The position was an important one in the Stuart Court for, in the days before proper sanitation, the Herb Woman’s main duty was to strew sweet smelling herbs and flowers around the King’s apartments to mask the rather foul smells that could then emanate from the dark corners of Whitehall Palace, from uncovered sewers and drains and from the London rivers, notably the Thames.

Bridgit received a salary of £12 per annum for being the

garnisher and trimmer of the chapel, presence and privy lodgings

She also received another £12 per annum for strewing herbs around the private apartments of Queen Catherine of Braganza, who was Charles II’s wife. It might interest you to know that in addition to her salary, the Herb-woman received two yards of superfine scarlet woollen cloth for a livery uniform.  The last full time Herb Strewer was  Mary Rayner, who was employed in the Royal Household from 1798 until 1836.

However, she was obviously not smart enough socially for Geroge IV, who, as we know, wanted to present his very particular vision of monarchy at his Coronation. He appointed a friend, Miss Anne Fellowes, to replace Mary Rayner as the Herbs-woman in the Coronation Procession. Miss Fellowes was  about 50 years of age at the time of the Coronation in 1821. One of her duties was to choose six young attendants, who would follow her in the Coronation procession.

In fact, the Herb-woman and her  attendants led the procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. In my anonymous account of the Coronation, published in 1821 there is a description of the Herb-woman and her attendants  assembling in Westminster Hall, just prior to the Coronation taking place, and it give  us some idea of their appearance :

Soon after 8 o’ clock Mr Fellowes led into the hall Miss Fellowes who afterwards preceeded the procession on the royal platform as His Majesty’s Herb Woman; she was attended by Miss Bond, Miss G. Collier, Miss Caldwell,  Miss Hill,  Miss Daniel and Miss Walker, in the character of assistant maids. Miss Fellowes was attired in a magnificent dress of white satin with a mantle of the finest scarlet cloth, trimmed with gold and lined with white satin, and she bore a splendid gold badge and chain. The head dress was of gold wheat intermixed with grapes and laurel leaves. This was appropriate and elegant in the highest degree.

The attendant maids wore white crape dress over rich white satin, with an appropriate sash of flowers suspended from the shoulder to the bottom of the skirt and flowers tastefully arranged in the trimming, with Gabriel ruffs; the head dresses of these ladies  consisted of chaplets of flowers to correspond with the general designs of their dress.

Miss Fellowes carried a most beautiful basket, filled with the choicer and most rare flowers and the attendant young ladies bore, in pairs,  three baskets of elegant construction,  formed for two persons and filled with a similar profusions of Flora’s bounty. The flower baskets were brought into the Hall and placed opposite to the ladies, who were accommodated with chars at the extremity of the Hall.

Here from the same pamphlet, is the Order of the Coronation Procession, showing the Herb-woman and her attendants leading the way: One of the Attendant’s costumes was on show along with George IV’s Coronation Robe at the Dress for Excess Exhibit at the Brighton Pavilion which ended last Sunday:

It’s Gabriel Ruff, which echoed the costume of  the Tudor period, in keeping with George’s ” historic” theme,  is missing, but you can see that it accords early well with the description above .  

The delicate pleating of the crepe material can be seen in this photograph of the rear view of the costume.

The garland- with its pink fabric roses- is terribly delicate and I am amazed it has survived. This dress was worn at the  Coronation by Miss Sarah Ann Walker.

Though the Herb-woman no longer has any ceremonial or practical functions in the Royal Household, you might be interested to note that she still exists. Ms Jessica Fellowes, whom I believe is the niece of Julian Fellowes and is also author of the Downton Abbey book, claims the title by descent, and if you go here you can see her opening the Herb Society’s garden at Sulgrave Mnanor.

Regency ephemera buffs will also like to see this panorama roll of the Coronation , which shows some illustrations of the Herb-Woman’s attendants in the procession to Westminster Abbey, and which is in the collection of the South Australian Government. I covet it very badly.

Next, the costume worn at the Coronation by the Barons of the Cinque Ports.

