Bath, Art and Architecture: The Hooke Monument in the Church at Wootton St Lawrence.

Thursday, 26 June 2025

The Hooke Monument in the Church at Wootton St Lawrence.

Posted here to what I thought might be a brief respite to my 18th century studies.

All photographs taken by the author.

Who modelled and sculpted this masterful reclining figure of Thomas Hooke (d. 1677)?

The church dates from the medieval period. In a recess in the south wall of the chancel is a very fine white marble monument with a reclining full length figure in armour to Sir Thomas Hooke, baronet, who died in 1677.

He built and lived in a neighbouring manor, Tangier House.

Unfortunately there is no inscription to give a clue to the author of this superb piece of 17th Century Sculpture.

I had visited the Church in order to obtain some photographs of the bust and monument of William Withers, which I wanted to compare with other Roubiliac busts - Nicholas Hawksmoor at All Souls Oxford, the bust on the Thomas Missing Monument of c. 1738 at Holy Rood Church, Crofton and the bust of Sir Charles Gounter Nichol on the Gounter Nichol Monument at Racton (based on a design by James Gibbs).

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-portrait-sculpture-in-codrington_14.html

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-bust-of-william-wither.html

It came as a very pleasant surprise to discover the what appears to be an excellent 17th century monument to Sir Thomas Hooke, 1st Baronet of Flanchford who died in 1677.

In Roubiliac and the Eighteenth Century Monument by David Bindman and Malcolm Baker. pub. Yale 1995 the figure is described as 18th Century?

Mrs Esdaile had suggested that the Parish records record it as by Roubiliac but Matthew Craske believed that the William Withers monument with the Roubiliac bust had been mistaken for it.

I will reserve judgement for the time being but I believe that it is so good that ...............!

I suggest that the most likely candidate for this very fine piece of sculpture is Edward Pearce (c.1635 -95).

see the bust of Christopher Wren in the Ashmolean and Baldwin Hamey at the Royal College of Physicians.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2017/08/soane-museum-8-plaster-bust-of.html

https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-royal-college-of-physicians-part-2.html

The treatment of the lace and the details of the cutting of the hair bears comparison with that on the Roubiliac Monument at Tittleshall, Norfolk.

Hopefully my photographs here will do it justice.

Christopher Smith who posts on the Facebook pages of the Church Monuments Society suggests that it -

"Appears similar to the monument at All Saints Church, Ledsham, Yorkshire to John Lewis, 1st Baronet, who died in 1671, and his wife Sarah Foote, which is sculpted by Thomas Cartwright".

Thomas Cartwright (1635 - 1703) - Cartwright became a Liveryman of the Masons' Company by 1663 and worked in London in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a contractor for St Antholin, St Benet Fink, and St Mary le Bow, three of the Wren churches. He worked as a mason-contractor on the Royal Exchange, with sole charge after Edward Jerman died in 1668.

Statue of Edward VI (1537-53). St Thomas Hospital. Lambeth Palace Road, Lambeth, London.

The statue was designed by Nathaniel Hanwell and carved by Thomas Cartwright in 1682, during the rebuilding undertaken by Sir Robert Clayton when President of the hospital. The statue originally formed the centrepiece of a group of figures which adorned the gateway on Borough High Street.

This was the central figure from the gateway to the old hospital in Borough High Street. The remainder of the group, two pairs of cripples, are in a corridor on the first floor in the North Wing. Gunnis cites the following decision of 11 November 1681 in the Minute Book of the Court of Governors of St Thomas' Hospital: . . . the plan of a scheme or frontispiece to bee made of Purbeck stone before the front of our hospitall to the High Streete, prepared by direction of the said Committee, containing pillars and the Kings Armes and the effigies of King Edward the Sixth and fower cripples to be carved in stone, was approved of and ordered to bee made accordingly. It is further ordered that Mr. Thomas Cartwright, mason, being the person that made the draft should be imploied in the performance of the work. Gunnis also states that Cartwright asked for £190 as the work "could not well be done for less".

I can see what he is suggesting and I certainly won't dismiss the idea I think that the Lewis monument although very competent, is slightly more wooden but I think this monument.

see - https://allabouthistory.co.uk/History/England/Place/All-Saints-Church-Ledsham.html?FsIZpTJ7#r3bDr4HK