February, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



77 



The Revival of Artistic Hand -Wrought Iron Work 



A Unique Village Craft in England 



By Frederick Bottal 



HE progress of science and the development 

 of machinery has brought about a sad deca- 

 dence in an artistic type of home decora- 

 tion and embelhshment which in the Middle 

 Ages had an extensive vogue in Europe. 

 This is the industry of artistic hand- 

 wrought iron work. Specimens of this 

 work, which unfortunately have now become very rare, may 

 be seen in the old-world buildings, both public and private, 

 which have stood the storm of centuries in European coun- 

 tries, and which are now highly prized by their owners. In 

 fact, so rarely are examples of the work brought upon the 

 market that high values are realized. It was only recently 

 that a well-known English admirer of this handicraft pur- 

 chased a pair of gates executed in the sixteenth century for 

 the sum of $30,000. Indeed, some of the prices realized for 

 typical examples of this medieval handiwork have been most 

 fabulous, owing to the limit of the supply. The majority of 

 the remaining examples are now public property, and conse- 

 quently, being in the hands of the respective governments, 

 will now be impossible of acquisition by the amateur. 



The industry received its death blow from the advent of 

 mechanical methods of producing the work, both more ex- 

 peditiously and cheaply, albeit not so artistically or thor- 

 oughly. True, there are still in existence a certain number 

 of foundries or smithies where the art is practised, scattered 

 throughout France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy, but the art is 

 rapidly becoming a lost one, the present workers not possess- 

 ing the skill or artistic taste of their forefathers, who were 

 bred, born, lived, and died in the atmosphere and amid the 

 surroundings of the handicraft. In Great Britain, especially, 

 where two or three centuries ago there flourished numerous 

 villages and centers where the art was practised, the workers 

 lost their skill and taste for the craft, with the result that the 

 industry soon became quite extinct. 



Within recent years, however, there has been manifested a 

 revival of the handiwork, enthusiastically fostered by the 

 King and several members of the aristocracy, with the result 



that there has arisen a new demand for this type of decora- 

 tion. This revival is attributable to the energies of a lady, 

 Mrs. Edith Ames-Lyde, the Lady of the Manor of Thorn- 

 ham. She has so succeeded in imbuing the natives of the 

 village with a taste for the work that a flourishing industry 

 has been created. 



The village of Thornham is quite removed from the hum 

 and bustle of the manufacturing centers, situated as it is in 



Entrance Gates Made for the Countess of Warwick 



the agricultural county of Norfolk with the nearest township 

 some five miles distant. It is an old-world village, character- 

 istic of the remote parts of England. With its old-fashioned 

 houses, and its single straggling, dreary village street, and Its 



A Polished Black Iron Casket Made for Lady Rothschild 



Gates with Top Sections Executed in Carnations and Other Flowers 