George IV’s coronation in 1821 was the most spectacular and certainly the most expensive English coronation up to that point in history. But knowing George and his extravagances as we do, it would have been surprising had it not been anything else. Jane Austen would no doubt have been horrified by it all. She was no admirer of George, his morals or his politics and she especially detested his treatment of his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. In a letter to her great friend, Martha Lloyd dated 16th February 1813 she wrote:

Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman and because I hate her Husband

She would, I am sure,have been horrified by the fact that, despite still being his wife- albeit now estranged and discredited- Caroline was banned from the ceremony  and turned away from the doors of the Abbey itself.  However, this post is not meant to be a definitive account of the coronation- there are may of those available to read in print and on the internet- but merely to look at the some of costumes worn, and which were recently on display at George IV’s seaside folly, The Royal Pavilion at Brighton, in the Dress for Excess exhibition, which closed on Sunday.

Note I use the term “costumes” for however else can you really describe these items of clothing? They were not fashionable, contemporary clothes, but were extravagant costumes deliberately designed to give the onlooker the definite impression of watching the ancient customs of an ancient royal family. They were based on designs from the Tudor era to give the impression of antiquity.

Today we shall look at the sumptuous train that George IV wore. Here is George in his coronation robes and splendour, as painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence:

The reason for the references to past times was that George desperately wanted to out shine Napoleon’s coronation- a new comer to the scene- which had taken  place in Paris in 1804, and here is David’s spectacular  version of it ( in which Josephine very calculatedly steals the show!)  for you to compare  Napoleon’s neoclassical vision with George’s mock Tudor version:

Below is the engraving of George in his robes by James Stephanoff . One of the engravings for the illustrations which were included in Sir George Nayler’s commemorative book, The Coronation of George IV ( 1821)

This shows the King attired in the robe and train, and, as yet, uncrowned. He is followed by his attendants, depicted as they would have walked in the procession to Westminster Abbey, where the coronation took place, from their marshalling point in Westminster Hall. The King’s attendants were eight sons of Peers, and the Master of the Robes. The lucky eight peer’s sons were( from left to right) the Earl of Surrey, the Marquess of Douro, Viscount Cranborne, the Earl of Brecknock, the Earl of Uxbridge, the Earl of Rocksavage, the Earl of Rawdon and  Viscount Ingestre. The last figure is of Lord Francis Conyngham who was the Master of the Robes.

This is how  this part of the Coronation procession was described in an anonymous but contemporary report of the Coronation,  A Brief Account of the Coronation of His Majesty George IV, July 19th 1821″ :

The King in the Royal Robes wearing a cap of estate, adorned with jewels, under a canopy of cloth of Gold bourne by 16 Barons of the Cinque Ports. His Majesty’s train bourne by 8 eldest Sons of Peers, assisted by the Master of the Robes.

Note nothing was said about George’s luxuriant brown wig, which he also wore to give an impression of youth…

Here is a print  from that same account showing the Coronation procession snaking from Westminster Hall, past St Margaret’s Parish Church, on to the Abbey on the right of the print:

The train that George IV wore was kept in the Royal Collection until the 1830s when it was sold to Madame Tussauds. Here is a photograph of the train as it is now, and how it appeared on show in the Gallery at the Pavilion:

©Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove, photographer Jim Holden.

The train now measures 16 feet long and is beautifully embroidered in silver wire.  The border is made of  representations and trophys of the emblems of the United Kingdon, again in silver wire. The main body of the train is embroidered with stylised “Tudor” roses. The train is made of crimson velvet. Do please click on the photograph , which I have been given special permission to use by Brighton Museum Service, so that you can see the details of the embroidery.

So, while it is debatable that George managed to out-do Napoleon in splendour ( or indeed, taste),it is interesting to  know that French money- part of the reparations paid to Britain for the Napoleonic wars- was used to pay for this spectacle. Here is a scan of my copy of  an Account of the Money Expended  at His Majesty’s Coronation:

If you click on the image and enlarge it you can see that the furnishing and the decoration of Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall, the Regalia ( which included the fabulous Hope Diamond and  12,314 “hired” diamonds from the firm of Rundell Bridge and Rundell of Ludgate Hill) ...the Dresses etc of the Persons attending and performing the various Duties..cost £111,172 9 shillings and 10 pence. An astounding sum of money.  The French money- some £138,238- had been paid to Britain as part of the reparations after the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. Even so, the total cost of the Coronation was an eye watering  £238,238 and 2 pence. This is equivalent today to something between £9 and 18 million.

Next, the costumes of the Herb Women .

In her letter to her sister Cassandra Austen, dated 16th September 1813, Jane Austen wrote:

We then went to Wedgwoods where my Brother and Fanny chose a Dinner Set. I believe(sic) the pattern is a small Lozenge in purple, between Lines of narrow Gold, and it is to have the Crest.

