Some Essex Brasses Recently Refixed: Transactions n.s. Volume 8

Some Essex Brasses Recently Refixed

By Miller Christy and W.W. Porteous

Extract from Transactions of Essex Archaeological Society, ‘new series’, Volume VIII, relating to Bowers Gifford

In the spring of 1898, Miss Florence M. Williams, then Churchwarden of Bowers Gifford, approached the Council of the Society and asked it to undertake the refixing of the brass in the church of Bowers Gifford, to the memory of Sir John Giffard, who died about the year 1348.

The brass in question is of quite exceptional interest. Not only is it of large size, but it is (with the exception of that to Sir Fitzralph, about 1320, at Pebmarsh, and that to Sir John de Wantone, 1347, at Wimbish) the earliest military effigy in the county; while the style of armour represented is, in certain respects, quite unique.

After having been long missing from the church, the brass was discovered, many years ago, in the possession of the late Major Spitty, of Billericay; and, owing to the representations of our former Hon. Secretary, the late Mr. H. W. King, was refixed in the church, about the year 1855, by the Rev. W. W. Tireman, then rector of Bowers Gifford (see Trans. Essex Archao. Soc, vol. i., pp. 93-98).

It appears, however, that, on this occasion, the work of fixing the brass was carried out ineffectually. The original stone into which the brass was let having disappeared, the brass was loosely rivetted on to a new slab of artificial stone. But the brass was not properly secured to the slab by means of rivets, and it was not let into a matrix, being simply fastened on to the surface. By the year 1898, therefore, the whole of it had again become loose, while the legs from the knees to the ankles had become detached from the stone altogether. The greater part of one leg had, indeed, been lost, whilst the other (which is in two portions) was loose in the church.

In view of these facts, the Council of the Society agreed to grant a sum of three guineas towards the cost of again refixing the brass, subject to the remainder of the cost being found locally and provided we were able to report that the work was about to be done satisfactorily. Mr. Christy visited the church, accordingly, and met, by appointment, the churchwarden (Miss Williams) and Sir Duncan Campbell, Bart., F.S.A. (Scot.), a parishioner, to discuss the best means of carrying out the work.

As a result, Mr. Christy recommended that the plate (which was bent and cracked by the force used originally to detach it from the stone) should be flattened properly; that the edges of the cracks and of the detached portions be brazed together; that a proper matrix be formed for its reception in a new slab; that it be securely fastened in the matrix by means of rivets; that the head, the lower part of the sword, the right leg, the left toe, and the marginal fillet (all of which are lost) should not be reproduced in brass, but that their probable outlines (other than those of the marginal fillet) should be indicated by incised lines cut in the stone; and that an inscribed plate be added, stating briefly who the effigy represents, its loss from and restoration to the church, and that it has been twice since refixed therein, on the latter occasion partly at the expense of the Essex Archaeological Society. In the end, the work was carried out quite satisfactorily by Mr. Henry Young, of Herongate.