Firebacks

Description: Composite; arched rectangular shaped, armorial fireback, cavetto edging, with Stuart Royal arms, garter, supporters, crown and motto, and 1662 date above crown; this overlies a rectangular plate with fillet edging; top centre in the space each side of the central shield, an initial letter - A to left, B to right - each above a fleur-de-lys, its stem terminating in a small buckle.

Notes: Several firebacks have incorporated the same Stuart royal shield, which probably originally dated to 1619, but with the date altered. A similar fireback, but without the initials and fleurs-de-lys, dated 1661, and reputed to have come from the Totsey, the old guildhall at the market cross in Gloucester, is illustrated in Ames, 1980, 23; possibly the same fireback was reported by the late David Bick to be at The Grange, Minsterworth, Gloucestershire (demolished in the late 1960s).

Inscription: 16 62 / [Garter motto (illeg.)] / A B

Arms: English Stuart royal

Description: Rectangular; ovolo-moulded edging; top centre, stamp formed of a carved domestic scene of a family around a table, between two small mirrored rectangular stamps each of a cow; lower centre, symmetrical arrangement of two jugs, two goblets and two crossed churchwarden pipes, all in low relief.

Notes: The domestic group has been formed from a decorative iron mantelpiece ornament portraying the tale of the goose that laid golden eggs. Having killed the goose, the family are lamenting the loss of their bounty (see Ames, 1980, p.94). The style of the fireback suggests a pastiche using designs suggesting the past. The same mantelpiece group can be seen as decoration on the kitchen spit assemblage at Petworth House, West Sussex, which was cast at Robert Chorley's foundry at Cocking, south of Midhurst. Evidently this and another fireback bearing the same ornament stamp were among items from the Cowdray estate sold in 1898.

Description: Arched rectangular shape; fillet edging; top centre, stamp formed of a carved domestic scene of a family around a table; in top corners, repeated small stamp of St George and the Dragon; below, repeated stamp of a pineapple in a pot; centre; small stamp of the royal arms of the United Kingdom 1801-37.

Notes: The domestic group has been formed from a decorative iron mantelpiece ornament portraying the tale of the goose that laid golden eggs. Having killed the goose, the family are lamenting the loss of their bounty (see Ames, 1980, p.94). The same mantelpiece group and pineapple stamp can be seen as decoration on the kitchen spit assemblage at Petworth House, West Sussex, which was cast at Robert Chorley's foundry at Cocking, south of Midhurst. Evidently this and another fireback bearing the same ornament stamp were among items from the Cowdray estate sold in 1898.