LEADWORK 



345 



FIG. 267. Lead Cistern in the possession of Mr L. A. Shuffrey. 



front of the museum at Leicester (Fig. 266). 1 The four 

 examples shown in Figs. 268-271 are of far simpler design, but 

 they are worth careful study, and are typical of the ordinary 

 work of the time. In the gate from Acton the solid work is 

 aptly introduced and gives it richness and importance ; the 

 others exhibit a judicious combination of simplicity and richness 

 which is quite admirable. Indeed the ironwork of the early part 

 of the eighteenth century has never been bettered either in 

 design or execution. 



Ornamental leadwork was a characteristic feature of English 

 houses as early as the time of Elizabeth, and many beautiful 

 rain-water heads of that period still survive. They had worthy 

 successors all through the seventeenth century and well into 

 the eighteenth. Some of the rain-water heads at St John's 

 College, Oxford, of the time of Charles I., are splendid things 

 of their kind. Many houses built during the next hundred years 

 retain fine examples of similar features (Fig. 272), and indeed, 

 as long as it was necessary to fashion such things by hand, the 



1 This work is attributed by Mr Starkie Gardner to a skilful smith 

 named Robert Davies. 



