Difference between revisions of "Coade stone"

Latest revision as of 09:20, 20 September 2010

Coade stone was a ceramic material that has been described as an artificial stone. It was first created by Mrs Eleanor Coade (Elinor Coade, 1733–1821), and sold commercially from 1769 to 1833. The building boom in London, at this time, led to a high demand for ornate features to decorate and adorn brick-built Georgian houses. The showrooms of Mrs Coade's Artificial Stone Company, in Westminster Bridge Road, provided a huge array of 'off the shelf' solutions for builders and architects, ranging from small keystones for over front doors to corner and window features and almost entire façades. The factory was in Lambeth, London, where the Royal Festival Hall now stands. The company initially did well, and boasted an illustrious list of customers such as George III and members of the English nobility. Despite the presence of Coade stone at several prominent sites, after the first Mrs. Coade's death in 1799, her daughter Eleanor Coade took on her her cousin John Sealy as a partner. In 1813 John Sealy died, and she took on William Croggan from Grampound in Cornwall. He managed the factory until Eleanor Coade's death some eight years later in 1821. He bought the factory from the executors for c£4000. Croggan supplied a lot of Coade stone to Buckingham Palace, however, he went bankrupt in 1833 and died two years later.Trade declined, and production came to an end in the early 1840s. A well known example of Coade Stone is the Westminster Bridge Lion, also known as the south bank lion. Modelled by FW Woodington, and Grade II* listed by English Heritage.

The material

Coade stone is a type of Stoneware (vitrified ceramic). Mrs Coade's own name for her products was Lithodipyra, a name constructed from ancient Greek words meaning "stone-twice-fire" (λιθος/δις/πυρα), or "twice fired stone". Its colours varied from light grey to light yellow (or even beige) and its surface is best described as having a matte finish.

The ease with which the product could be moulded into complex shapes made it ideal for large statues, sculptures and sculptural façades. Moulds were often kept for many years, for repeated use. One-offs were clearly much more expensive to produce, as they had to carry the entire cost of creating the mould.

One of the more striking features of Coade stone is its incredible resistance to weathering, often faring better than most types of stone in London's harsh environment. Examples of Coade stonework have survived very well; prominent examples are listed below, having survived without apparent wear and tear for 150 years.

As a material, Coade stone was replaced by the much cheaper Portland cement (an artificial material) and it appears to have been largely phased out by the 1840s.

The formula

Contrary to popular belief the recipe for Coade stone still exists, and can be produced. Rather than being based on cement (as concrete articles are), it is a ceramic material.

Its manufacture required special skills: extremely careful control and skill in kiln firing, over a period of days. This skill is even more remarkable when the potential variability of kiln temperatures at that time is considered. Mrs Coade's factory was the only really successful manufacturer.

The formula used was:

• 10% of grog (see below)
• 5-10% of crushed flint
• 5-10% fine quartz (to reduce shrinkage)
• 10% crushed soda lime glass.
• 60-70% Ball clay from Dorset and Devon.

The 'grog' was made up of finely crushed fired items, such as pitchers (ware that has been fired but rejected due to the presence of faults). This was also referred to as "fortified clay" which was then inserted (after kneading) into a kiln which would fire the material at a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius for over four days.^[1]

Examples

• Mrs Coade's home, Belmont House, in Lyme Regis, Dorset, appropriately displays examples of Coade stone on its façade.

• The pavement outside the Philpot Museum, Lyme Regis, decorated with the shapes of Ammonites set in its surface. The paving has proved durable enough to survive the wear of myriad footfalls over the years.
• The Lion at the south end of Westminster Bridge in central London originally stood atop the old Red Lion Brewery, on the Lambeth bank of the River Thames. When the brewery was demolished in 1950, to make way for the South Bank Site of the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Lion was taken down and put on display at street level. When removed the initials of the sculptor and the date, 24 May 1837, were discovered under one of its paws. It can be seen from the photograph that the fine details still remain clear after 170 years of London's corrosive atmosphere (caused by heavy use of coal throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries). The original red paint was removed to reveal the fine Coade stone surface to view. In 1966^[2], the statue was moved from outside Waterloo station^[3] to its current location by Westminster bridge.^[4]

Other examples

• Duff House Mausoleum, Wrack Woods, Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The second Earl of Fife built this mausoleum for his family tombs in 1791, possibly on the site of a Carmelite friary. Built before the Gothic Revival, this is an example of "Gothick" architecture. Typically of the Georgians the carvings, including the monument to the first Earl, are in ceramic Coade stone.
• Nelson's Memorial at Burnham Thorpe
• Britannia Monument in Great Yarmouth
• Nelson's Pediment on the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, regarded by the Coade workers as the finest of all their work.
• Twinings' first ever (and still operating) shop's frontispiece, in the Strand, London opposite the Royal Courts of Justice, rediscovered under soot after a century.
• Schomberg House on Pall Mall, London
• Captain Bligh's tomb (in the churchyard of St Mary's Lambeth)
• Lord Hill's Column, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
• Rio de Janeiro's zoo entrance
• St Mary's Church gate, Tremadog, Gwynedd, Wales.
• Richmond upon Thames. Two examples of the River God, one outside Ham House, the other in Terrace Gardens.
• Buckingham Palace (in a section not open to the public)
• Castle Howard
• St. Paul's Cathedral
• Royal Pavilion in Brighton
• Imperial War Museum (sculptural reliefs above the entrance)

According to BBC research, over 650 pieces are still in existence worldwide.^[5]

See also

• Stoneware

References

External links

• The Philpot Museum, Lyme Regisde:Coade-Stein

1. ↑ "A Couple of Dogs that Never Need Feeding, And Other Garden Gems", by Wendy Moonan; pg. B36 of the New York Times, 28 April 2006
2. ↑ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alistairhall/2171675089/
3. ↑ http://coadcoode.blogspot.com/2007/08/coade-stone-eleanor-coade-1733-1821.html
4. ↑ http://maps.google.com/maps?sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=24.37547,39.726562&ll=51.500839,-0.119755&spn=0,359.995172&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=51.500836,-0.119581&panoid=_exegQIeN92gg1FgH_4FBg&cbp=12,306.91378145771705,,0,-3.400000000000001
5. ↑ BBC TV documentary series "Local Heroes", episode "South-East", 2004