Firebacks

515mm tall

  1. 406

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 040.jpg
    590 x >515 mm

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped; convex moulding (top and sides surviving); scrolled protrusions above top corners; Stuart royal shield, crown, garter, supporters and motto; initials separated by crown.

    Notes: The scrolled protrusions suggest a possible association with other firebacks with similar features.

    Inscription: I R / HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE

    Arms: English Stuart royal - James I

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

    Current location: Anne of Cleves House, Southover High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: LH000.944 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)

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

  2. 629

    ripley_046.jpg
    525 x 515 mm

    Description: Arched rectangular shape with cavetto canted shoulders; wide fillet edging with cavetto moulding inside; within a baroque frame, the seated figure of an old man clasping his cloak, a smoking urn to his left.

    Notes: Probably the allegorical figure of Winter.

    Manufactured: in the 18th century in France.

    Current location: Mark Ripley Forge & Fireplaces, Northbridge Street, Robertsbridge, East Sussex, England.

  3. 667

    rolvenden,_squires 02.jpg
    660 x 515 mm

    Description: Armorial within complex ovolo moulded edging (top and sides); quartered shield, helm, crest and mantling; plain panel below.

    Notes: The arms can be identified from the first four quarters on the memorial to Raffe Maynard, d.1613, in St Albans Cathedral; quarterly, 1, Maynard: argent, a chevron azure between three sinister hands couped at the wrist gules; 2, Filleigh: gules, a fess vairy between six crosses formy or; 3, Harris/Hawes/Hewish: gules fretty argent a canton of the second; 4, Lyons: argent a chevron sable between three lions dormant coward gules; the crest, a stag statant, is of Maynard. The Maynards, originally from Devon, were a large family in Rotherfield, and Richard Maynard (d.1619) had an interest in Old Mill, Mayfield, as well as in Birchden forge, and probably Hamsell furnace. An example without the extension panel at the bottom has been noted. A larger fireback with the same arms, and probably by the same pattern maker, can also be seen.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Arms: Maynard

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

    Current location: Hole Park, Rolvenden, Kent, England.

    Citation: Demain-Saunders, C., Dec 1934, 'The Early Maynards of Devon and St Albans', Genealogists Magazine, pp. 591-641.

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