hovers above – will she heed it? 

These striking mosaics are easy to find. Blake’s works have been moved elsewhere and the octagonal room is now given over the the Tate’s print sales area. The gallery have tactfully positioned the display units so that they do not cover the main parts of the mosaic, but the floor cannot have its full effect, and it’s hard to photograph some of the panels without also including bits of the gallery’s tasteful grey display units in the frame.† However, the mosaics are well worth searching out, and one can understand the excitement that attended their unveiling in 1923. The general praise for Anrep must have helped him secure the National Gallery commissions a few years later and the Tate had a colourful new work of art, full of exuberance and beauty.


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* This earlier post also has more information about Anrep, which I have not repeated here.

† There is also a certain amount of reflection from the lighting, which I have tried to minimise but which can still be seen in the photographs.

Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

King size

I'm told that today is International Lion Day. In honour of this occasion, I offer my readers a lion – more national than international, as he is part of the royal arms of King James I of England (aka James VI of Scotland) and is found in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, Wisbech. The coat of arms, carved some 400 years ago, hangs in the head of one of the large arches separating the south aisle from the nave, and if I tell you that it fills most of the upper part of the arch you will get an idea of just how large it is. The lion must be nearly as tall as an average human adult.

Royal arms have been installed in English churches since the reign of Henry VIII, Henry having broken from Rome and declared himself head of the church in England. Many such coats of arms survive in churches, but most of them date from after the English Civil War. That makes the arms at Wisbech triply unusual – as rare survivors from the early-17th century, as amazingly large, and as quite well and vigorously carved. His tongue, teeth, and so on are carefully delineated, and his mane cascades about his shoulders like the wig of any Stuart monarch. Fit for a king, indeed.

Bath, Somerset

Heraldic Coade

I was admiring a neoclassical shop front near Bath's Pulteney Bridge when my eye was caught by the royal arms above the shop window. The shop has been a chemist's since 1828, but the arms are those of Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, who visited Bath in 1817, the year before she died. So they must refer to royal patronage of some earlier business based here or hereabouts. The highly complex heraldry combines the arms of the British royal family with those of her father, who was Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The amount of detail on these three-dimensional arms is staggering – all those harps, bulls' heads, fleurs de lys and so on in low relief, and the extraordinary garland of flowers around the central panel. The lion and unicorn are real characters, the former astonished, long-maned and well fanged, the latter realistically equine.

Beneath the lion, the inscription, "COADE LONDON" tell us that this coat of arms is made in Coade Stone, an artificial, stone-like ceramic material produced at Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory in Lambeth, London. This business, founded by Eleanor Coade (always known as Mrs Coade, although she was unmarried) in around 1770. Mrs Coade developed the material, which she called Lithodipyra (from the Greek for "stone fired twice"), a ceramic composition in which flint, quartz, grog (a mix of silica, alumina, and other elements), and crushed glass were mixed with the clay. It was generally found to be hard and weather-resistant, and was easy to mould into complex shapes. These qualities made Coade stone popular for statuary and architectural ornaments between 1770 and the 1830s. Just the material, in other words, for moulding harps, lions, and tiny flowers.

Bristol, once more

Bristol brickwork (3)

Before I move on to something completely different I wanted to share with you one more red-brick building from Bristol, to complement those a posted a couple of weeks ago. Just a few doors along Victoria Street from the buildings in my previous Bristol post is this little stunner. The central window with its petite classical columns, elaborate arch, and central roaring lion is a showpiece in architectural terracotta, and the cornice above it is a no less ornate essay in the same material. The ground-floor arches belong to a 1990s refurbishment but the rest is to the 1870s design of J. Michelen Rogers.

I don’t know much about this building. Its original use eludes me, although the British Listed Buildings web site lists it as a shop. And I’m unsure of the precise significance of the lion with its motto “Courage”. But I do like its bold architecture – the terracotta details that catch the sunlight so well, the big central window in its arch with the dainty columns and Gibbsian surround, and the eccentric dormer window topping it all off. It all goes to prove that a small building can embody grandeur and that in an unregarded thoroughfare it is always worth looking up.