Tudor firebacks – Firebacks

Continental Tudor firebacks

3 December 202327 December 2023 Jeremy Hodgkinson

*The 1548 fireback formerly at Libramont in Belgium (Carpentier,* Plaques de Cheminées, 1912)

Hans Schubert wrote the above note in 1953 when he was researching for his history of the British iron and steel industry. In it he made clear that he regarded the fireback of 1548 as the earliest dated fireback made in England. However, his own evidence of the examples in continental museums – the one he illustrates is in Düsseldorf – strongly suggests that, despite an example being in the late-medieval house of Ockwells near Maidenhead, this is not an English fireback. I have already set out the reasons for this in the Introduction to this website, but Schubert’s observation that an example formerly at Libramont in Belgium, and illustrated in Henri Carpentier’s great catalogue of French firebacks, Plaques de Cheminées, differed slightly from the one he illustrated has prompted me to put forward some other variations of the same basic design which, while very similar, differ in small degrees.

*Fireback fragment, Anne of Cleves House, Lewes, East Sussex*

Schubert mentioned a fragment in the collection at Anne of Cleves House in Lewes, East Sussex, shown here on the left. Close examination reveals several differences: the crown over the rose in the top left corner is not the same, nor is the rose itself; the portcullis in the top right corner is in a different position; the head of the greyhound, the supporter to the right of the shield, is at a higher angle than on Schubert’s example; and, most curiously, the inscription on the Garter is arranged in the opposite direction – rotating anti-clockwise on Schubert’s and read from the outside, but clockwise and read from the inside on the Lewes casting. This can be seen more clearly on a largely complete example of the same design in a private collection at Consuegra, south-east of Toledo in Spain, shown above on the right.

There is a similar fireback in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London. Again there are minor differences in the proportions and in the form of the decorative elements, notably the crown which this time has a circlet of stylised fleurs-de-lys instead of acanthus leaves, the use of coronets instead of crowns over the rose and portcullis, and the shield which has a more elaborate outline. But the Garter motto, this time, while still written clockwise, has to be read backwards and from the outside! Whoever carved the pattern clearly did not realise that the image on the pattern will be the same as on the finished casting, and that only in the mould is the image reversed; the craftsman also reversed the letter ‘N’ in both instances.

The same reversed Garter motto can be seen on a fireback of almost the same design that appeared at auction in Paris in 2023. Once more there are minor differences in the proportions and in the positions and forms of the coronets over the rose and the portcullis, and in the outline of the shield (even more elaborate on this design). Like most of the other firebacks illustrated, the detail of the casting, and therefore of the original pattern, is of exceptional quality.

Apart from the Libramont casting illustrated by Carpentier, which is effectively the same as the ones in Düsseldorf and at Ockwells but without the extended ‘shoulders’, this final example, the location for which I have no information, shares many of the features seen on them. It is not the same casting though because, again, there several minor differences to the proportions of the crowns (not coronets this time) and to the supporters. The motto is in a sensible orientation and the shield outline is plain.

The style of the execution of the patterns from which these various firebacks were made is so similar that there is a strong probability that they were all the work of the same individual, perhaps fulfilling orders from different ironworks for a pattern depicting the Tudor royal arms of England. But why the differences in the Garter mottoes? The two fireback designs that have the reversed inscription are also the ones that have the more elaborate shield shapes. The Paris casting also has a partial date, which was probably 1570 before the 7 was damaged. However, this may not have been the date of the original pattern as it would have been easy enough to add a date to the mould before casting. There is also a faint date on the Consuegra casting, possibly a 28 in the bottom right corner, suggesting 1528. Two of the castings have initials, GC and GP respectively. Were these the initials of the pattern-maker? If so it negates the supposition that they were all the work of the same person. Or were they added to the moulds before casting to identify the founder or the person for whom the fireback was being made?