Here is a photograph of some of these pieces which still exist and are on display in the Jane Austen’s House Museum:

You can see that these pieces of china are, indeed, decorated as Jane Austen described them:

And the Knight family crest is added to each piece, which can be seen at the top centre of each border of purple lozenges.

The crest of the Knight family is a friar. Here is its technical description:

Crests:  a friar, habited ppr., holding in the dexter hand a cinquefoil,arg., and in the sinister , a cross suspended from the wrist, the breast charged with a rose, gu, for Knight.

(See: A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain (1852) by Sir Bernard Burke).

So , therefore, you can see that the Knight crest is a friar wearing a purple habit, holding in his right hand a five petalled flower, and having a cross suspended from his left wrist. The purple of the heraldic crest is reflected in the purple of the design on the china.

Burke’s book explains that, Edward Knight…

… whose patronymic was AUSTEN assumed the surname  and arms of KNIGHT upon inheriting the estates of that family.

Do note that you can enlarge all these image to see every detail. And so, I think we have finally come to the end of this series But there is a little post script to the entry in Burke’s for Knight of Godmersham, and I thought you might like to read it:

The Rev.Geroge Austen who m. Miss Cassandra Leigh and had issue…..Jane b 16 Dec. 1775 and d. 18 July 1817. This lady acquired high reputation as a novelist and has left behind her some of the best modern productions in that walk of literature. we need only name “Sense and Sensibility” ” Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma”. Miss Austen’s style was her own- domestic, interesting and original.

Jane’s fame, indeed.

You might be interested in his very kind offer for readers of Austenonly:

Would your readers be interested in a discount voucher?  I can offer a lovely 25% off some of our more popular designs, including P&P (erm, that’s Pride and Prejudice.  Sadly, I still have to charge for postage.  Ahem.)

http://www.spinelessclassics.com/voucher/austenonly

So, if you would like to purchase one or more of his really fabulous prints, go through the link above to his site to take advantage of the 25% discount.

Spineless Classics are simply a wonderful idea. The concept is quite simple:  take a whole novel and print it on one page- legibly, mind- , as a wallposter, often with a silhouette in the design that is appropriate to the novel/book in question.

Pride and Prejudice has been given the Spineless Classics treatment, complete with a silhouette of Darcy and Elizabeth (inspired by the 2005 version with Keria Knightly, if I am not mistaken) set into the text…

Three other works by Jane Austen have been similarly treated. Mansfield Park, below, with a ghostly silhouette of “Mansfield House” hugging the bottom line of the design :

Emma, which contains the silhouette Of L’amiable Jane , a silhouette supposedly of Jane Austen that is now in the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection;

and finally Persuasion:

I’ve not yet seen one of these poster in real life, but they are supposed to be legible, especially if you have 20-20 vision.

In addition to posters, the same company provide sets of postcards which have a complete short story printed on them; below we have the example of the tale of How the Camel got his Hump from the Just-So Stories by Rudyard Kipling…

And for a limited time they are selling an Alice In Wonderland jigsaw…I covet it.

Other authors than Jane Austen have had their titles given the Spineless treatment. My favourite  has to be Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie:

Ideally, I can envisage using these to wallpaper a small room….I thought you might like to share them too. Roll on next Christmas, as I’m sure some of my fellow Janeites will find these in their festive stockings.

Persuasion, Chapter 12.

Last week I bored you all silly by my explanations of livery, the significance of livery colours and how they were worn in Jane Austen’s era by  certain servants of the rich. Today I’d like to consider livery and coaches, for it is an integral part of the livery story and we ought to discuss it for the sake of completeness.

The passage from Persuasion quoted above is so gloriously funny-I love the way this glimpse of William Walter sets Mary Musgrove on to long descriptions of  the Elliot Countenance -( shade of Mrs Austen and the Austen nose, perhaps?) – but it draws our attention to how livery was used, and how significant it was. Because Mr Elliot’s servant is in mourning for Mr Elliot’s dead wife,  -he is wearing black, not the usual livery of a coachman-  Mary Musgrove is unable to recognise the orange cuffs and capes of the Elliot livery.  She was also frustrated in making a positive identification of her father’s errant heir by the fact that his Arms, painted onto the side panel of his curricle, are hidden from view by a great-coat.

