Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:56:21.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Carved Wooden Head of Elizabeth I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

M. R. Holmes
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At the north-west corner of Lancaster House, near the ground now concreted for a car park, lies a sealed, ruinous, subterranean vault, and in that vault, as in some folk-tale about the secrets of the hills, there stands a riderless horse, with an attendant in an inner room a few paces away. It is nearly twenty years since he was visible to mortal eyes; the last living person known to have seen him is my colleague Mr. Arthur Trotman, who tried indeed to move him from his position, but was dissuaded. Not without reason, indeed, for an enemy land-mine had fallen in the neighbourhood and caused a considerable degree of damage, including the subsidence of the entire corner of the building. The sturdy frame of the horse was found to be actually supporting the roof and wall of the corridor in which he stood, and it was only too likely that further movement might bring down the vaulting on him and on those who had ventured to disturb him. Further investigation was discouraged, rubble and concrete were poured into the crater above, and the vault was left sealed and inaccessible beneath the newly created terra firma.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 40 , Issue 1-2 , April 1960 , pp. 35 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 37 note 1 So in the 1782 text, but the word ‘green’ changes to ‘great’ in later editions.

page 37 note 2 Op. cit., p. 32.

page 37 note 3 Lambert, iv, 102.

page 37 note 4 Nightingale, p. 663.

page 37 note 5 Bayley, ii, 265.

page 38 note 1 The Percy Histories: London, ii, 245.

page 38 note 2 Meyrick, , Critical Enquiry into Antient Arms and Armour, ii, 242 n.Google Scholar

page 38 note 3 Meyrick, , op. cit. iii, 132, 135. It was presumably a vague recollection of this passage that led the late C. J. ffoulkes to make, and to ascribe to Meyrick, the unfounded statement that the skirt of lames had been put on the figure upside-down and the breastplate was of inferior quality (The Armouries of The Tower of London, i, 8).Google Scholar

page 39 note 1 Hewitt, , Official Catalogue to tie Tower Armourlies, 1859, p. 11.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 Archaeologia, lxxix, 226.

page 40 note 1 Meyrick, and Skelton, , Engraved Illustrations of Antient Arms and Armour, pp. v and vi.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Brayley, i, 116.

page 40 note 3 Britton, and Brayley, , Memoirs of the Tower of London, 1830.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 Knight, Charles, London, ii, 278.Google Scholar

page 40 note 5 , Cruchley'sNew Guide to London, p. 303.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 Hare, A. C. J., Walks in London, i, 389.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 Poyser, Arthur, The Tower of London, p. 113.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 Lord Chamberlain's Records, series I, vol. 554, cited in Archaeologia, lx, 553.

page 43 note 2 Order Book (Pells) 1607–8, f. 10, cited in cited in Archaeologia, lx, 567.

page 44 note 1 Piper, David, The English Face, 1957, p. 71.Google Scholar