ON DERBYSHIRE PLUMBERY, OR WORKINGS IN LEAD. ?I 



days, but rather to put together a few notes and illustrations on 

 the ornamental working of lead, and the specimens that now 

 remam in Derbyshire. We should expect to find that plumbery 

 or the art of casting, preparing, and working lead, and using it on 

 buildings, and for various purposes, would reach to much perfec- 

 tion in the county that was essentially the home of the raw mate- 

 rial. Jne comparatively small amount of research that we have 

 been able to give to the subject, amply confirms this expectation. 

 Lead is an exceedingly malleable metal, and as its hardness is 

 increased by hammering, it soon commended itself to designers as 

 an ornamental as well as a useful and almost essent.al part of a 

 builders matenals. It is easily worked into any shape from its 

 great softness, and is sufficiently malleable to permit of two edges 

 folding ; over each other, so as to make it watertight without solder- 

 ing. Hence its veiy early use for roofs and cisterns 



Roofs were not only covered with lead, but the art-workman 

 put forth his cunning to treat it as a material capable of embellish- 

 ment, i he gutterS) „ says M> An(R „ were somedmeg 



of leaden troughs, stamped with a flower pattern, as at Lincoln 

 Cathedral ; and the ridges of the roofs were crested with a running 

 fleur-de-lis design in lead, as at Exeter." Sometimes, on old 

 roofs patterns may be noted that are always out of sight, save to 

 the builder or adventurous antiquary. Thus we noted a neat 

 escalloped bordering to some of the old lead ridges of the Per 

 pendicular roof of the nave of North Winneld church, when super- 

 intending its removal in 1872. 



A good deal of careful ornament was bestowed upon lead coffins 

 in medieval days, as proved by various instances that have been 

 accidentally brought to lights names, inscriptions, crests, coats of 

 arms, as well as set patterns, being worked in relief. There is a 

 certain amount of simple ornament on the wedge-shaped coffin of 

 the Countess of Shrewsbury, the ce.ebrated Eess o Hardwick 



faints , Derby, was opened on August 28th, 1879 



But the most important and interesting use of ornamental lead 

 work in connection with churches, is its occasional appropriation 



