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

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: PROBASTI ME [Thous 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: 952.51.38 (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: A variation of a more common design of the same shape and some of the same stamps.

    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:.

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