Two Coats of Arms from Kent in London

( 44 ) TWO COATS OF ARMS FROM KENT IN LONDON. BY F. 0. ELLISTON-ERWOOD, E.S.A. I. A ROYAL COAT OF ARMS FROM SHOOTERS HILL. [Prefatory Note.—Much of the matter in this first section was coUected by the late Colonel A. H. Bagnold, C.B., C.M.G., R.E., of Shooters HUl, and was pubhshed by him in the local church magazine. The ephemeral nature of these pubhcations is such that very few of his papers on Shooters HUl can stUl be avaUable. Owing to the kindness and generosity of his family, the great bulk of his notes on the district was handed to me with permission to use as I saw fit. The subject is of more than local interest, and worthy, I hope, of a place in Archceologia Cantiana.] ROYAL Coats of Arms in churches are, of course, of common occurrence and the volumes of Arch. Cant, contain many references to, and descriptions of, them. But to find an early example in the tap room of a humble wayside inn is, I think, a matter of so unusual a character, that some detaUs are worthy of record. For such was the locus of the coat of arms here iUustrated (Plate I). It was found in the tap room of the old Bull Inn, the last surviving fragment of the weU-known and extensive hotel that formerly stood on the top of Shooters HiU. This tap survived tUl 1882 when it was destroyed to make room for the more modern hotel that is buUt on an adjacent site. Before this, however, in 1880, the old coat of arms had been removed to the offices of the North Kent Brewery, Plumstead, where it is now preserved, with an inscription to the effect that it was presented to the BuU Inn circa 1689 by WiUiam of Orange (WiUiam III). Shooters HUl, which rises to 446 O.D., is the highest part of Kent near London, and not tUl the North Downs are reached is there land of greater elevation. It was a formidable obstacle on the main road from London to Doyer, even though the road had been cut down some feet by the Turnpike Trust as is clearly shown in the Ulustrations of the old buUdings (Plate I I ) ; and the steep gradient, the Ul-constructed and, especiaUy in winter, muddy track made the passage of horse-drawn vehicles a matter of some difficulty. There is evidence that alternative routes through Eltham or Greenwich were in greater favour at this season of the year because of their drier and more level character and it is a worthy comment on modern things that, with the advent of the much more powerful motor car, the hUl was by-passed ! The road, variously known as the " Roman Road ", the " Dover Road " or the " Wathng Street" is in fact more correctly termed ^ V^; S«».s*ft. S^^pH3ir^J^r5 =11 PLATE I. COAT OF ARMS OF WILLIAM III (e. 1700), FROM THE OLD BULL INN, SHOOTERS HILL, now preserved in the offices of the North Kent Brewery, Plumstead. (ApproN. \ linear.) PLATE II. m^Mr THE BULL HOTEL, SHOOTERS HILL. 1826. From a drawing by George Scharf. THE BULL HOTEL, SHOOTERS HILL. 1857. From a drawing by — Mitchell. Botli sketches show the amount of the summit of the Hill cut away. PLATI: III. TATTERSHALL ARMS, FROM THE REMAINING BUILDINGS OF WELL HALL, ELTHAM. (Note the photograph is much foreshortened from top to bottom ; see Fig. 1 in text.) TWO OOATS OF ARMS FROM KENT IN LONDON. 45 " Casing Street" (Birch, Cart. Sax., Vol. I, No. 346, p. 483) and our hterature and history contain numerous references to personages, real and fictitious, en route between its termini. Charles Dickens is perhaps the best source for a description of the road as it was, and over which he many times traveUed, often on foot, and the opening pages of the Tale of Two Cities give a vivid and reahstic picture of what must have been the experience of hundreds of traveUers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; whUe the oracular utterances of " Mr. F's Aunt ", " There's mUestones on the Dover Road ", are not to be forgotten. So it wUl not be considered strange that this coat of arms (which, to anticipate matters, is that of William III), was the fons et origo of numerous tales and legends, aU tending to connect it with some more or less Ulustrious traveUer, and in particular, with a foreign prince who married an Enghsh Queen. The current version, when I was a boy, was that the Prince Consort (as he shortly became) journeying by road to London for his marriage to Queen Victoria, in 1840, stopped at the BuU Inn for refreshment, and, being faint from the strain and fatigue of the long hard voyage, was only saved from falling by the timely aid of an ancient inhabitant standing near. The arms had been presented in memory of this event, though why the inn was the recipient and not the ancient, the tale sayeth not. Obviously this is not a true story, for, even if princes are in the habit of distributing escutcheons of arms to wayside inns as they progress through the country, it may be presumed they would make oblation of their own arms and not those of a prince long since deceased. It was some years later that these armorial bearings were criticaUy examined, when the discovery was made that they were or were intended for the heraldic insignia of WiUiam of Orange as WiUiam III, reigning alone. A trivial matter as this did not deter the legend maker, for now we are told that WiUiam stopped at the BuU in 1697 (there is some indecision as to the date) on his way from Margate to Greenwich, after the signing of the Peace of Ryswick in that year, and the arms were presented in memory of that event. But it will be better if the arms themselves are described : they are of definitely poor workmanship (note particularly the various animals and the lettering) carved in a coarse-grained wood (elm ?) and affixed to a backboard of oak and framed, the whole being about twelve inches square. They are painted in oU colour and were either incorrectly coloured from the beginning or subsequent repaintings at the hands of unskilful and/or ignorant workmen have made much confusion. The heraldry may be thus described : Quarterly, on a circular shield enclosed in the Ribbon of the Garter I. Gules, three leopards passant (? regardant) Or. England. 