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780
Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging (top and sides); top corners, initials in separate stamps arranged in triad with ‘WR’ above ‘E’; top centre, date on single block overstamped.
Notes: It is somewhat puzzling why a furnace should have a stock of letters but not of numerals. The use of a block for the date suggests that other firebacks may bear the same stamp.
Inscription: WER [triad] 1632 WER [triad]
- Decoration tags:
- rectangular (shape)
- rope (edging)
- individual letters
- date stamp
- text
Manufactured: in 1632 in the Weald area of England.
Current location: Priest House, West Hoathly, West Sussex, England.
Museum number: 1944.24.233 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)
- Attached to series:
- Date & initials firebacks
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781
Description: Rectangular with arched, mirrored, scrolls on top, surmounted by the winged face of a cherub; fillet edging continued into mirrored scrolls over the top; on either side, scrolled stylised seed pods; central scene of King David beneath a baldachin standing on a plinth, playing a harp to his left; to his left a child plays the violin, to his right another plays a trumpet, both stand on low plinths; at the bottom, a rectangular panel with an oval within a cartouche between swirled foliage.
Notes: An untypical religious-inspired subject with notably rococo design elements.
Copies of this fireback are known.
- Decoration tags:
- rectangular with ornate arch (shape)
- fillet (edging)
- whole carved pattern
- pictorial
- biblical
- humans
Manufactured: in the mid- to late-18th century in England.
Current location: Priest House, West Hoathly, West Sussex, England.
(part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)
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636
Description: Rectangular; no edging; quasi-symmetrical arrangement of crosses and buckle outlines: a cross at each corner and one to right of middle, three buckles along the top and three buckles in triad, level with, and below, the central cross; two horizontal plank lines; lower left part of back missing due to wear and corrosion. The fireback has a small accumulation of iron slag on the reverse side, probably caused by a failure, by the founder, to tap off all the slag from the furnace hearth before casting.
Notes: The buckles, which could have been stamped using a branding iron, suggest a connection with the Pelham family. This is the fireback noted in 1861 at Warbleton Priory, Sussex, which the Pelhams endowed in 1413; the priory was dissolved in 1535 suggesting that the fireback dates from before then. The excrescence, left of centre, on the surface of the fireback was probably caused by molten iron being poured from a ladle into the sand mould and displacing some of the sand.
- Decoration tags:
- rectangular (shape)
- none (edging)
- simple stamps
- carved stamps
- planklines
- heraldic
- objects
Manufactured: in the early- to mid-16th century in the Weald area of England.
Current location: Anne of Cleves House, Southover High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.
(part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)
- Attached to series:
- Pelham family firebacks
- Metalware stamp firebacks