At the beginning of this note and in my Introduction to British Firebacks I argued that these were not English firebacks, citing the styles of the crowns and of the supporters in particular. Simple arched firebacks are most frequently encountered in the products of the ironworks in the Spanish Netherlands, in what is now southern Belgium and Luxembourg and the adjacent parts of modern Germany and France, and the connections between Spain and England, through the marriages of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and later of Queen Mary I and Philip II of Spain, offer a possible motive for the production of these designs. The portrayal of the dragon and greyhound supporters links these firebacks to the earlier of those two alliances, both Henry VIII and his father having them on their achievements of arms. But these castings could, instead, have been designed and made for export to England by continental ironmasters, the importation of 230 firebacks to London from Antwerp in June 1567 being previously noted.

Charles Blount’s fireback

29 March 20233 December 2023 Jeremy Hodgkinson

*Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy (unknown artist)*

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has, in its metalware collection, this boldly detailed armorial fireback on which are depicted the shield, Garter, supporters and crest of Charles Blount (pronounced Blunt), 8th Baron Mountjoy and, from 1603, 1st Earl of Devonshire. Born in 1563, he was a courtier and soldier, having a distinguished career in royal service, serving successfully as Lord Deputy of Ireland under Elizabeth I and Lord Lieutenant there under James I. Previously he had been an MP before inheriting the barony in 1594. Somewhat usually for the time, Mountjoy openly had a mistress who was the former Penelope Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex. She had been unwillingly married to Robert, Baron Rich whom she left for Mountjoy, and she and Mountjoy had six children. Eventually, Rich divorced Penelope though she and Mountjoy were forbidden to marry. However, in 1605 they did so secretly, causing them to be banished from court. Mountjoy died the following year and Penelope the year after. As none of his children were legitimate, his titles died with him.

*The Garter stall plate of Walter, 1st Lord Mountjoy (1420-1474), in St George’s Chapel, Windsor*

The shield on the fireback shows quartered arms: in the first quarter, Barry nebuly of six Or and Sable (Blount); second, Argent, two wolves passant Sable on a bordure of the first eight saltires Gules (Ayala); third, Or a tower Azure (Mountjoy); and fourth, Vair (Gresley). Mountjoy was created a Knight of the Garter in 1597. I have not found an image of his Garter stall plate but the one for his ancestor, Walter, 1st Baron Mountjoy, shows the same arms, albeit with the quarters in a different arrangement. Above the helm the crest is ‘Out of a ducal coronet a crescent gold’. The supporters are not as described in Burke’s General Armory but are male and female figures, the male in armour but wearing a cap and the female dressed with a cloak and wearing a coronet. The fireback is slightly unusual in that the armorial is incomplete, the strap-end of the Garter being missing, indicating that either the strap-end was cut off before being used as the pattern for the fireback, which could suggest that the armorial was a pre-existing decorative carving, or that the fireback itself had been cut down from a larger original.

*Badge of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire (Bodleian Library, Oxford)*

*The Clandon fireback (photo courtesy of The National Trust)*

Recently I received an enquiry about another fireback with the same armorial on it that had been discovered in an outhouse at Clandon Park in Surrey. This National Trust property had been badly damaged by fire in 2015, but the outhouse had not been affected. Although clearly the same design as the casting in the V & A there was more to this fireback than on that version. Above the crescent crest is another Garter enclosing a sun charged with an eye, and above it another coronet. This appears to have been a badge of Charles Blount for it is noted on the website of the library of Toronto University where there is a collection of armorial insignia on the bindings of books. The badge had apparently been stamped on a book bought with money Mountjoy had given to the Bodleian Library at Oxford while he was in Ireland.

The next question was why was a fireback with the arms of Blount at Clandon Park in the first place? The probable answer is that in 1636 Sir Richard Onslow, of Knowle in Cranleigh, who was to acquire Clandon five years later, had purchased the manor of Dedisham, between Slinfold and Rudgwick in Sussex, from the heiress daughters of Sir Richard Blount. He had inherited Dedisham from his father in 1564 and the connection with Charles, Baron Mountjoy was that Richard Blount was descended from Thomas, the younger brother of the Walter Blount, 1st Lord Mountjoy, whose Garter stall plate is illustrated above. Also, included in the manor of Dedisham was an iron furnace and forge, one of many in Sussex at that time, making it possible that the Clandon fireback was cast at Dedisham. A distant connection with an aristocratic branch of the family could explain the presence of the Clandon fireback there, and it could have been removed to Clandon by one of the Onslows at a later date.

