Firebacks

  1. 334

    huddington_court 02.jpg
    607 x 498 mm

    Description: Quasi-rectangular; twisted rope lengths along top and sides; centre top, unidentified quartered shield between two vertical carved stamps of a billet with five oval shapes; the same billet is repeated horizontally below between two irregular twisted rope saltires.

    Notes: The arms are probably of Thomas Wriothesley, who was Henry VIII's last Lord Chancellor and created Earl of Southampton in 1547; he married c.1533 so the arms could date to before then, but the same arms are displayed on his enamelled stall plate in St George's Chapel, Windsor, of 1545, and in stained glass in a window in the parish church at South Warnborough, Hampshire. A candidate for the earliest English fireback with an example of personal arms. A similar fireback at Warnham Court, Sussex, was illustrated by J. Starkie Gardner in Country Life in 1907.

    Arms: Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton)

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

    Current location: in private hands, Huddington, Worcestershire, England.

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

    Citation: Hodgkinson, J. S., 2012, 'Pre-Restoration Iron Firebacks', Journal of the Antique Metalware Society, 20, pp. 2-15.

    Citation: Gardner, J. S., 25 May 1907, 'Old Wealden Ironwork at Warnham Court', Country Life, pp. 730-2.