Part 10 (2/2)
Of the Halls of the City Guilds, there is none more quaint, and in greater contrast to the bustle of the neighbourhood, than the Hall of the Brewers'
Company, in Addle Street, City. This was partially destroyed, like most of the older Halls, by the Great Fire, but was one of the first to be restored and refurnished. In the kitchen are still to be seen the remains of an old trestle and other relics of an earlier period, but the hall or dining room, and the Court room, are complete, with very slight additions, since the date of their interior equipment in 1670 to 1673. The Court room has a richly carved chimney-piece in oak, nearly black with age, the design of which is a s.h.i.+eld with a winged head, palms, and swags of fruit and flowers, while on the s.h.i.+eld itself is an inscription, stating that this room was wainscoted by Alderman Knight, master of the Company and Lord Mayor of the City of London, in the year 1670. The room itself is exceedingly quaint, with its high wainscoting and windows on the opposite side to the fireplace, reminding one of the port-holes of a s.h.i.+p's cabin, while the chief window looks out on to the old-fas.h.i.+oned garden, giving the beholder altogether a pleasing illusion, carrying him back to the days of Charles II.
The chief room or Hall is still more handsomely decorated with carved oak of this time. The actual date, 1673, is over the doorway on a tablet which bears the names, in the letters of the period, of the master, ”James Reading, Esq.,” and the wardens, ”Mr. Robert Lawrence,” ”Mr. Samuel Barber,” and ”Mr. Henry Sell.”
The names of other masters and wardens are also written over the carved escutcheons of their different arms, and the whole room is one of the best specimens in existence of the oak carving of this date. At the western end is the master's chair, of which by the courtesy of Mr. Higgins, clerk to the Company, we are able to give an ill.u.s.tration on p. 115--the s.h.i.+eld-shaped back, the carved drapery, and the coat-of-arms with the company's motto, are all characteristic features, as are also the Corinthian columns and arched pediments, in the oak decoration of the room. The broken swan-necked pediment, which surmounts the cornice of the room over the chair, is probably a more recent addition, this ornament having come in about 30 years later.
There are also the old dining tables and benches; these are as plain and simple as possible. In the court room, is a table, which was formerly in the Company's barge, with some good inlaid work in the arcading which connects the two end standards, and some old carved lions' feet; the top and other parts have been renewed. There is also an old oak fire-screen of about the end of the seventeenth century.
Another city hall, the interior woodwork of which dates from just after the Great Fire, is that of the Stationers' Company, in Ave Maria Lane, close to Ludgate Hill. Mr. Charles Robert Rivington, the present clerk to the Company, has written a pamphlet, full of very interesting records of this ancient and wors.h.i.+pful corporation, from which the following paragraph is a quotation:--”The first meeting of the court after the fire was held at Cook's Hall, and the subsequent courts, until the hall was re-built, at the Lame Hospital Hall, i.e., St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
In 1670 a committee was appointed to re-build the hall; and in 1674 the Court agreed with Stephen Colledge (the famous Protestant joiner, who was afterwards hanged at Oxford in 1681) to wainscot the hall 'with well-seasoned and well-matched wainscot, according to a model delivered in for the sum of 300.' His work is now to be seen in excellent condition.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Master's Chair. (_Hall of the Brewers' Company._)]
Mr. Rivington read his paper to the London and Middles.e.x Archaeological Society in 1881; and the writer can with pleasure confirm the statement as to the condition, in 1892, of this fine specimen of seventeenth century work. Less ornate and elaborate than the Brewers' Hall, the panels are only slightly relieved with carved mouldings; but the end of the room, or main entrance, opposite the place of the old das (long since removed), is somewhat similar to the Brewers', and presents a fine architectural effect, which will be observed in the ill.u.s.tration on p. 117.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Livery Cupboard. In the Hall of the Stationers'Company. Made in 1674, the curved pediment added later, probably in 1788.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Napkin Press Lent to the S. Kensington Museum by H. Farrer, Esq. Early XVII. Century.]
There is above, an ill.u.s.tration of one of the two livery cupboards, which formerly stood on the das, and these are good examples of the cupboards for display of plate of this period. The lower part was formerly the receptacle of unused viands, distributed to the poor after the feast. In their original state these livery cupboards finished with a straight cornice, the broken pediments with the eagle (the Company's crest) having most probably been added when the hall was, to quote an inscription on a s.h.i.+eld, ”repaired and beautified in the mayoralty of the Right Honourable William Gill, in the year 1788,” when Mr. Thomas Hooke was master, and Mr. Field and Mr. Rivington (the present clerk's grandfather) wardens.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Arm Chairs.
