Firebacks

Description: Carved wooden fireback pattern. Canted arched rectangular shape with cavetto-moulded astragal edging; coronet in arch; oval shield with a crowned lion lion rampant, supported two griffons reguardant, the whole within a cartouche, the bottom of which terminates in two swirls between which is a human mask.

Notes: Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné (1552-1630) was a French poet and writer.

Arms: Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné

Description: A modified recasting of a variant of the ‘Armada’ fireback, with initials changed to IK, a single anchor panel, and the addition of a plain base and borders, the latter each with a twisted rope saltire, upper middle.

Notes: It is likely that an original four-panel fireback has been used to recast a copy with additional side and base panels; the saltires may have apotropaic significance. A second fireback at the house cast in the 19th century is identical but for being 1% smaller all round, and has a full-width extension on top bearing four symmetrical rope saltires, the outer two larger than the inner two. The first example was used to make the second.

Inscription: 1588 / IK

Description: Rectangular with three-faced arch; ogee moulded edging; top centre, overlapping, crossed staples arranged diagonally, each pointing to a bottom corner.

Notes: The crossed staple is the badge of the Nevill family, and this fireback came from Eridge Park, the seat of the Marquess of Abergavenny.

Description: Arched; twisted rope edging; date at top; initials in triad below date.

Notes: An unusually tall fireback in proportion to its height, probably specifically related to its early use with a coal fire.

Inscription: 1648 / TMH [triad]

Description: Rectangular with plait-effect border and a column of beads down each side; pictorial scene of a male figure in gown and full-bottom wig, holding a fool’s cap in his right hand, standing behind a seated male figure, bald and bearded, with the papal triple crown falling off his head; he is seated at a desk on which are two books; behind him and to the right, three books are on a small shelf. Above the figures, a longer shelf, the width of the plate, supports other books and papers, together with the figure of a dog, from whose mouth a scroll issues bearing an unreadable inscription. On top, two putti hold hands in front of a flaming grenade.

Notes: The design is copied from a cartoon of c.1672 showing Titus Oates, the instigator of the popish Plot, presenting a fool’s cap to the Pope (see Hodgkinson 2010, p.209).

Copies of this fireback are known.

Description: Oval armorial bearings carried by two naked, kneeling male figures, between them a scallop shell; above the shield a lion’s face surmounted by a crest of a lion’s head erased; the shield is surrounded by floral scrolls. The arms are of Worge impaling Collier: Worge - gules, a fess ermine, cotised argent, in chief three lion’s heads erased of the last; Collier - argent, on a chevron azure, between three unicorns courant couped gules, as many oak sprigs fructed proper.

Notes: George Worge (1705-65), of Starr’s Green, Battle, steward of the Battle Abbey estate, married Elizabeth Collier (d.1767) of Hastings in 1729. This deeply detailed fireback might have been cast in a closed mould; it had a circular aperture in the centre into which, in this instance, an armorial was placed; the same armorial is on a fireback, dated 1762, at Great Dixter, Northiam, Sussex.

Arms: Worge impaling Collier (George Worge)