{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O301884"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O301884/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KD6233/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KD6233/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2017KD6233","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KD6226","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KD6232","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2014GW4055","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2014GW4053","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2014GW4054","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KP7241","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O301884/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O301884","accessionNumber":"W.4-1915","objectType":"Overmantel","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Plaster work. Composed of the following: \nW.4-1925: Panel forming the overmantel. In the centre are the arms of Savile: probably from Thomas Savile, of Copley, and Frances his wife. Over this is an arch supported by pilasters; above each pilaster is a mermaid, and a column with a flag.\n\nW.4-1925 A and B: Two portions of frieze on either side of the overmantel; the design consists of an arcading; the upper part filled with conventional design of pomegranates. The spaces within the arches are occupied by a small nude figure holding a bow, alternating with the arms of Savile.\n \nW.4-1925 C:Frieze of the same design as W.4 A and B.\n\nW.4-1925 D: Panel from the ceiling. In the centre are the arms of Savile, below which are the initials T.F.S. (Thomas and Frances Savile). The border is decorated with a band of trailing vines.\n\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"plaster","id":"AAT14922"}],"techniques":[{"text":"casting","id":"AAT53104"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Heraldry","id":"THES257728"},{"text":"Architectural fittings","id":"THES48994"},{"text":"Interiors","id":"THES48933"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2017KD6233","2017KD6226","2017KD6232","2014GW4055","2014GW4053","2014GW4054","2018KP7241"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340826"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES340832"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES397906"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES383948"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES340832"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"plasterwork","id":""}],[{"text":"plasterwork","id":""}],[{"text":"Frieze","id":""}],[{"text":"Plasterwork","id":""}],[{"text":"plasterwork","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1600-1625","earliest":"1600-01-01","latest":"1625-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Bought for £20 from the Trustees of the Hennet-Dawson Estates, per messrs Thorold, Brodie, and Bonham-Castle, 4 Regent Street, SW. (RP 14/2012M and 15/777M)\r\nFive pieces form the 'Volunteer Arms', formerly 'The Old Hall', Copley, near Halifax. 'Cracked and damaged.'\r\nW.4A-1925 recorded as deaccessioned 58/2540Y and 58/2681 - but this does not seem to have been carried through.\n\nMA/1/K370 (RP 15/777) - Notes  (2020)\r\nCorrespondence (1914-15) between the museum (H. Clifford Smith and E. F. Strange, Keeper  of Woodwork), trustees for the Volunteer Arms (Thorold, Brodie [‘one of the former owners’] and Bonham-Carter), and John Lister of Shibden Hall (a local antiquarian who had written about medieval Halifax).\n\r\nThe Volunteer Arms was understood locally to have formerly been a hunting lodge of the Kennet-Dawson family, turned into an inn by the development of Halifax. The plaster work under discussion was described as ‘decorating the walls of a parlour adjoining the bar of a small inn’ (24/7/1914), and consisting of ‘a long side and an end (overmantel) of a room. The side could be repeated to form a bay similar to the Exeter Room. The work of removing it would occupy two men about 10 days & presents no great difficulties.' (19/5/1914) Evidently, there was also a portion of plaster ceiling from which a coat of arms was eventually acquired.\n\r\nIn April 1914 Arthur G. Mason of the V&A Art Work Room reported on the planned removal of the ‘painted plaster frieze, with coat of arms’, having visited the site with Strange, noting that the frieze on left hand side of room (11’ 3” x 2’ 5”) could be removed easily, being on a stud partition. ‘On the side of the room containing the fireplace, there are two portions of frieze, one at each end, one 3’ 3” x 2’ 5”, the other 3’ 6” x 2’ 7”, over the mantelpiece, over all, 6’ 3” x 4’ wide. This side, would be a difficult side to obtain, on account of the plaster, being on a stone wall. But, by slicing the two outside panels off first, the small panels, on each side of the central coat of arms, could then be taken, leaving the central piece to be taken away, which I think could all be done safely and satisfactorily.’ The work would require Mason and one man for 10 days, estimated.\n\r\nThe museum regarded the plaster as very interesting and important in regard to design and workmanship ‘& differs from all in our collection. The treatment of the heraldry is especially valuable’. It wished to secure the work and initially considered two options, the removal of the plaster and taking a cast from it. In July 1914 the museum felt it was in a strong position, offering a minimal sum to purchase, in view of the recent unsuccessful attempt to sell plaster work at Argyll Place, and agreed on a purchase price of £20 plus costs of removal. The estate trustees initially required that the museum should take all risk of damage being incurred to the plaster during the necessary dismantling of the building itself, and its removal, which caused consternation in South Kensington lest the plaster be damaged during the dismantling of the building before the plaster could be removed, and the trustees agreed that the museum could withdraw from the sale if the plaster was found to have been damaged following the 1914 inspection. Removal of plaster was to take place once the new inn had been constructed, and by 8/3/1915 it had arrived safely at South Kensington in 3 main sections (1) frieze of side wall, 2) overmantel and two pieces of frieze, 3) shield of arms from ceiling).