Stock No: 9061

THE KIRKDALE MANOR CHIMNEYPIECE.
A rare and splendid carved oak and stone English Renaissance Jacobean Revival chimneypiece almost identical to the one from The Old Palace, Bromley By Bow, built circa 1606 reputed to be the Hunting Lodge of King James I and whose Heraldic Coat of Arms are on the overmantel. The original firpeplace is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington - see image attatched.
This Jacobean Revival version is made to the same massive scale, and is also intricately carved with the same delightful features, the Ionic capitals over the pilaster jambs supporting a bolection moulded frieze of intricate strapwork and lion heads punctuated by caryatids, supporting two fluted niches divided by Ionic fluted columns. On this KIRKDALE MANOR version is the Heraldic Coat of Arms of the Beckett Family, whose house it was, and their Motto in Latin "PRODESSE CIVIBUS", beneath a Boars Head symbolising hunting, feasting and plenty, under a jutting strapwork cresting.
The stone interior beautifully carved in high relief with the same pair of confronted Peregrine Falcons centered by an urn, amongst scrolling acanthus flanked by the winged lions, the inner frame of beading and acanthus leaves, the jambs with inner fluting and basal panelling,.
English circa 1890. ( photo before restoration, cleaning and re-polishing ).

PROVENANCE : We have recently carefully removed this dazzling example of English Renaissance Revival carved pageantry together with the complete panelled room, some of which we beleive to be part of the original Old Palace panelling , see stock no 9063, from Kirkdale Manor, Nawton, North Yorkshire which was built for the Beckett family shortly after the removal of the original fireplace from The Old Palace Bromley by Bow , in 1894, after great public outcry, orchestrated by Charles Robert Ashbee, against the demolition of The Old Palace and the later relocation of the chimneypiece first to THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM (which steel framed structure was dismantled and relocated to Bethnal Green ) then to the V & A Museum when it opened on the South Ken site in 1906.

Link to: Antique Renaissance, Gothic Tudor Fireplace mantels and Chimneypieces: 1260 - 1600