Firebacks

515mm tall

  1. 406

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 040.jpg
    590 x >515 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    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. 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: in private hands, Rolvenden, Kent, England.

    Citation: Demain-Saunders, C., December 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).