Firebacks

607mm wide

  1. 334

    huddington_court 02.jpg
    607 x 498 mm

    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)

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

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

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

    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.

  2. 338

    huddington_court 06.jpg
    607 x 450 mm

    Description: Rectangular with pediment; ovolo moulded edging inside top of pediment and inside top and sides of rectangle; centre top, four-petal rose and crown with fleur de lys below; at either end, stamps made from two parts of a wreath (the middle section missing) enclosing a fleur de lys.

    Notes: The wreaths from which the stamps have been disassembled can be seen complete on two other firebacks, and the rose and crown is a common stamp on a large series of early firebacks.

    Inscription: ?I T

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

    Current location: in private hands Burford, Oxfordshire, England.

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

  3. 1048

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 107.jpg
    607 x 413 mm

    Description: Canted rectangular shape; twisted rope edging (top and sides); two saltires formed of twisted rope irregularly arranged.

    Notes: The small size suggests a 17th rather than a 16th century date. Formerly part of the J. H. Every collection.

    Manufactured: in the late-16th to early-17th century in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Anne of Cleves House, Southover High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: LH000.919 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)