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Description: Rectangular; rope edging (top and sides); central Tudor royal shield with encircling garter (motto reversed: HONE SOVT QVEY … PEN), separate greyhound and lion supporters, separate crown; a bird, repeated in each top corner, its wings displayed and inverted and its head facing behind and to the left, standing on a scroll; a fleur de lys repeated in the bottom corners; inside the birds is a repeated stamp, half of one similar to a stamp on a fireback in Hastings Museum.
Notes: The particular form of the Tudor arms and supporters is encountered on other firebacks, as are the distinctive style of fleurs de lys and the birds (probably swans, a Lancastrian icon). The plain scroll upon which the bird is perched suggests that there might have been a painted inscription on it originally and that the stamp had not been made specifically for the decoration of firebacks but was, perhaps, redundant from interior domestic decoration.
Arms: Tudor royal (prob. Henry VIII)
- Decoration tags:
- rectangular (shape)
- rope (edging)
- carved stamps
- heraldic
- armorial
- royal
- objects
Manufactured: in the early to mid 16th century possibly at Pounsley furnace in the Weald area of England.
Current location: The Clergy House, Alfriston, East Sussex, England.
Museum number: NT/ALF/M/1 (part of the National Trust museum group)