46 TWO COATS OF ARMS FROM KENT IN LONDON. II. Or, a Lion rampant, Gules, within a double tressure, Gules Scotland I I I . Azure, a Harp, Or. Ireland IV. Gules (error for Azure) three Fleurs des Lis, Or. France Inescutcheon. Or, seme" with Hearts (should be BUlets) AZUK (should be Or) a Lion rampant, Azure. Nassau Crest. A Lion passant regardant on a Helmet Crowned, Or with Mantling Or and Argent. Supporters. A Lion rampant gardant Or, Langed (tongue missing) Gules. A Unicorn rampant Argent, coUared and chained Or. Garter and Motto. Azure, Letters and Border, Or. There can be httle doubt that these arms are intended for those ol WiUiam I I I after the death of his wife and would therefore date 1694- 1702, though I beheve that Queen Anne used these same arms tUl the Union, 1707. There might, too, be an element of doubt over the inescutcheon, where there is evidently confusion between the arms ol Nassau (a golden rampant hon on a blue field sown with golden bUlets) and Luneburg (a simUar hon but blue on a gold field sown with red hearts), but Luneburg only appears on early Hanoverian arms and not then in an escutcheon. The bUlets (or hearts or roundels or bezants or whatever they are intended to be) are not carved on the arms, but merely painted on by the decorator, and because of their smaU size, and the lack of knowledge on the part of the workman, have led to this difficulty of interpretation, but the fact that such a weU-known detail .as the blue ground of the French hly is rendered red, is in itself sufficient proof of ignorance and carelessness. The arms have, since rediscovery, been cleaned, repaired and 'Correctly painted. Now the questions arise, " How did these arms get into the inn % " •and " Where was their original home \ " for it is quite evident that there can be httle or no truth in the local legends which grew up round them. The ease with which the tale was varied to suit amended information is in itself sufficient to mark down the story as apocryphal. I t wUl by this time have been apparent to aU readers familiar with such •things that these arms are exactly of the type frequently found in churches as emblems of the Royal Supremacy, but if that was their origin (and I suspect it was) I can at this time give no further information with regard to any particular church or even hint at a time of removal. There is possibly the slightest of slight clues. The birthplace of the present parish church of Shooters HiU was the old BuU Hotel. The Rev. Thomas DaUin, the first incumbent, was a local resident and a considerable freeholder of much of the land comprising the HUl, including the BuU Hotel, and when the said hotel ceased to be a place TWO COATS OE ARMS FROM KENT IN LONDON. 47 of caU for coaches or a popular resort for the gentlemen of the Woolwich Garrison and their permanent or transitory ladies, he took over the greater part of the buUdings, including its famous Assembly Rooms, as a School for Young Gentlemen, and then, in 1850, the Assembly Room was fitted up as a Chapel, where services were held tiU the present parish church was buUt in 1856. There does not seem to be, however, any description or picture of this temporary church that might show its fittings though much of the decoration was removed as unsuitable, but there does seem to be a remote possibihty that, among the things coUected or given to make this room more ecclesiastical in appearance, this old coat of arms may have been among them. This does not answer any of the questions propounded above, nor does it even affirm that these arms were so used, but it does offer a better explanation for Royal Arms being found where they are not normal, than the local legends. But of the making of guesses there is no end, and much speculation is a weariness to the flesh. AU I can claim to have done is to place on record an interesting example of a familiar class. I I . A COAT OF ARMS AT WELL HALL, ELTHAM. TraveUers by train on the Bexley Heath branch of the Southern RaUway cannot help but notice the beautiful garden, intersected here and there with fine old red brick waUs, aU clearly visible from WeU HaU Station. These grounds and the weU-restored buUdings beyond give their name to the district and station and they preserve aU there was to preserve of the home of William Roper, a member of a famous Kent famUy and his even more famous wife and daughter of Sir Thomas More, Margaret Roper. It is not the purpose of this note to dweU on the history of these buUdings and their site, for that has aheady been done by the present writer (WeU HaU, the story of its House and Grounds, published by the Woolwich Borough CouncU, 1936). Rather it is to draw attention to a rather unusual feature