\r\n\nIn June 1915 Lister supplied a pedigree of the Savile family of Copley [noted on the papers as Fairfax], and four photographs of the plaster in situ (‘retained’ in FWK but location uncertain), and notes: that the plaster work was locally supposed to have been done by Italian workmen (which he supposes to be ‘doubtless true’). Lister dismissed the hypothesis of the museum that the heraldry represented was that of Sir John Savile (1545-1606), a Lord of the Exchequer, and of his wife (3rd) Dorothy, daughter of Lord Wentworth and widow of the famous Sir Martin Frobisher (d.1595). He rejected the  idea of a family connection with the Wentworth family, on the grounds that it involved another (Methley) branch of the Savile family. He suggested that the initials TFS refer to Thomas Savile (baptized 16 May 1602) and one of his two wives: (1) Frances Preyn of London, or (2) Frances, daughter of George Dawson of Agerley, (presumably whichever of the two bore in their family arms a chevron with three lions heads),  and whose eldest son was baptised (‘apparently’) 24 August 1641 – and this hypothesis was the one that the museum adopted in its cataloguing.\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"For similar plasterwork, with the arms of Savile, see: 'Chimney piece, The old Cock Inn, Halifax', in Ambler, L., Old Halls and manor Houses of Yorkshire(London, 1913) Pl. XXII","briefDescription":"Plasterwork overmantel, English, 1600-1625, from the 'Volunteer Arms', formerly 'The Old Hall', Copley, near Halifax, Yorkshire","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Newspaper article from the Halifax Guardian, April 18, 1914, 'COPLEY OLD HALL. Historic House to be Demolished. Halifax at the Norman Conquest'\r\n\r\n'The old ‘Volunteers Arms,’at Copley, widely known to antiquaries and others as Copley Hall, the ancient branch of the Copley branch of the Savile family is to be pulled down, and entirely rebuilt during the coming summer. Forming, as it does, a valuable link with the past from an architectural and historical point of view, the house has been the objective many antiquarian society excursions, from Halifax and elsewhere, but with antiquity weighed in the balance against lack of modern convenience and facility, it has been found wanting, and the owners, the executors of the late Mr. Benjamin Kennett Dawson, have decided that it shall be pulled down, and re-placed by an up-to-date and thoroughly equipped inn.\r\nThe original Copley Hall is stated to have been built in 1050, and there are some who hold that parts of the building still remain, and that they were only encased with stone when the present building was erected in the fifteenth century.'\n\nArticle refers to the oak beams and the plaster ceilings with Savile arms 'which form a frieze in the tap-room will be embodied in the smoking room of the new inn, but this is not yet certain, as representatives of the South Kensington Museum and several London antiquaries are coming down to Copley to view them through the publicity given by the London solicitors of the owners, and there is thus a possibility that they may be sold....In what is now the tap room there are still to be seen on the walls some examples of ornamental plaster work of the 17th century in which are worked the armorial bearings of the Saviles, and some of the families with whom they inter married. In some of the chambers there also remains some plaster decoration of a bold a pleasing design.'\n\nArticle refers to the knighting of John Savile of Copley (aet. 25 in 1666), whose daughter Mary married Lord Thomas Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk, and who became the mother of the 11th Duke. In the early 19th century the Duke sold the Copley estate to Walker of Huddersfield, from whom it passed to the Walker-Dawson family and Benjamin Kennett, and eventually to Richard Kennett Dawson who died 'a few years ago' [c.1900]\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"'Copley Old Hall. Historic house to be demolished' in The Halifax Guardian (April 18, 1914)."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Hugh P Kendall, ‘Seventeenth Century Plasterwork in the Parish of Halifax, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 26 (1922), pp 144-52 (plate III, figs. 6 and 7\r\n'In fig 6 we have heraldic decoration which does actually establish a connection with the owner of the house at the period, for in the Savile arms we are reminded of Thomas  Savile, who resided at Copley Hall, and can also roughly assign a date to the work, shortly after 1632. The hand work is again obvious in the helm and mantling, and the same moulds are employed around the shield as in fig.3 [Marsh Hall, Northowram]. At each side at the top will be noticed the figure of a mermaid holding a looking-glass and comb, a detail we shall see appearing in other examples.\r\nThis plasterwork has been most barbarously treated by being painted and varnished, and therefore it was difficult to photograph. The accompanying frieze is shown in fig. 7, wherein the Savile arms occur. Copley Hall has now been taken down and a new one built (it had long been a licensed house), and the plasterwork was purchased by the authorities of the National Museum at South Kensington, so that there is a reasonable chance of its preservation  and restoration to its pristine sharpness, although it is to be regretted that it is lost to the county of York..."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Rowland Bretton, ‘Seventeenth-Century Plasterwork’, Transactions of Halifax Antiquarian Society (1967), pp. 115-22."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["W.4-1915","W.4B-1915","W.4C-1915","W.4D-1915","W.4A-1915"],"accessionNumberNum":"4","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1915,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","plasterwork [1]","plasterwork [2]","Frieze","Plasterwork","plasterwork [3]"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-05","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":false}}