Firebacks

455mm tall

  1. 851

    bridgewater_collection 04.jpg
    ?525 x ?455 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Rectangular with mirrored floriate scrolled top; simulated overlapping tile edging at sides, with fillet bottom edge; a mythical salamander in the form of a dog with an arrow-shaped tongue, standing among flames; a stapled scroll inside the left and right edges.

    Notes: This fireback was used to create a composite fireback design on a plate at Rivers Farmhouse, Ardingly.

    Manufactured: in the mid 17th century in the Weald area of England.

    Current location:.

    Citation: Lloyd, N., 1925, 'Domestic Ironwork I', Architectural Review, 58, pp. 58-67.

  2. 221

    buxted,_ridgeway.jpg
    665 x 455 mm

    Description: Rectangular; plain plate; inscription in capitals split between top corners, ‘I’ crossed.

    Notes: The letters are likely to have been formed by tracing their shape in the casting sand using a pointed implement.

    Inscription: I R

    Manufactured: in the early 17th century in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: in private hands, Buxted, East Sussex, England.

    Citation: Hodgkinson, J. S., 2010, British Cast-Iron Firebacks of the 16th to Mid-18th Centuries (Crawley, Hodgers Books).

  3. 672

    mayfield,_middle house.jpg
    613 x 455 mm

    Description: Rectangular with pediment; ovolo moulded edging inside top of pediment and inside top and sides of rectangle; central talbot crest within wreath and eight-pointed star, between four fleurs-de-lys.

    Notes: The wreath and talbot crest are identical to those on a 1584 fireback in the Victoria & Albert Museum; one of the ‘Royal’ series.

    Manufactured: in the late 16th century in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Middle House Hotel, High Street, Mayfield, East Sussex, England.

  4. 1086

    outwood,_old hall.jpg
    >440 x 455 mm

    Description: Fragment; rectangular shape; ovolo-moulded edging; image of an iron grate with barred front and integral andiron with iron or brass disc.

    Notes: A unique example; it is not certain how the mould was formed, whether by impressing an actual grate or carving a pattern with the image of a grate.

    Manufactured: in the mid to late 17th century possibly in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: in private hands, Outwood, Surrey, England.

  5. 1103

    ticehurst,_authentic reclamation 06.jpg
    755 x 455 mm

    Description: Rectangular shape; double astragal edging (top and sides); arrangement of repeated square stamps with indented saltires: three down each side, five in a diamond pattern top centre.

    Notes: The lines around the edge may well have been formed from impressing a straight edge of some sort.

    Manufactured: in the mid to late 16th century in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Authentic Reclamation, Lymden Lane, Ticehurst, East Sussex, England.

  6. 1069

    wigmore,_chapel farm 02.jpg
    385 x 455 mm

    Description: Quasi-arched shape with forward-facing 'wings', which splay outwards towards the base where each has been pierced with a small hole as if to insert a rod from one side to the other; the 'wings' curve to follow the shape of the main panel but curl outwards at the top; central panel with stylised tree decoration surmounted with a crown between two inward-facing animals, possibly a lion and unicorn; beneath the tree, a partially illegible inscription in relief.

    Notes: This unusual casting was probably formed in an open box mould. Only a very small number of such castings are known. Depth 200mm. A similar fireback, noted at Poynings in Sussex, was illustrated in The Connoisseur, vol 41 (1915), p. 221; it too had a crown supported by a lion and unicorn on the top, and a tree with an illegible inscription below.

    Inscription: SYLVESTR..[illegible]

    Manufactured: in the late 17th to early 18th century in England.

    Current location: in private hands, Wigmore, Herefordshire, England.