be a single instance of a large ornamental finial of lead remaining in
England of the kind once so universal in France and of which so many
still remain there. These French finials from the 12th to the 18th
centuries have been sufficiently described, especially by M. De la
Queriere, who devotes a volume to them and the cresting of ridges; by
Viollet-le-Duc; and in De Caumont’s _Abcdaire_.
Many of these early French Gothic finials of the 12th and 13th centuries
were lead statues formed out of repoussé sheet metal and they surmounted
the culminating point of the church, at the apex of the chevet; here was
often placed an immense angel with great wings turning as vanes in the
wind. At Rouen it is the Virgin with the infant Christ which stands over
the Lady Chapel; there was formerly on the main apse a giant St. George
horsed and spearing the dragon, melted at the Revolution “they say” into
bullets. At Clermont Ferrand is the most remarkable composition, a tall
pillar on which stands a colossal Virgin facing the sunrise; round the
stem spring out great branches of foliage on which sit four
figures--King David with the harp and three others with musical
instruments--the ridge is ornamented with open work, and a length of
similar foliage reaches down the slope of the roof for some feet on
either side of the finial where are two other figures, these are full
life size, and the whole must be 20 or more feet high.
At Evreux the apse had a St. Michael treading down Satan. The immense
St. Michael that surmounted the central tower at Mont St. Michel, which
could be seen many leagues out at sea, was also probably of lead.
We had in England in the twelfth century a large figure serving as a
finial to the central tower at Canterbury. This tower was built by
Lanfranc, and Gervase tells us it was surmounted by a gilt angel, this
is shown in the contemporary drawing of Canterbury; and the tower,
Professor Willis says, ever retained the name of the Angel Tower. Stow
also told us of a lead spire close by St. Paul’s with an image of St.
Paul on the top.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Finial at Lille.]
The early French examples of finials without a figure were formed of
foliage in repoussé on a stem or pillar with swelling bands or bowl-like
forms at the point of growth: these and the foliage were beaten out of
thick sheet lead, the larger forms in two halves and soldered
together. The central stem was an iron rod covered with lead tube
slipped over it in short pieces, with hooks to hang the branching leaves
to; sometimes slender rods rise out of the foliage and droop with lilies
at their extremities.
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--Finial at Angers.]
Later, cast ornaments became general; on the Hôtel Dieu at Beaune is a
wonderful series of these finials made up of portions partly repoussé
partly cast, these have coronets of delicate open work which were cast
in strips and bent round. Where the finial joins the roof a rayed sun of
cast metal is placed. Mr. Clutton gives drawings of these.
In the Museum at Lille there are two fine finials, one of these is
carefully analysed to a large scale by Burges in his book of drawings
and the other, wholly made up of castings, is given here from a
photograph. In the Museum in the splendid old hall of the Hôtel Dieu at
Angers are two, sketches of which are given in Figs. 57 and 58. The
leaves and scrolls are cast with ribs to make them stiffer.
The later Gothic and Renaissance finials are often charmingly suggestive
in the _subject_ of their design--some have figures, a huntsman at
Bourges, a Cupid shooting arrows or a man-at-arms; some are made up with
suns or sun and moon, or moon and stars, as at Troyes; at Beaune,
cup-like forms are made of openwork for birds’ nests. Again we find a
vase of lilies or branch of drooping thistles, a pigeon, a coronet, or
personal devices and badges. Mr. Burges noted how the early poets spoke
of the _music_ of the vanes, and there can be little doubt that some of
them were intended to resound to the wind: in the _Hypnerotomachia_
(1499) a finial is shown with little bells hanging to chains which swang
against a metal bowl; Viollet-le-Duc also tells us that in certain
crestings he found a singular musical conceit in contrivances for
producing “sifflements” under the action of the wind--Æolian flutes.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Angers.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Finials, Bourges.]
At Bourges on the Hôtels Jacques Cœur and Cujas are some finials
consisting of little more than a lead-covered stick bearing a rod and
girouettes. Flags were properly only set up in the due heraldic
precedence of the proprietor, a Knight might fly a pennon and so on;
they were centred at times on a piece of agate to reduce the friction of
revolution. We have only to look at the views of old towns given in
manuscripts to see how the mediæval mind delighted in these flag
finials; but there are probably not half a dozen old ones now left in
England. When there are many revolving flags to the finials on one
building and these are bright with new gold, they have the delightful
property of flashing the light to a great distance. The gilt flags on
the pinnacles of the west front of Wells Cathedral twinkle
simultaneously against the setting sun.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--From Newcastle.]
Crestings, sometimes large and most ornamental, were formed along the
ridges of French buildings, especially in the early Renaissance.[30]
These ornamental ridges, especially in this exaggerated form, are not
English.
[30] _See_ De la Queriere or Viollet-le-Duc (_Art._ “Crête”).
A row of fleurs-de-lis exists at Exeter, a portion of which is in the
Architectural Museum, Westminster: and probably many other roofs had
similar crestings.
§ XVIII. OF CISTERNS, ETC.