If you were wealthy enough to afford a carriage and all its attendant expenses, and, of course, you were possessed of Arms, then you could have these painted on your coach to announce to the world just who was the owner of the vehicle.  Jane Austen’s father, George Austen, at one point owned a carriage when they lived at Steventon, and this was decorated with teh Austen crest. In Jane Austen : A Family Record by Deirdre le Faye, we find these comments:

It seems that by now Mr Austen’s income was reasonably good, because entries in his bank account suggest that in the summer of 1784 he brought a chariot- a small carriage drawn by two horses and carrying three passengers- for the benefit of his wife and daughters.

(Page 50)

Anna Austen, the daughter of  Jane’s eldest brother, James Austen, wrote about local rumours that spread about the carriage -which was either new or newly repainted-at the time of her uncle, Henry Austen’s marriage to Eliza de Feuillide in December 1797, and this is also quoted in Le Faye’s book:

About the time of  Mr Henry Austen’s marriage with his first Wife his father set up a carriage which not unnaturally, joe on its panels( pic) the family crest; namely a Stag on a Crown Mural. The latter circumstance was accounted for, in his own way, by a neighbouring Squire, who reported that “Mr Austen had put a coronet on his carriage because of his son’s being married to a French Countess”.

THis is one of George Austen’s bookplates, and it is decorated with the Austen crest,  quite as Anna Austen described it. This would have appeared on his coach, on the side door panel. The squire mentioned by Anna Austen- a Digweed?- obvious was not aware that Mr Austen was entitle to bear his own arms and crest. The glory of the Austen’s coach was short lived: in 1798 it was put away in storage for new taxes imposed on carriage owners made it far too expensive for George Austen to continue to maintain.

If we look at some images of carriage from the time, it will become clear as to where the Arms would have been on show. These images are all taken from my copy of William Felton’s Treaties on Carriages: comprehending coaches, chariots, phaetons, curricles, whiskeys, &c. : together with their proper harness (1794). Fenton was a London coachmaker and his book, in two volumes, gives us a mass of intricate detail as to how  carriages  in the late 18th century were made, complete with all their fittings.

The first we shall consider is a chariot, in this case a neat town chariot.

You can see, and do remember you can enlarge all these images by clicking on them, in order to examine the details, that the coat of arms of the owner and his crest are placed centrally on the door and side panel of the coach. You can appreciate  that the arms and crest of the owner are clearly visible and would be very noticeable to any passer-by.

And here, below, is  an image of an elegant Chariot, very elaborately decorated, but again with the arms of the owner clearly visible on the door panel.

Mr Elliot is riding from Lyme to Bath in a curricle, that smart gentleman-about-town’s vehicle so beloved of Charles Musgrove, who was eager to compare it with his own,

They had nearly done breakfast, when the sound of a carriage (almost the first they had heard since entering Lyme) drew half the party to the window. It was a gentleman’s carriage, a curricle, but only coming round from the stable-yard to the front door — somebody must be going away. It was driven by a servant in mourning.

Here is  Felton’s impression of a Proper Curricle:

Here is Felton’s page illustrating the different ways in which Arms could be used to decorate a coach:

They range from the simple to the hideous in my very humble opinion.Here is his price list for adding such ornament to a vehicle :

So, that is why Mary Musgrove’s attempts to identify the owner of the curricle were stymied: in this case neither the arms nor the livery  of the servant could help her because neither were on show.

I ought to tell you, however that, had Mr Elliot been in a larger coach, and  had  he and his servant not been in mourning for his unlamented wife, there was another way to discern the identity of the owner. Hammer clothes, which covered the coachman’s seat and which could be very decorative items, were also another way to identify the family’s livery, as they were often made in livery colours and could be embroidered with representations of the family’s coat of arms. Here is Felton’s description of them:

Hammer-cloths are among the principal ornaments in a carriage; they are a cloth covering to the coachman’s seat, made to various patterns agreeable to the occupier’s fancy. The fullness of the plaiting of the cloth , its depth and the quality of the trimmings thereon proportions the expense (sic-jfw) to almost any amount…

And here are some very elaborate examples:

John Cussans , in The Handbook of Heraldry, tells us  that

The Colours of Hammercloths are regulated by the same laws as liveries.

Page 314.