The Mountjoy armorial on the Clandon fireback is poorly defined and lacks the sharp detail seen on the V & A casting. However, the crowned Garter and sun badge are somewhat sharper. This suggests that the Clandon casting was made by using a worn casting of the V & A version as the pattern for a new casting to which an extension was added bordered by a flowing design in low relief and including the crowned Garter and sun badge. An easy thing to carry out if you happen to have an iron furnace and ironworkers in your employ.

Unusual sources of fireback decoration

13 February 20232 March 2023 Jeremy Hodgkinson

When I wrote British Cast-Iron Firebacks I drew attention to several everyday objects that had been used as decorative stamps. These included butter and pastry moulds, wool spindles, fragments of furniture, daggers and cutlery. Since that book was published in 2010 I have been able to identify the sources for the decoration on some of the other firebacks that I illustrated, as well as recording more firebacks on which everyday objects feature. The most recent discovery has been this fireback, which I illustrated in my book.

*Probable late-16th century iron fireback (Photo: Hastings Museum & Art Gallery)*

It is in the collection at Hastings Museum in Sussex, and came from a house in Burwash in 1910. The rope pattern in the middle of the fireback has striking similarities with some rope patterns on other firebacks that are part of what I call the Pounsley series, because all the decorative devices on them can be linked to the fireback bearing the name of John Harvo, who ran the furnace at Pounsley in the mid-16th century (see Made in Sussex by John Harvo).

What puzzled me were the panels on either side of the rope design. Although they stand out in relief on the surface of the back, as one would expect with something that been pressed into the sand mould, the ornamentation on them is intaglio, or in-set. This meant that the ornamentation would have been in-set on the actual panels, and suggested to me that they might have been some form of mould. I solved the problem by cropping the photograph to isolate one of the panels and then used my computer graphics software to invert the image, and this was the result:

*Inverted image of the decorative panel showing how the plasterwork would have looked*

The impressed panel was a plasterwork mould, my identification being confirmed by Dr Claire Gapper, a leading authority on the subject. Her opinion was that the style of the plasterwork design dated from the late-16th or early-17th century, which tied in with the style of the fireback. The design includes a feature known as rinceau, which is a continuous stem motif with smaller leafy off-shoots. There is also a serpent and one side of a vase. There would have probably been a companion mould with the design in reverse to join onto it. The mould, which measured about 15½in. by 5½in., would have been made of wood which, presumably lined with a medium such as light cloth, was filled with plaster. When set, it was pressed against the wall where adhesive would attach the plaster, the mould then being lifted away. Pressing the mould into the casting sand need not have impaired the mould, any sand adhering to it being easily brushed away. One wonders if the house for which the fireback was intended was where the same plaster decoration was also to be seen.

The next fireback is in the possession of the Weald and Downland Living Museum at Singleton in Sussex (well worth a visit if you have never been there). Cast in 1594, it has a rather haphazard arrangement of decorative stamps of which small loops feature repeatedly. But those are not what interested me in particular. Stretching across the width of the back is an undulating vine design, of which a complete section is positioned left of centre, and which is repeated on each side though mostly on the right. It must have been impressed from a narrow panel onto which the design had been previously carved. Given that it is not as wide as the fireback it would seem to have been made for another purpose.

*Fireback of 1594 at the Weald & Downland Living Museum, Singleton*

*16th-century English stool (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)*

Most probably, I surmised, it had come from either interior panelling or furniture. For a long time the answer eluded me until I came upon this photograph of a late Gothic stool in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (acc. no. 1974.28.18). Is not the carving on the panel below the seat very similar in style and form to the decoration on the fireback?

The stool measures 514mm wide overall, so the panel will be a bit less. The part of the decoration on the fireback that shows a complete example of the undulating vine measures about 420mm, which is comparable with the approximate length of the panel on the stool. So it seems likely that the iron founder had made use of part of a, probably broken, stool to decorate the fireback he was making.

Two firebacks have identical Gothic panels that must also have been derived from redundant furniture.

