The slightly macabre marble monument to Theophilus Salway b. c 1699 d. 1760, St Lawrence Parish Church, Ludlow.
Salway was a director of the Bank of England -see -The London Magazine; Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, 1741 page 203 and 1752 Volume 21, page 190.
Superb quality carving.
The question here must be why was the child depicted with the elongated skull, which appears even more exaggerated on the Honington Monument?
Here suggested as probably designed and carved in the workshop of Sir Robert Taylor -
c.1760.
In Memory of
THEOPHILUS SALWEY ESQR
who was the eldest Son of EDWARD SALWEY ESQR
a Younger Son of Major RICHARD SALWEY
who in the last Century
sacrifiz’d all and every thing in his Power
in Suppport of publick Liberty and in Opposition to
Arbitrary Power
the said THEOPHILUS SALWEY married
MARY the Daughter and Heiress of
ROBERT DENNET of Walthamstow in the County of Essex Esqr.
but left no Issue by her.
Obiit the 28th. of April 1760 Aetat, 61
Pro Rege Saepe Pro Republica Semper
There is a design in a book of drawings of monuments by Taylor in the Taylorian Institute in Oxford (see below)- which suggests that it is perhaps a preliminary design see my web post -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/sir-robert-taylors-designs-for-church.html
The design is more or less repeated with some variations on the monument to Joseph Townsend at All Saints Church Honington, Warwickshire.
The not great photographs of the Honington monument here lifted from -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amthomson/20595901041/in/photostream/
Used here until I can find time to visit myself
Sir Henry Parker of Honington Hall (built 1668) died in 1713 and was succeeded by his grandson, who in 1737 sold the estate to Joseph Townsend.
Townsend sat as an MP, and in 1744 married Judith Gore, the co-heiress of John Gore, MP for Grimsby. Following this marriage substantial alterations were made to the fronts and interior of the house.
The series of busts of Roman emperors on the fronts of the house shown in a drawing by Thomas Robins of 1759 (V and A) were probably added by Townsend.
Formal gardens illustrated in an early 18th-century engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck were removed in favour of a landscape scheme with the advice of Sanderson Miller (1716-80) of Radway Grange, Warwickshire. Honington was one of a group of Warwickshire sites at which Miller advised, including Alscot Park, Arbury Hall, Farnborough Hall and Packington Hall. The mid-18th-century landscape and the remodelled house are shown in a pair of rococo watercolours of 1759 by Thomas Robins (private collection).
Joseph Townsend died in 1763, leaving the estate to his
son, Gore Townsend, who in turn was succeeded by his son, the Rev Henry
Townsend. When the Rev Henry Townsend died in 1873 his nephew, Frederick
Townsend, a noted amateur botanist, inherited Honington and lived there until
his death in 1905,