The use of lead pipes for conducting water was introduced into England
by the Romans, the ordinary draw-off tap is another gift of theirs. The
twelfth century plan of Canterbury cathedral shows a remarkable system
of water pipes for collecting the water from the roofs and distributing
it to the several buildings and fountains. Mr. Micklethwaite has
described in _Archæologia_ a lead filtering cistern with draw-off tap
found at Westminster Abbey; and in the British Museum (Gothic Room)
there is a small circular lead cistern with delicate fifteenth century
ornament.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Poundisford Park, Taunton.]
Some old country houses preserve the original scheme for conducting the
rain water from the roofs into a lead cistern which, adorned by devices
and gilding, stood close to the front door. Poundisford Park, near
Taunton, is one of these. Lead spouting, delicately ornamented, crosses
the front and brings the water to the head of the vertical pipe, which
has turrets and loopholes--a toy castle. This and its pipe stand over a
circular fronted cistern panelled and modelled with a crest, pots of
flowers, and the date 1671. There are some of these cisterns at Exeter;
one of them, here given, is much like that at Taunton, and is dated
1696; the ribs and devices are gilt. At Bovey Tracy, in Devonshire,
there is another, as also at Sackville College, East Grinstead.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Cistern, Exeter.]
In the London houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
ornamented lead cisterns seem to have been generally placed in the
courtyards and areas. The earliest known was illustrated and described
in the _Builder_ for August 23rd, 1862. The centre was a coat of arms
quartering the lions of England and the lilies of France, right and left
two quatrefoil panels contained the letters E.R., and below in a long
panel was the date 15--. Two upright strips formed the margins, which,
with the ends, were covered with Gothic diaper. It was drawn while in
the possession of a dealer, who obtained it in Crutched Friars.
There was quite a crusade preached against these cisterns, as the
occasion of lead poisoning, in the first half of this century, and
hundreds were destroyed, but a large number still remain; about
Bloomsbury quite a dozen may be seen down front areas. For the most part
they were decorated with panelling of ribs formed of squares and
semicircles with strips and spots of cast ornament, flowers, fruit
baskets, stags, dolphins, cherubs’ heads, and even the gods Bacchus and
Ceres; others have nothing but the fretted panel with initials and date
like Fig. 63.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Cistern, London.]
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Cistern, S. Kensington Museum.]
The ribs, with the stock enrichments in new combinations, the date and
initials, were attached to a wood panel the size of the cistern front;
this was moulded in the sand and the casting made of good substance;
stout strips were soldered across the inside as ties. One of the finest
known of these is that at South Kensington Museum, of which one half of
the front is here illustrated, the other half repeats exactly, even to
the initials on the shield; the date is 1732. This is in every way well
designed and beautifully modelled. A part of one in the Guildhall Museum
is an early example of the ordinary pattern, dated 1674.
The ribs for the pattern were formed in lead--a plumber disdaining the
assistance of wood if he could avoid it--by beating strips of lead into
an iron swage block, that was cut as a matrix about four inches long;
these strips could be easily bent to the curved lines. Plain panelled
cisterns like this were made as late as 1840.
Old lead pumps are now very seldom to be found. One remains at Wick,
Christchurch, which is 6 inches in diameter, and is decorated by a
crest--a boar’s head in a wreath--and the initials “G. B.” as well as
the signature “J. JENKINS, Plummer, 1797.”
§ XIX. OF GUTTERS.
In England the gutters of important churches were generally formed
behind the stone parapet, but at Lincoln the whole is formed of lead
above a carved stone cornice. It is about two feet high and the outside
is decorated with foiled circles closer or farther apart with due
disregard for precision. In France gutters were often like this made on
the top of the stone cornice; irons turned up carry a continuous rod,
over which the lead was dressed, and as the outlets were frequent little
fall was required.[31]
[31] _See_ Viollet-le-Duc.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--Gutter, Lincoln Cathedral.]
To some bay windows of a fine old timber house at Derby there are
little parapets formed out of lead, the front edge being cut into
notches like a tiny battlement, and short lengths of pipe form spouts
for the water. At Taunton there is a bay window with a similar
battlement of lead; this is cast with a running pattern and wavy upper
edge, to this below is soldered a similar strip reversed making a
fringe; the same pattern forms the isolated gutters at Poundisford House
above mentioned. At Montacute the spouting has a series of little
upright panels, the top moulding breaking up higher over every alternate
pair in crenelations, leaving a space filled with a boss. At Bramhall
there is a cottage to which both the spouting and the down pipe have a
running scroll of flowery ornament. Sometimes the end of a roof gutter
between two gables is stopped by an apron of lead with pattern on it,
such as a knot of cord and initials.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Gutter, Taunton.]
§ XX. OF PIPES AND PIPE HEADS.
The water was discharged from the gutters into the heads of down pipes,
or sometimes from jutting lengths of spout supported by iron props, the
nozzles cut into a form often simulating an animal’s jaws.
