All too often we hear this query these days. Recently I took my daughter to St. Peter’s Church to show her two interesting monuments on the wall by the St. Peter’s Gate entrance. Both were removed from St. James’ Church when it was demolished in 1933. A good art nouveau design in bronze to commemorate Rev. Lawrence Wilkins, seventh vicar of St. James’, is by Sir George Frampton. It is still in very good condition. Next to it is another work by a famous sculptor, Albert Toft, who designed the statue of Queen Victoria, long banished to the Victoria Embankment. It commemorates Catherine Carey Wallis who died, aged 19, in 1904. She was the daughter of George Wallis, Curator of the Castle Museum for over 50 years from its opening in 1878.
Within an alabaster marble surround Toft designed ‘a fine free-standing figure of a young woman in a long loose dress, her arms uplifted and her head back, looking to heaven...’* For nearly a century she had graced two churches but now some vandals have ripped her off the wall, leaving just two pieces of jagged metal sticking out of the alabaster. She will be replaced at a cost last estimated at £9,000. But, no matter how good the replacement is, we have lost a fine original sculpture - and we have few enough of them in Nottingham.
The sculptor entrusted with the replacement is Gordon Brown of Longdale Craft Centre, Papplewick. Working from a photograph of the original he has so far produced a clay model. The finished sculpture will, of course be in bronze.
August 2004
* St. Peter’s History Group, The Monuments of Saint Peter's Church Nottingham (1990).
Home
| Contact | Items for
sale | Joining | Architecture
Meetings | About
| News | Links
©2008 Nottingham Civic Society