*Gothic fireback at East Grinstead Museum*

In both instances the panels are rather crudely arranged. On the left, the example on loan to East Grinstead Museum belongs to the Sussex Archaeological Society from its collection at Anne of Cleves House, Lewes. Within an edging of rope that was probably wrapped tightly round a narrow rod or dowel, the three panels each have a fleur-de-lys inserted at the top between what appear to be a pairs of roses. On the right the example that is in a publicly inaccessible room at Nymans, the National Trust property, does not have fleurs in the same position but has a line of six fleurs (were there seven originally?) of a different design below the panels. The whole arrangement has been rather inexpertly done with the panels lined aslant. But what was the origin of the panels?

With several potential examples of the reuse of parts of broken or redundant furniture on firebacks I have taken every opportunity to look out for pictures showing designs that could have been made use of by founders while not expecting to come across matching pieces. So a browse through The Age of Oak, the first in a four-part study entitled A History of English Furniture by Percy MacQuoid, that was published in 1904, brought me to this photograph of a hutch table. While none of the panels on the front face of the table exactly matches any of those on the firebacks, the one on the right has the same sort of rotationally symmetrical design as the right-hand panel on the backs, and does suggest that this type of furniture is a potential source for the panels on the firebacks.

I did not pay much attention to the fourth decorative stamp, which has been noted on two very similar firebacks. One is in private hands somewhere, but the other is in the collection of the Sussex Archaeological Society in Anne of Cleves House, Lewes.

*16th-century Wealden fireback in Anne of Cleves House, Lewes*

*Late-15th century Easter sepulchre at St Michael’s church, Cowthorpe*

Across the top of this back is a stamp, about 237mm long, comprising three large trefoils with interspersed smaller ones mounted on a bar. The stamp has been placed five times with other stamps in between. The bar on which the trefoils are fixed appears to taper slightly to the right as if it might have been cut from something. Features like these are described as cresting and are usually found on the ridges of roofs. They were popular in Victorian times, but these are on a fireback cast in the 16th century. A great deal of searching eventually led me to the image of a wooden Easter sepulchre in a redundant church in North Yorkshire. In St Michael’s church in Cowthorpe stands this remarkable relic which dates back to 1494. On it is a wealth of cresting of a similar form to the fireback decoration. The sepulchre at Cowthorpe is a unique survival but there will have been many others in churches all over the country in the past, and when they fell out of fashion or fell apart the cresting from one of them might have become an unusual decorative feature that an iron founder used when designing a pair of firebacks.

The evidence of a torse

7 September 202226 September 2022 Jeremy Hodgkinson

*The fireback from Huddington, Worcestershire*

*The rose and crown stamp, showing its backing*

In my book, British Cast-Iron Firebacks (pp. 89-90), I briefly mentioned a small, worn fireback that I had recorded at Huddington in Worcestershire. It probably had not originated in the west Midlands but, with some of the other firebacks in the same collection, had been acquired by a previous owner from sales in south-east England in the early 20th century. It is decorated with a crowned rose between two fragments of a torse* that had been used to decorate the much larger back, below, which dates from 1584. This associated them with several other firebacks that I have recorded in what I call the ‘Royal series’ on which the same crowned rose can also be found. It will have been part of a stock of stamps stored at the furnace where they were all cast, probably in the mid- to late-16th century.

*Fireback of 1584 formerly at Marle Green Farm, Hellingly, Sussex; now in the Victoria and Albert Museum*

The 1584 fireback has, in each upper corner, a stamp depicting a torse, or crest wreath, of simulated, overlapping, twisted fabric, frayed at the edges, within an eight-pointed, fillet-edged star. Enclosed by each torse, and at a slight angle, is a crest of a standing dog, or talbot, upon a horizontal torse. It is evident that this is a stamp and not part of the base board with its moulded border, for it has been impressed differently on each side, overlapping the moulding more on the right and rotated slightly on the left. Stray lines indicate that the base board itself was repositioned before the star-shaped stamps and the date were added.

In the 12 years since writing about those two firebacks three other examples have been noted which shed a bit more light on how and when the small backs might have been cast. The first of these is this plain, pedimented base board with moulded edging. From the collection at Hastings Museum, its dimensions match the decorated examples, indicating that it was probably used to form the primary sand mould into which the decorative stamps would be pressed. Its unadorned surface meant that it could be used more than once, each arrangement of stamps placed within it forming a unique design.