The down pipes are particularly English, nowhere else can the ornate
constructions of lead forming the pipe heads of Haddon and other great
houses of the sixteenth century be matched. According to Viollet-le-Duc,
here in England this arrangement was already in use in the fourteenth
century, when nowhere except in England were these lead pipes from the
roof down to the base of the wall known. He also remarks on the
advantage of these being square as they can expand if required when the
water freezes, while a circular pipe can only burst.[32] Fragments of
pierced work in Gothic patterns which formed parts of pipe heads have
been found at Fountains Abbey.
[32] Art. “Conduite,” Fig. 6.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Bramhall, Cheshire.]
At Haddon there are a great number of these pipe heads of several dates,
and every one is different from the rest; some are plain and small,
others great spreading things elaborately decorated. The general form of
these is constructed like a box from cast sheet lead, the cornices are
beaten to their shape over a pattern; and the top edge is cut into a
little fringe of crenellations. Cast discs of ornament, badges, pendant
knobs, and initials are arranged on their fronts, on the funnel-shaped
portion leading to the pipe, and on the ears of the pipe and the side
flaps of the head itself. The more elaborate heads have an outer casing
of lead with panels pierced through it of delicate tracery work of
Gothic tradition which shows bright against the shadow.
[Illustration: FIGS. 68 and 69.--Pipe Heads, Haddon Hall.]
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Pipe head, Haddon.]
At Windsor Castle some pipe heads bear the date 1589, the Tudor rose,
and the letters E. R.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Bodleian, Oxford.]
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--St. John’s, Oxford.]
At Knole there are also many heads having pierced work of this kind in
panels, and projecting turrets; some of these also have a decoration of
bright solder applied to the lead in patterns--these were made about
1600. At the Bodleian and St. John’s College, Oxford, there is a fine
series of pipe heads with painted patterns. At Norham Castle some pipe
heads are dated 1605. Abbot’s Hospital at Guildford has a large series
of heads later in character than those at Haddon. Here pierced work is
used as a brattishing to the top edge of the fronts; they are signed G.
A. and dated 1627. At Canons Ashby there is a pair of most rococo pipe
heads, with applied pierced castings, masks and acanthus leaves.[33]
These heads are fixed on iron cramps, or brackets; at Haddon lead
cylinders with pierced ends project and carry the heads.
[33] Figured in the _Spring Gardens Sketch Book_, vol. v., 58.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--Sherborne.]
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Liverpool.]
Sometimes the heads are very long, extending five or six feet like a
length of gutter; it was a favourite method to decorate them with
salient projections at intervals, like the cut-waters of a bridge, the
top edge of these is cut into little battlements which were curled over
in loops. The projections make convenient birds’ nests. The pipe is
sometimes central to these long heads but often at the end.
Entirely the reverse of these, other heads are tall in proportion, like
the examples at Shrewsbury and Ludlow or the little fiddle pattern
design given here from the Grammar School at Sherborne (Fig. 73). The
two examples 74 and 75 are from Liverpool and Ashbourn.
There are three or four original pipe heads which are well designed in
the Architectural Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--Ashbourne.]
The later ones, as in London, are often tall square funnels moulded and
bent into vase-like forms, the projection was small compared to the
width, only three or four inches sometimes. A piece of projecting pipe
is at times inserted in the front of the head to serve as an overflow.
The late pipes were circular and the heads very often followed this
form.
The material has an appropriateness for this purpose that cast iron
cannot pretend to; a simple square box of lead and round pipe is much to
be preferred to fussy things in cast iron, they will not require
painting, nor do they fill the drains with rust; and although it has
been necessary to draw the elaborate and eccentric forms, the simpler
ones form better models for our purpose.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Haddon.]
The earlier pipes were almost always a flat square, sometimes ornamented
up its whole length, but usually only at the collars, where the bands of
lead for attachment to the wall were placed, here and on the flaps of
the collars are often crests, flowers, or letters. The lead band was cut
long enough, so that after the nails had been driven through it into the
wall the ends were folded back over their heads. Those at Canons Ashby,
Northants, have the ends curled and cut like the scroll of a mediæval
text.
Lead working as an art for the expression of beauty through material,
with this ancestry of nearly two thousand years of beautiful workmanship
behind it here in England, has in the present century been entirely
killed out. Only one simple present use of lead can be mentioned as
having the characteristic of an art--the expression of personal thought
by the worker to give pleasure. This is nothing but the lining of stairs
and floor spaces with sheet lead nailed with rows of copper nails, some
examples of which are done with a certain taste. Pipe heads and other
objects of a somewhat ornamental kind have recently been made again, but
we must remember that ornament is not art, and these have only been
carefully, painfully, “executed” to the architect’s drawings. The
plumber’s art, as it was, for instance, when the Guild of Plumbers was
formed, a craft to be graced by the free fancy of the worker, is a field
untilled. That someone may again take up this fine old craft of
lead-working as an artist and original worker, refusing to follow
“designs” compiled by another from imperfectly understood old examples,
but expressing only himself--this has been my chief hope in preparing
the little book NOW CONCLUDED.
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