Now, I have no reference for this but I doubt that a colourful hammer cloth covered in gold or silver lace and made in the heraldic colours of a family’s livery would be on show  at a time of full mourning. If the servant who normally would have worn  livery was dressed in black due to the custom of mourning, then I feel sure that a hammer cloth would also be subdued in hue. So if one had been on display it would still not have helped Mary Musgrove locate the owners identity in the inn- yard at Lyme. But as Mr Elliot was in a curricle and not a larger coach, no hammer cloth was to be seen. Poor Mary, therefore could only rely on her  interpretation of The Elliot Countenance, and the information supplied to them by the waiter.

On Sunday the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow programme highlighted two picture which have echoes of Sense and Sensibility for us, and so I thought you might like to see them.

They were early 19th century silk needlework pictures, circa 1800, set in mounts which were made of filigree work.

Here are close-ups of the figures in the picture on the right…

If you enlarge the image by clicking on it, you will see details of the embroidery, typical of the period.

And also note that the faces and arms of the figures are painted onto the background material, which is possibly of silk too.

The mounts are filled with filigree work, where the patterns are formed by massing together rolled pieces of paper to  give a similar effect to filigree work made from strings or threads of precious metals such as gold or sliver, hence its name.

For more detail on filigree work  and how it was made, go here. It was, of course, this type of work that Jane Austen referred to in Chapter 23 of Sense and Sensibility:

.“Perhaps,” continued Elinor, “if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible, I think, for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it.”

These crafts were the type of “accomplishments” that  were taught in the fashionable ladies academies. Such as the one that Jane Austen’s sister-in-law,Elizabeth Bridges, who married Jane’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, attended. In Jane Austen: A Family Record by Deirdre Le Faye, we learn that

She (Elizabeth-jfw) and her sister are all graceful, brown-haired beauties, who had been educated in London at the “Ladies Eton”,  the boarding school in Queen Square, Bloomsbury run by the Misses Stevenson exclusively for the Daughters of the nobility and gentry. The academic content of the curriculum was minimal and the pupils learned little more than French, music and dancing while strong emphasis was placed on social etiquette- an old coach was kept propped up in a back room so that the girls would practise the art of getting in and out of it in a modest and elegant manner.

Page 70.

Here is a trade card for one such school, this time in Chelsea, dating from 1797:

This is the type of establishment that Charlotte Palmer no doubt attended, and her silk picture landscape, hung in her old room at Mrs Jennings’ town house, is the only tangible result of all her “efforts” there:

The house was handsome and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte’s, and over the mantlepiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.

Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 26.

Clearly, Jane Austen had a low opinion of such schools, and much preferred the type of “honest” education that she experienced at  the Reading Ladies Boarding School housed in the old Reading Abbey. This was the model for Mrs Goddard’s school in Emma. Mrs Goddard’s school was certainly not one of these smart seminaries. I often do wonder what Jane Austen’s sister-in-law made of Jane’s barbed attacks on the type of establishment she attended, for she repeated it in Pride and prejudice too: the Miss Bingley’s were also “educated’ at one of these places.

The edition of the Antiques Roadshow, the tenth in this series, filmed at Bletchley Park, is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer, here – for another five days. The items appeared approximately 20 minutes into the show and were valued at £2000 for the pair.

Last week I reviewed Vauxhall Gardens: A History by David Coke and Alan Borg. That book, while fascinating, gigantic in size and scope, and well worth its price, is rather expensive and I wanted to point you in the way of a more reasonably-priced soft cover book on the same topic,  The English Pleasure Garden by Sarah Jane  Downing, published by Shire.

This is not a very large book, only 64 page in all, but it manages to be a comprehensive overview on the subject of those lost pleasure gardens, which  were such a feature of 18th /early 19th century life. It does not concentrate on one garden, but gives the reader a clear view of the rather short history of these gardens from their Stuart beginnings to their sad Victorian end.

There are chapters on the London gardens, and you may be interested to know that Vauxhall and Ranelagh were not the only gardens to visit. There were 64 pleasure gardens in London and its environs during this period. Here is a picture of one of the more rural pleasure gardens, Sadlers Wells, in Islington, then a small village just outside the city of London.

In the 18th century it was a place to take the waters, hence the name “wells”  but today it is rather more well-known as the site of a theatre famous for staging dance in all  its forms.

The seedier side of 18th century life that these gardens attracted is also addressed; here is an image from the late 18th century illustrating an intoxicated woman returning  home very late (or, more probably, early in the morning!) from a masquerade. This type of image illustrated the growing concern for the immoral effect of  masquerades, an entertainment that Ranelagh  was famous for  promoting.

