ABSTRACTS

The Brydges monument in St James’ Church, Ludgershall (Wiltshire): ‘Marian Renascent’ or neoclassical Elizabethan?

 The Brydges monument stands on the cusp of two prevailing fashions: first, the culmination of the early Renaissance all’antica style that was at the height of its popularity in the 1520s–30s. Secondly, the beginning of a more severe, Counter-Reformation style based around classical models that had made its first appearance in England during the 1540s, which by the 1550s was the fashion of the day. The design of this monument displays both styles, incorporating many of the major themes and modes from both, hidden within which are references to long-held Catholic beliefs. The architectural style and costume details offer a puzzle regarding the dating of this monument.

The Elizabethan and Jacobean monuments of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

 The chapel of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, contains four impressive Elizabethan and Jacobean monuments: to John Caius, re-founder of the college; William Webbe, Fellow Commoner; Dr Stephen Perse, Fellow and benefactor; and Dr Thomas Legge, Master and successor to Caius. The monuments take a variety of sizes and formats, from the imposing sarcophagus tomb of Caius to the unassuming wall tablet of Webbe. The monuments to Legge and Perse are unusual among monuments to schoolmen for their inclusion of full-size kneeling effigies. This article analyses the monuments alongside nearby contemporary examples, particularly that to Perse’s kinsman William Becke at St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge, and considers them as indicative of the college’s desire to consolidate its corporate identity in the first half-century after the refoundation, and of the deep diffusion of classical influences in a post-Reformation Cambridge college.

William Emerson’s transi memorial in Southwark Cathedral, London

 Southwark Cathedral, London, contains a diminutive wall-mounted memorial to William Emerson (d. 1575). Emerson is remembered as one of the most prominent men in the parish of St Saviour, whose parish church later became Southwark Cathedral.  This article will look in detail at this small transi effigy, demonstrating that it likely dates to approximately fifty years after the death of William Emerson and that it was commissioned by his grandson, who had initially intended to commemorate the wider Emerson family. The article will consider the circumstances of the monument’s commission, as well as the decision to include a transi effigy. It will be argued that, in the case of William Emerson’s memorial, the transi provides a suitable ‘everyman’ motif, allowing both for the specific commemoration of a significant ancestor and to demonstrate the continuing importance of his family in parish life.

The Cecil Chapel at St Mary’s Church, Wimbledon (Greater London)

 The plain black tomb chest commemorating Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon (1572–1638) within its mutilated chapel, is virtually the only indicator of the ancient pre-Victorian origin of the parish church of Wimbledon, south-west London. Documentary study and structural analysis aims to reconstruct the composite elements of Lord Wimbledon’s memorial, and links it to a later Cecil-connected memorial at Maulden (Bedfordshire).

‘Hoc sub sepulchro dormit pulchellus puer’: Edmund Spoure’s commemoration of his son and heir Henry, at North Hill (Cornwall)

 The funeral monument erected towards the end of the seventeenth century by Edmund Spoure for his son and heir Henry (d. 1688), is a surprisingly large and architecturally unorthodox structure, which reaches to the roof of the south aisle of St Torney’s church, North Hill (Cornwall). The monument is complemented by a lavishly-illustrated manuscript (in private possession) which was completed by Edmund in 1694 and ‘Contains the Pedigrees of the Trebartha’s, and Spoures, with their Quarterings and Matches and the Draughts of their Tombs, with their Epitaphs, and Monumentall Inscriptions’. This article reveals layers of meaning which resonate between monument and manuscript, as an expression of grief, a celebration of Henry Spoure’s life, a commemoration of the Spoure lineage, and a work of didactic reference for Edmund’s daughter and heiress.

Monuments from The Foundling Hospital, London, now at Ashlyns School, Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire)

The Foundling Hospital, established in London in 1739, moved to new premises in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire) in 1935. The London buildings included a chapel with burial vaults beneath. When the old buildings were demolished the human remains were reinterred at Kensal Green Cemetery, but the associated monuments, some forty erected between 1751 and 1912, were taken to Berkhamsted. Most of them were placed in a crypt below the new chapel, and were soon forgotten. Some of the monuments are recorded by Rupert Gunnis and subsequently by Ingrid Roscoe, but their whereabouts were described as unknown. This article provides for the first time a complete list of the monuments, twenty-three of which are signed, identifying sixteen sculptors or stonemasons. Some provide significant additions to the oeuvre of established sculptors (Sarti, Denman) and there is one work by a firm (Packer and Summers) whose work appears not to be otherwise recorded.

Lost and Found: the Great War monument to Francis Mond by (George) Rayner Hoff in the church of St Mary the Virgin, Storrington (West Sussex)

 This article examines the monument to Francis Mond in the parish church of St Mary, Storrington (West Sussex), commissioned by Mond’s mother, Angela, and executed by (George) Rayner Hoff. Mond was killed towards the end of the Great War, and the monument epitomises not only the extraordinary genius of Hoff, still a young artist, but the sense of loss and mourning experienced by Angela Mond and her family. Hoff’s later powerful work for the Anzac Memorial in Australia is clearly linked with the Mond monument in West Sussex.