Cast Lead 
DETAIL OF THE CISTERN AT POUNDISFORD 
decay,—nor to terra-cotta—which disinte¬ 
grates—nor to expensive cut stone or bronze. 
That malleable lead will honorably and per¬ 
manently fill these situations is fully proved 
by a few steps into its 
HISTORY 
Like that of all other metals, the story 
goes back to the youth of mother Earth, 
the numerous uses her younger generations 
made of lead being partially revealed by 
the relics of the Etruscans, the Greeks 
and the Romans. The household utensils 
and the weights and measures of the ancients 
were of no earlier origin than the primitive 
plummet of the builder — a tool which has 
been employed in unchanged form for ages. 
The lead cist<e in the museums of Naples 
and Rome and the lead coffins found in Eng¬ 
land and preserved in the British Museum, 
at Colchester and Lewes, combined utility 
with that quality, given by a human eye and 
hand, which gained them an entrance into the 
realm of art, and foretold the decorative 
possibilities of lead as later demonstrated. 
Numerous examples of Saxon fonts of lead 
still exist. Leaden sheets bearing inscrip¬ 
tions and ancient documents of lead can 
be studied today in the British Museum. 
Finials and crestings, incised or otherwise 
ornamented, may be found upon many old 
architectural landmarks throughout England, 
while to the ornate conductor heads of 
Haddon Hall, Bramshill, the Bodleian Li¬ 
brary and St. John’s College, Mr. J. Alfred 
Gotch and other architectural writers have 
directed attention in their published works. 
Owing to the mineral wealth of Britain, 
the metal was a ready material in the isles, 
but there is evidence that it was not abund¬ 
ance alone which led English builders to 
apply it to their roofs. There was undoubt¬ 
edly a predilection due to durability. In 
choosing it, the roofers surmounted the diffi¬ 
culty of securely fastening the lead sheets and 
arranging for their contraction and expansion. 
The record of lead roofing in Britain is punc¬ 
tuated by a church at Lindisfarne built in 638, 
Canterbury Cathedral, 1 160, and the famous 
palace of Nonesuch which Pepys visited in 
1 665 and found the uprights of its half-timber 
work covered with lead. “London was a city 
of lead spires,” says Mr. W. R. Lethaby. 1 
The old spire of St. Paul’s was of lead, and 
completed in 1221. All through England, 
indeed, were spires so covered to be found. 2 
The metal was exported from England to 
France and used by the Gothic builders for 
their roofs and spires, pinnacles, fleches, 
1 “ Leadwork,” by W. R. Lethaby, London and New York, 1893. 
2 Of these the following still exist: — The spire of Long Sutton, 
Lincolnshire, spires at Chesterfield, Godaiming, Almondsbury in 
Gloucestershire, Wrighton in Northumberland and at Harrow. 
A LEADEN FONT, BROOKLAND 
34 
