Firebacks

Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging on top and sides; date placed slightly right of centre near top.

Notes: A similar fireback with slightly different proportions has the same date using the same numerals.

Inscription: 1679

Description: Rectangular shape; no edging; upper centre, initials 'HI'; lower centre, date '1795'.

Notes: Simple design with bold, well-carved characters.

Inscription: H I / 1795

Description: Rectangular; plain edge; top centre, ring between repeated lion's head between repeated narrow human figure with folded arms standing on a bracket; below each figure, a small bracket.

Notes: The figures are indistinct and are disproportionately small for the size of the firebacks; from Isfield Place 1921.

Description: Rectangular; no edging; inscription evenly spaced along top, sans serif lettering.

Inscription: IS D T IS

Description: Rectangular; central shield; fleur-de-lys stamp repeated three times across top and once on each side level with shield, all regularly spaced.

Notes: It is likely that the arms relate to the marriage, in 1541, of Christopher Sackville (c.1519-1559), son of John Sackville of Chiddingly, Sussex, and Constance Colepeper, daughter of Thomas Colepeper of Bedgebury, Kent, one of whose ancestors was the heiress, Elizabeth Hardreshull. The blazon: Sackville - quarterly or and gules, a bend vair; Colepeper - argent a bend engrailed gules; Hardreshull - argent a chevron sable between nine martlets gules, six and three. Christopher Sackville's brother, Sir Richard, owned Horsted Keynes furnace, which may have been where this fireback was cast. A candidate for the earliest English fireback with an example of personal arms.

Arms: Sackville impaling Colepeper and Hardreshall

Description: Rectangular shape; ovolo-moulded edging (top and sides); date top centre.

Notes: The style of the numerals is identical to those seen on another fireback, indicating a common source.

Inscription: 1658

Description: Quasi-rectangular; twisted rope lengths along top and sides; centre top, 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. The shield is, quarterly, 1. Wrythe or Wriothesley quartering Dunstanville and Pink, 2. Drayton, 3. Crocker and 4. Peckham. A candidate for the earliest English fireback with an example of personal arms. A similar fireback is no. 1305.

Arms: Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton)

Description: Rectangular with rebated top corners; ovolo moulded edging (top and sides); topcentre, date above initials.

Notes: The rebated corners are an unusual feature.

Inscription: 1653 / T · L ·C

Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging (top and sides); central Tudor shield, garter, crown and supporters (greyhound and lion), formed from separate stamps; date on a single stamp in top left corner.

Notes: The worn appearance of the central arms, compared with the clarity of the date, suggests that this is an early example of a fireback being used as a pattern, with the addition of a subsequent date. The same stamps forming the arms can also be seen on other firebacks. The extension of the lower part of the ‘3’ on the date stamp suggests that the numbers may have been fixed to the backing block, rather than the date being carved as a whole. Another variant of this fireback has the rope edging extending only three-quarters of the way down the sides.

Inscription: 1583

Arms: Tudor royal

Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging (top and sides); from top, crowned Tudor royal shield (stamp overpressed) above crowned shield bearing initials, KH in Lombardic lettering, above a fleur de lys (stamp overpressed); to left, diagonal lion passant guardant sinister; to right, diagonal lion passant; at base, single 'imp' figure, arms to side, moving left but facing right, between two pairs of 'imp' figures (separately stamped), one moving left, right arm raised, the other moving right, right arm raised.

Notes: One of the 'Royal' series.

Arms: Tudor royal arms of England