The design on a fireback I recorded at Mayfield in Sussex was assembled using this base board and has the same star-shaped stamp and dog crest as the 1584 back, together with repeated fleurs-de-lys. Because the star shape is complete it is likely to be closely contemporary with the 1584 back. On the fireback from Huddington, the star shape has been split and only the outer parts used to enclose a fleur-de-lys of the same style as on the Mayfield fireback. There is no indication on the 1584 casting that the star shape is anything other than a single stamp; there are no evident lines to suggest that it might have been assembled from vertical sections. So at some later date it must have been damaged or deliberately cut up, for on the Huddington fireback a central slice of the stamp, together with the dog crest, is missing. It is, of course, conceivable, indeed quite probable, that the dog crest had been carved separately and attached to the star stamp, thus making it easier to detach it when the star shape was split up.

I noted a third fireback of similar design at Slaugham in Sussex. It is in very poor condition but the basic elements of its design are still apparent: the sections of the star shape, this time widely separated; the crowned rose; and the fleurs-de-lys. It also has the initials ‘IT’, which are also just evident on the Huddington back, albeit in a different position, and a cross in the pediment. Could ‘IT’ refer to the same person? It seems likely. Clearly, the Huddington and Slaugham firebacks must have been cast after 1584 and after the Mayfield back had been made. Does the presence of the crowned rose, a Tudor rose, suggest that these firebacks were cast before the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in 1603?

*Torse: in heraldry, the wreath of two bands of coloured silk by which the crest is joined to the helmet.

Some personal Tudor firebacks (revised)

17 February 202225 March 2024 Jeremy Hodgkinson

There is a small group of firebacks that were all cast in the same year, 1582, and on three of them there are lengthy, personal inscriptions that were formed in a sand mould by impressing individual letters. Below the main text on each of them are the letters I and A, which it can be assumed were those of the person, probably the founder, who assembled the design. Whoever IA was their level of literacy was some way from being perfect, but to my eyes that is part of the charm of these ancient artefacts. Unfortunately, at the time of first writing this, I had only been able to record two of these firebacks in person. My knowledge of two more rested solely on illustrations that Mark Antony Lower included in his pioneering paper on the Wealden iron industry that was published in the Sussex Archaeological Collections in 1849. To his great credit, they are well drawn and a comparison between the detail on the drawings and on the two firebacks I had seen made it clear that they are all from the same series.

This is the first of the two in Lower’s paper. Drawn by F. F. Figg, the inscription had been copied as THOMAS VNSTE ADIS FILD AND DINIS HIS WIF ANO DOMINO 1582. Each letter S is reversed, as is each letter N although the latter form was not unusual in those days. The fireback was said to have been at ‘Misfield Farm’ in Worth, Sussex, near where I live. This should be Miswell, but enquiries there failed to locate it. Nor had I been able to trace any record of a Thomas or Denise Unstead of Isfield. So the trail seemed to have gone cold.

It has turned out that looking for a Thomas and Denise Unstead was a false trail because in January 2024 I received an email from a correspondent in Yorkshire telling me of an article in the Journal of the Gwynedd Family History Society that had revealed that the fireback had been discovered ten years earlier walled up behind a later fireplace in a hotel near Ffestiniog in north Wales. The photograph of it reveals that the inscription in Lower’s illustration had been copied incorrectly and that it should read THOMAS VNSTE ALIS FILD AND DINIS HIS WIF ANO DOMINO 1582. My correspondent had interpreted this as Thomas Anstie alias Field, with which I was happy to agree (the surname Anstye or Anstie occurs in Sussex in two forms with aliases, Field and Holcomb). And I have been able to identify them as probably Thomas Anstye and Denys Joyner who were married at Wivelsfield in Sussex on 5th June 1564. My conclusion that this fireback was one of a series with three others of the same date because it also bore the initials IA, a crowned Tudor rose supported by a dragon and a lion, and four, small crowned shields each bearing a fleur-de-lys, has, I am pleased to write, been confirmed.