Chair upholstered in Spitalfields silk. Hampton Court Palace.
Carved and upholstered Chair. Hardwick Hall.
Chair upholstered in Spitalfields silk. Knole, Sevenoaks.
Period: William III. To Queen Anne.]
There is still preserved in a lumber room one of the old benches of seventeenth century work--now replaced in the hall by modern folding chairs. This is of oak, with turned skittle-shaped legs slanting outwards, and connected and strengthened by plain stretchers. The old tables are still in their places.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Screen. In the Hall of the Stationers' Company, erected in 1674: the Royal Coat of Arms has been since added.]
Another example of seventeenth century oak panelling is the handsome chapel of the Mercers' Hall--the only city Company possessing their own chapel--but only the lining of the walls and the reredos are of the original work, the remainder having been added some ten or twelve years ago, when some of the original carving was made use of in the new work.
Indeed, in this magnificent hall, about the most s.p.a.cious of the old City Corporation Palaces, there is a great deal of new work mixed with old--new chimney-pieces and old overmantels--some of Grinling Gibbons' carved enrichments, so painted and varnished as to have lost much of their character; these have been applied to the oak panels in the large dining hall.
The woodwork lining of living rooms had been undergoing changes since the commencement of the period of which we are now writing. In 1638 a man named Christopher had taken out a patent for enamelling and gilding leather, which was used as a wall decoration over the oak panelling. This decorated leather hitherto had been imported from Holland and Spain; when this was not used, and tapestry, which was very expensive, was not obtainable, the plaster was roughly ornamented. Somewhat later than this, pictures were let into the wainscot to form part of the decoration, for in 1669 Evelyn, when writing of the house of the ”Earle of Norwich,” in Epping Forest, says, ”A good many pictures put into the wainstcot which Mr. Baker, his lords.h.i.+p's predecessor, brought from Spaine.” Indeed, subsequently the wainscot became simply the frame for pictures, and we have the same writer deploring the disuse of timber, and expressing his opinion that a sumptuary law ought to be pa.s.sed to restore the ”ancient use of timber.” Although no law was enacted on the subject, yet, some twenty years later, the whirligig of fas.h.i.+on brought about the revival of the custom of lining rooms with oak panelling.
It is said that about 1670 Evelyn found Grinling Gibbons in a small thatched house on the outskirts of Deptford, and introduced him to the King, who gave him an appointment on the Board of Works, and patronised him with extensive orders. The character of his carving is well known; generally using lime-tree as the vehicle of his designs, the life-like birds and flowers, the groups of fruit, and heads of cherubs, are easily recognised. One of the rooms in Windsor Castle is decorated with the work of his chisel, which can also be seen in St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace, Chatsworth, Burleigh, and perhaps his best, at Petworth House, in Suss.e.x. He also sculptured in stone. The base of King Charles'
statue at Windsor, the font of St. James', Piccadilly (round the base of which are figures of Adam and Eve), are his work, as is also the lime-tree border of festoon work over the communion table. Gibbons was an Englishman, but appears to have spent his boyhood in Holland, where he was christened ”Grinling.” He died in 1721. His pupils were Samuel Watson, a Derbys.h.i.+re man, who did much of the carved work at Chatsworth, Drevot of Brussels, and Lawreans of Mechlin. Gibbons and his pupils founded a school of carving in England which has been continued by tradition to the present day.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Silver Furniture at Knole. (_From a Photo by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks._)]
A somewhat important immigration of French workmen occurred about this time owing to the persecutions of Protestants in France, which followed, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, by Louis XIV., and these refugees bringing with them their skill, their patterns and ideas, influenced the carving of our frames and the designs of some of our furniture. This influence is to be traced in some of the contents of Hampton Court Palace, particularly in the carved and gilt centre tables and the _torcheres_ of French design but of English workmans.h.i.+p. It is said that no less than 50,000 families left France, some thousands of whom belonged to the industrial cla.s.ses, and settled in England and Germany, where their descendants still remain. They introduced the manufacture of crystal chandeliers, and founded our Spitalfields silk industry and other trades, till then little practised in England.
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