Firebacks

483mm tall

  1. 142

    hastings_025.jpg
    559 x 483 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped; cavetto moulded edging (top and sides); a cabled anchor palewise, behind it the inscription on a scroll parallel with the anchor flukes.

    Notes: The inscription is a quotation from Psalms 139: 1: 'Domine, probasti me et cognovisti me' - Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Another version of the same design may come from the same source. Formerly part of the Ade Collection (from Grove Hill, Hellingly, Sussex).

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: PROBASTI ME [Thou hast searched me]

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

    Current location: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, John's Place, Bohemia Road, Hastings, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: HASMG: 1952.51.38 (part of the Hastings Museum museum group)

    Citation: Griffith, H. (ed.), 1886, 'Notes and Queries No. 3: Sussex Iron Fireback', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 34, p. 259.

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

  2. 329

    horsham_museum 07.jpg
    731 x 483 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular shape; simulated twisted rope edging (top & sides); central, symmetrical arrangement of a fleur-de-lys between two diamond stamps with two small cross-cut squares below, and a triad of dots outside; above, a haphazard arrangement of date, at top, above the initials, with a rose and crown to the left, and another fleur to the right.

    Notes: Almost certainly an altered copy of a similar fireback dated 1613, some of the features of which have remained.

    Inscription: 1637 / ILE

    Manufactured: in 1637 in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Horsham Museum, Causeway, Horsham, West Sussex, England.

    (part of the Horsham Museum museum group)

  3. 468

    lloyd_002.jpg
    ~980 x ~483 mm

    Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging (top and sides); stamp formed of a bordered strip with an undulating vine with grapes and leaves, repeated six times in three horizontal rows of two; below, a short piece of the same strip positioned vertically and repeated twelve times.

    Notes: The vine strip features on many firebacks indicating a common source. Illustration from Lloyd, 1925.

    Manufactured: in the mid- to late-16th century possibly at Pounsley Furnace, Framfield in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: not known.

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