Those same badges decorate the only fireback in the series that does not have an inscription, apart from the additional initials TM and I, which are probably those of whoever the fireback was made for. It is in the Haslemere Museum and its unusual shape meant that it was probably intended to fit into a specific fireplace. The small crowned shields, the rose and crown and supporters and the I and A are clearly the same as on the Anstie fireback.

The descriptive caption that used to be placed below this fireback on display in the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, claimed that the water bougets, the three heraldic devices in the arch at the top, indicated that it was connected with the Ross family of Helmsley in North Yorkshire. However, the presence of the date 1582 in the same form as on the Haslemere back, as well as the I and the A, strongly suggested that it is also from this series and therefore cast in south-east England. The inscription reads: THES IS FOR WILAM BRON AND ELISABTH HIS SISTR. Who they were I have yet to find out, but the shape of the letters and in particular the tiny fleurs-de-lys between the words, also seen on the Anstie back, reinforces this view. The mirrored tassel design on each side is curious. It was evidently mounted on a flat surface but I have not seen anything like it elsewhere. Incidentally, there were Sussex families whose arms included water bougets: the Roos or de Ros family of Easebourne, near Midhurst, and the Meeres family of Glynleigh, near Hailsham. The V&A caption has since been amended.

*The Hyde fireback at Sutton Hurst, Barcombe*

Lower illustrated the fourth fireback in this series and also drew it. The same decorated devices seen on the other firebacks are present: the crowned rose and supporters, a single shield with fleur, the fleur word separators, the date and I and A. Also there are two, star-shaped arrangements of rope lengths with fleur terminals. The inscription is: THES IS FOR IAMES HIDE AND ION HIS WIF. When Lower published this drawing the back was at Sutton Hurst, later Sutton Hall, a house in Barcombe, Sussex, and a photograph from some sale particulars of the house in 1893 shows the fireback still there, in the hall fireplace; alas, neither the house nor the fireback are there any more.

We do know something of the people mentioned on this back. A James Hyde married Joan Blackefane in the church at Horley in Surrey on the 11th of October 1579. They went to live across the county boundary in Worth, then the largest Sussex parish and when, nearly 40 years later and ‘sick in body but in good remembrance’, James Hyde made his will in May 1617 he left legacies to his two sons, Benjamin and Henry, and his three daughters, Mary, Joan and Elizabeth, as well as to his 12 grandchildren. The rest of his estate went to his wife Joan who survived him. I do not know where in Worth their house was but presumably their fireback stood prominently at the rear of their main fireplace. James Hyde was buried at Worth church on 27th January 1618 Old Style*.

If anyone who reads this knows of the whereabouts of the fireback previously at Sutton Hurst/Hall, or any others that might be from the same series (or any other firebacks, come to that) I would be delighted to hear from them. There is a link to my email address on the Home Page of this website.

*Old Style: Before 14th September 1752 Great Britain used the Julian Calendar and before 1752 the New Year began on 25th March, so dates from 1st January until then were written as in the previous year; thus if the Gregorian Calendar which we use now had been in use on 27th January 1618 it would have been written as 27th January 1619.

‘Made in Sussex by John Harvo’

7 July 20213 December 2023 Jeremy Hodgkinson

This is that rarest of firebacks, on which the person who made it did not merely place their initials but identified themselves with their full name. The raised strip bearing the inscription had been carved on the original model or pattern from which it and several others have since been cast. John Harvo was an iron founder who lived in Sussex in the mid-sixteenth century and operated the iron furnace at Pounsley in the parish of Framfield. There he cast guns and round shot (i.e. cannon balls) for the Crown for which there are surviving records of payments he received in 1547 and 1550, even being referred to at the time as ‘the kinges gonnstone maker of Iron’. Perhaps somewhat late in life, he married Anne Bennys at Framfield in 1558. An official copy of John Harvo’s will, which he made in 1562, has survived. From it we can surmise that he had no children, or if he had they predeceased him, for his bequests went to his brothers or his nephews, and to colleagues and friends. To his wife he left the lease of his house and land, and his furnace and mill, though we know from other records that the furnace was subsequently operated by Robert Hodgson, who was both a beneficiary of, and a witness to, the will. John Harvo was buried at Framfield in 1562 but probate was not granted to his wife as executrix until January 1566. We do not know how old he was when he died but to have reached a position by 1547 of supplying guns for the royal service he is likely to have been at least in his thirties then, and possibly in his fifties by the time of his death.