A fascinating section of the book is its chapters on provincial pleasure gardens.  Sydney Gardens in Bath is included, of course, and we all know that Jane Austen lived opposite them at Sydney Place when she first moved to Bath from Steventon in 1801.

But is it very interesting to read of other, less famous gardens in  Norwich, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne- so at least Lydia Wickham had one to attend to enjoy its weekly concerts!-and the lost pleasure garden of Duddeston in  Birmingham, seen below, in a very rare image:

In so small a book something has to give: and that is first, the size of the illustrations. However they are many  and varied and very useful. And the  details can be easily seen by the use of a magnifying glass. Second, citations. It would have been helpful to have more sources listed other than the occasional acknowledgement to a museum or library. But, that would had added to both the size and cost of the book. Some things we have to forgive.

Overall, it is a very useful starting point for understanding these lost but once magical places. I can throughly recommend this book to you.

The Chapel at Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, above,  has long been considered to have been Jane Austen’s inspiration for the chapel at Southerton in Mansfield Park.  She visited the great mansion in 1806, which was inherited by her cousin, the Reverend Thomas Leigh, and I have written about her visit and the grounds before,  here and here.

The Chapel and its communion table were featured in Friday’s edition of Bargain Hunt on BBC One and  I thought you might like to see some pictures of both the Chapel and the table,  taken from that programme.

The Chapel is a most beautiful, austere double height room, with very little ornament, as you can see. This is the view from the family gallery. It is all very similar to the way Mr Rushworth’s Sotherton’s chapel was described in Mansfield Park:

Fanny’s imagination had prepared her for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of the family gallery above.

No wonder then that  Fanny, who had been imagining something more Gothic and dark, full of banners and ancient tombs, was rather  disappointed in the cool elegance of the Chapel at Sotherton:

“This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no arches, no inscriptions, no banners. No banners, cousin, to be ‘blown by the night wind of heaven.’ No signs that a ‘Scottish monarch sleeps below.’”

“You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. There you must look for the banners and the achievements.”

“It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed.”

Mansfield Park, Chapter 9

In 1763 Stoneleigh’s owner, the 5th Lord Leigh, decided to refurbish his mansion and engaged William Gomm, the cabinet maker of Clerkenwell in London, to provide 150 new pieces of furniture. The finest piece he made for the house was the communion, or altar table designed to stand below the beautiful reredos in the chapel, which can be seen below.

The table, which was created and delivered to Stoneligh in 1764,  is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but is now on long term loan to Stoneleigh so that it can be seen and appreciated in its original setting:

The table is made of mahogany, thickly veneered over an oak carcass: you can see the underside of the table, below

It is beautifully carved…

in the rococo style…

The legs are festooned with garlands of flowers…

and all four legs are carved form a solid block of mahogany which would originally have been 15 inches wide, 15 inches deep and 32 inches high.

The central section of the table’s apron, which hangs below its top surface,  is dominated by a beautiful carving of a cherub, which very cleverly echoes the plaster-work cherubs

that decorate the Chapel. These are set around the organ which can be seen in the first floor family gallery. which over looks the main body of the chapel. There were made by the Worcester stuccoist, John Wright when the chapel was first built.

The intricate decoration on the legs and apron of the table was very calculatedly done: it was meant to be seen below, from the level of the floor, as people would have been kneeling before it, in order to take the sacrament. The table would have been elevated  on the slight dias as it stood  before the reredos. The view the congregation would have  had therefore was considered very carefully by Gomm.

The bill  for all the items of furniture made by Gomm is still in existence.

The total cost of the 150 pieces of furniture was an astounding £818 and 9 shillings…

and we know that the table cost £31, 10 shillings. This is an astounding amount, especially  when you consider that  in 1806 Jane Austen inherited £50  from a friend of the Leigh Perrots, and was consequently able to live well on that amount all through 1807, even being able to afford the luxury of hiring a piano for her use when she lived in Castle Square, Southampton. Taking all this into consideration, you can begin to gauge just how expensive that table was.

But it is virtually certain that Jane Austen would have seen this table and may even have taken communion from it, as the family used the chapel during the time they stayed there. The evidence from Mrs Austen’s letter to her daughter-in-law, Mary  dated August 13th, 1806 and which gives a great detail about their visit, tells us that:

At nine in the morning we meet and say our prayers in a handsome chapel, the pulpit &c now hung with black…

If you would like to see the original programme you can do so via the link on this page, if the BBC iPlayer is available to you. The programme is available to view for the next five days.