and the erroneous conclusions drawn from it. On the north side of the only remaining buUding, high up on the waU is a very weathered coat of arms, carved in stone (or rather on two stones) and bearing the date 1568. A photograph of these arms is given (Plate III), but as it is very difficult to get a good picture I have added a measured drawing made some years ago (Fig. 1). By the aid of these two Ulustrations the heraldry of the stone is clear. Hitherto the significance of these arms has been overlooked. They were taken (both by the present writer in his ignorance and others in the plenitude of their knowledge) to be the arms of the Roper famUy, and the date was accepted as the date of the erection of the buUding : see for instance B.C.H.M. England, London Vol. V (East London), p. 108ff, and a letter in The Times, November 16th, 1931, from the late 48 TWO COATS OF ARMS FROM KENT IN LONDON. P. M. Johnston, F.S.A. Both these deductions are erroneous. The arms are those of the famUy of TattershaU and the date on the shield is probably half a century after the erection of the buUding. HeraldicaUy they may be described thus : «o»" * !•» %. a u V ,• *i Vi , * t i ** VJ ',"•-' ft s ' L i MEASURED DRAWING OE TATTERSHALL ARMS, £ linear (with details restored) (Sable) a Cheveron (azure) between three Tigers statant regardant coward (?) at a mirror on the ground (?) handled (?)• They are therefore another representation of those particulai punning arms that were described by our member Mr. G. C. Druce, F.S.A., in Arch. Cant., XXVIII, p. 363ff. TWO COATS OF ARMS FROM KENT EST LONDON. 49 There is reasonable excuse for the misreading of these arms, as the three tigers are almost formless masses (in my reconstruction I have adhered to the outline but added detaUs from other sources), though, knowing what the charges should be, it is possible to detect something ff the shape of a crouching animal. The tinctures are naturaUy absent; The shield is not of a formal type but of a more fanciful outline, made up of scroUs and reminiscent of the cartouches in Ehzabethan maps ; bhe date, 1568, is clear beyond question. Now, as I have mentioned above, these arms were not only assumed by some to be those of Roper, but also to give the date of the erection of the building, but this I think cannot be. The buUder beyond doubt was William Roper, son-in-law of Sir Thomas More, and his initials W.R. appear in cut brick on one of the finials of the gable. WiUiam's floruit was 1495-1577. He inherited WeU HaU on the death of his father, John Roper, in 1524 and there was not another owner with these initials tiU 1597, which is much too late for this buUding. WiUiam Roper married Margaret More in 1525, the year foUowing his succession to the property, and this fact, together with the existing architectural detaUs, make it more than hkely that the whole was erected in view of his approaching marriage and that its date is c. 1525. The given date, 1568, faUs, it is true, within this Roper's lifetime, but if this is to be baken as the date of buUding, why should he insert into the waUs of his bouse the coat of arms of someone else ? True also it is that he was descended from this ancient famUy of Tattershall and they had been earlier owners of the estates, but their association with WeU HaU ceased about 1450, a century or more before the date on the stone, his grandmother being the last of the TattershaUs to be resident here. It is suggested that William Roper may have intended to decorate the front of the buUding with coats of arms of his forbears, but then surely some trace of shields of arms of Chichele, Kene, Roper, KnoUys and More should be found, but this is not so. This is the only coat of arms extant. More important, however, is the clear evidence that these arms are an insertion into an aheady existing waU. It is apparent from the photograph that the two stones forming the coat are not in correct ahgnment and a close examination shows that the mortar surrounding the stone is of a different character to that used in the body of the waU and also that some bricks were removed and replaced by others of a different type. What is the explanation of it aU ? Again I cannot say, but speculation is easy. Possibly William Roper or his descendants had antiquarian leanings, and finding these arms, perhaps on the site of a former house of the Tattershahs, brought them home and buUt them into the wall to confuse antiquaries of a later age, but whatever may be the reason for their preservation here, to use them for dating the buUding is, 50 TWO COATS OF ARMS FROM KENT TN LONDON. I think, to fly in the face of other more precise evidence, especiaUy when the information given above is taken into consideration. It is, of course, possible that these arms, lacking as they do their distinctive tinctures, may be those of one of the families that bore the same charges. Such a one is the SibiU of Eynesford coat, the one dealt with by Mr. Druce (loc. cit.) and stiU to be seen in the spandril of a sixteenth century fireplace. The date of the WeU HaU arms (1568) is approximately coincident with the end of the SibiU occupation of Little Mote, Eynesford. It may only be coincident, but Thomas SibiU held land at Welhawe in Eynesford in 1488 and near here, later on, was domicUed William Roper's second son Anthony, known as " of Farningham ". He is buried in Farningham Church.