The pattern or model for the fireback was evidently made specifically for John Harvo; why else would he have had his name carved on it? It was clearly not an afterthought as the strip bearing the inscription passes beneath the strap end of the Garter that encircles the royal shield. Had being a contractor to the Crown brought him a commission to cast some firebacks with the royal arms on them? The arms are actually those of Henry VII, with the quartered shield of France and England, in use since the time of Henry V, supported by a dragon and a greyhound. Henry VIII continued to use the same supporters during his reign, so the original pattern will have dated from then. The superior quality of the carving suggests that whoever made the pattern worked at a ‘professional’ level and was probably aware of the latest changes in royal heraldry, and would have avoided designing arms that were out of date.

The initials E and R would not have been part of the original pattern. It has been shown by their use on a couple of other firebacks that they were separate stamps, presumably added to later castings in an attempt, perhaps, to honour King Edward VI or, less probably, Queen Elizabeth, and they have been on copies ever since. No example of the fireback without those letters has been recorded.

Many examples of this fireback have extension panels to make the casting wider. John Starkie Gardner, the first to write about firebacks with some authority, recognised its importance but did not believe that it was intended as a fireback in its own right as it was not wider than it was high, which he saw as a prerequisite for backs of its period. Instead he assumed that it was always meant to have additional side panels, left blank for other decoration. He was not aware of John Harvo’s role as an iron founder so could not appreciate his deliberate intention implicit in identifying himself on the pattern.

Two more examples with extension panels of different designs.

To find out about a spurious example of this fireback, read the note, “O what a tangled web we weave…”

“O what a tangled web we weave…”

11 June 20213 December 2023 Jeremy Hodgkinson

This fireback was sold by a famous auction house in 2008, where it was described in the sale catalogue as ‘An Elizabethan Cast-Iron Fireback by John Harvo of Sussex, 16th century’. It fetched £1,375. When I saw this photograph of it a few years later I was struck by several details which suggested to me that its authenticity was unconvincing. There was something about the ‘chunkiness’ of the various stamps that adorned its side panels that did not seem right, yet its overall design was familiar.

There are several castings of the John Harvo fireback, most with side panels like this one, but some without, and the name by which it is known derives from the inscription below the arms which states ‘Made in Sussex by John Harvo’, clearly readable on early castings but less so on copies. Because the stamps used on the side panels would have to be re-arranged for each casting all the examples I had recorded differed to a greater or lesser extent, unless what I was looking at was a copy made from another fireback. Where I had seen this arrangement of stamps before was on a drawing of a badly damaged fireback from Chailey that Mark Antony Lower had included in his seminal article on the Wealden iron industry published in the Sussex Archaeological Collections in 1849, and shown here.

Of course, it would be a mistake to trust Lower’s drawing implicitly but there are other firebacks which use some of the same stamps with which direct comparisons can be made. The ‘rose-en-soleil’ stamp appears on another fireback in Hastings Museum but it has faint flowers around its edge which are absent on the one sold in 2008. The flower head (is it a rose?) on the same back is certainly very similar. And the same letter E is seen on a fireback in Lewes, though somewhat more delicate in its delineation. The ‘bird’s’ head on the side panel has not been recorded on another fireback, so no comparison is possible.

Where the 2008 fireback really betrays its fakery, though, is in the modelling of the dragon, the supporter on the left of the arms. On Lower’s drawing the top of it is missing altogether so whoever attempted to pass this fireback off as genuine needed to be able make a copy of the head of the dragon from another casting of John Harvo’s original. This never happened, as can be seen in the detail from an early casting also in Hastings. The 2008 version is quite different, there is no hint of the dragon’s wing and the dragon’s mouth extends further upwards and to the right.

It saddens me that the auction house was taken in by this fake, and that the purchaser paid so much for something that it was not.

To read more about John Harvo, follow this link