Firebacks

1067mm wide

  1. 114

    hastings_004.jpg
    1067 x 559 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Quasi-rectangular shape with low-curved convex top; edging (top and sides)formed of lengths of dowel grooved laterally and helically; upper centre, cross formed of the same dowel; at each side, tandem arrangement of longer dowel, similarly grooved.

    Notes: The base board appears to be the same size and shape as that of a fireback at Plaxtol, Kent, which also has the same edging; and the grooved dowels are also on a fireback with dagger stamps at Lewes; the '+' shape may have apotropaic significance.

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

    Current location: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hastings, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: 952.51.21 (part of the Hastings Museum museum group)

    Citation: Easton, T. & Hodgkinson, J. S., 2013, 'Apotropaic Symbols on Cast-Iron Firebacks', Jnl. of the Antique Metalware Soc., 21, pp. 14-33.

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

  2. 175

    hastings_062.jpg
    1067 x 762 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Quasi-arched rectangular with 5-facetted arch; cyma recta moulded edging (top and sides); in the centre, an oval Tudor royal shield on a cartouche surrounded by a garter, a crown above, separating the initials, ER, all on a larger cartouche.

    Notes: An example at Chiddingstone in Kent has additional circular, crowned armorial stamps, linking it to firebacks dating fron 1589.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: E / HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENCE / R

    Arms: Tudor royal (Elizabeth I)

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

    Current location: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hastings, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: 914.11 (part of the Hastings Museum museum group)

  3. 450

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 090.jpg
    1067 x 622 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging; central crowned Tudor shield with lion passant guardant sinister to the left, and lion passant to right; four-petalled rose in right and left corners; crowned, barbed, four-petalled rose below shield.

    Notes: One of a large series bearing some or all of the same stamps.

    Arms: Tudor royal arms of England

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

    Current location: Barbican House, High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: LH000.800 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)

    Citation: Dawson, C., 1903, 'Sussex Iron Work and Pottery', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 46, pp. 1-54.