Firebacks

Description: Rectangular; cavetto moulded edging on top and sides, with astragal and fillet inside; talbot crest within wreath and eight-pointed star, repeated at top corners; date top centre between mouldings.

Notes: The crest is probably that of the Parker family, of Ratton, near Eastbourne, Sussex. The base board appears to have been repositioned prior to the wreath stamps being impressed in the mould. Acquired from Marle Green Farm, Hellingly, Sussex, in 1896.

Inscription: 1584

Description: Within a surround of symmetrical swirled foliage, an oval armorial shield carried by two naked, kneeling male figures seated on a broad pedestal, between them a scallop shell; above the shield a lion’s face surmounted by a crest of a lion’s head erased. The arms are of Worge impaling Collier.

Notes: George Worge (1705-65), of Starr’s Green, Battle, steward of the Battle Abbey estate, married Elizabeth (1707-66), daughter of John Collier, town clerk of Hastings, in 1727. The arms of Worge have been variously blazoned, but the memorial to George Worge in Battle church indicates these tinctures: gules, a fess cotised or, 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. 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, as is the lion crest (no. 1317).

Arms: Worge impaling Collier (George and Elizabeth Worge)

Description: Flattened arched rectangular shape; cavetto moulded edge all round; armorial; arms of Browne family of Brenchley, Kent: Gules, a griffin passant or, a chief of the second; Crest: a vulture proper, wings endorsed, displuming a mallard’s wings.

Notes: John Browne, gunfounder, was granted arms in 1626. His principal furnace was in Brenchley parish, Kent. The royal gunfounder 1615-51, he petitioned the Crown for a monopoly of casting firebacks in 1633.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Arms: Browne of Brenchley (John Browne)

Description: Quasi-Arched rectangular shape with cyma reversa shoulders; ovolo edging; stylised lion passant guardant; crowned rose with leaf and stem on left, crowned fleur de lys on right, thistle with leaves above centre; three right-facing scrolls at base; down-facing scroll, with staple, on right side; date split between bottom corners; initials below date, bottom right.

Notes: Blatantly Royalist in its symbolism, a variant (no. 901) is dated (perhaps more convincingly) 1641. Numeral style, initials, leaf depiction and the stapled scroll are typical features of firebacks made from patterns by the same maker. A later version of the same subject, but with a different shaped plate and without the fleur-de-lys, is also known (see 'Royalist series'). M. A. Lower writes of firebacks of this design of being cast at Waldron Furnace in Sussex (Lower, 1849, p.219). Copies were advertised in F. Parkin & Sons (Exeter) catalogue in 1972.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: 16 49 / IM

Description: Rectangular; cavetto-moulded edge; a snake rises from a fire and bites the middle finger of the hand of a sleeved left arm that descends from a top right corner cloud; left and right, ‘S’ scrolls appear strapped to the edge of the fireback; the date, top left of centre; initials, bottom right corner.

Notes: An illustration of the New Testament episode (Acts 28: 3) when St Paul, shipwrecked in the island of Malta, was putting sticks on a fire and a viper bit him. The distinctive shape of the ‘1’ in the date and the initials, ‘IM’, together with the ‘S’ scrolls, parallel such features in other firebacks. The design is an adaptation of an illustration in 'Devises Heroiques' by Claudius Paradin (1557) which was translated into English by Geoffrey Whitney as 'The Book of Emblemes' (1586).

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: 1649 / IM

Description: Rectangular with triangular pediment; stepped fillet and ogee moulded edge; initials in rectangular panel (F reversed); date in pediment.

Notes: The triangular top is a separate element, in this instance impressed before the lower panel. A variant at Hastings Museum (no. 118) has the letters positioned slightly differently.

Inscription: 1586 / FM

Description: Fragment; rectangular shape; ovolo-moulded edging (top and sides); six stamps, in two columns of three, taking the form of a long-pointed arrow head within a circlet of small curls.

Notes: The stamps are of an unfamiliar type with some similarity to the heraldic symbol for ermine. Because only the left part of the fireback has survived it is not known how many original columns of this stamp there were.

Description: Composite of three elements; central panel has a complex ‘knot’ pattern with a fillet edge; side panel, repeated on either side of the central panel, contains a vase of flowers, possibly stylised thistles, within an arched frame and fillet edge; arched panel above, also with fillet edge, contains the date and inscription; the spandrels of the side panels, and the arched top panel, contain a series of circular motifs comprising concentric rings deepening towards the centre.

Notes: ‘Knot’ patterns were popular in gardens of the period. The garden theme is continued with the side panels. An example of the same design, noted at Linchmere, West Sussex, is a different casting, the top panel with the date and initials being slightly askew. From a photograph in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; photographed at Mapesbury House, Willesden in 1904.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: 1598 / IM IB

Description: Quasi-arched rectangular shape, semi-circular protrusions on top corners; cavetto-moulded edging looped at top; two mirrored scrolls inside arch; a phoenix in flames, its wings displayed and inverted; date, in two parts, in top corners; initials in bottom right corner.

Notes: On a copy (no. 590) the loop at the top is missing and the date and the initials have been erased. Copies of this fireback were advertised in Bratt Colbran Ltd.'s (London) catalogue in the early-20th century.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: 16 50 / IM

Description: Rectangular shape; twisted rope edging (top and sides only); along the top, two irregular arrangements of rope lengths forming a small quasi-square within a larger quasi-square, with the outer corners of the small square joined to the inner corners of the larger square, a short length of rope extending outwards from the top and bottom right corners of the larger square, and within the left small square a rope saltire, and in the right small square a rope cross; between and outside of these rope arrangements, an arched rectangular stamp, with indented edges, of a crowned rose-en-soleil impressed three times; below each rope pattern a fleur-de-lys; below each rose-en-soleil stamp, a circular, six-pointed-star-embossed stamp with beaded edging.

Notes: All of the stamps have been noted on a series of other firebacks together with variations of the rope arrangement. The clarity of the condition of the stamps suggests that this casting predates the others in the series.