Some more notes on the Artificial Stone Industry in London prior to the takeover of pincot's Manufactory in 1770.

 

A complicated subject - the idea here is to pull the various strands of research together - it can, at this stage only be a series of notes and links.

Literature -

Batty Langley's Early Years in London, 1729-35: Langley Hans Sloane and Artificial Stone.

ChristineMcaleavy  Garden History, Vol. 44, No. 2 (WINTER 2016), pp. 191-208 (18 pages).

Available on line via https://www.jstor.org/stable/44987901

The English Ceramic Circle Transactions of 1986, Vol. 12 part 3. This is the most important source for references to the early production of Artificial Stone by Holt, Batty langley and Daniel Pincot

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Thomas Manning and Artificial Stone.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-lead-original-from-parham-park-in.html

Thomas Manning d. 1747. not to be confused with the several other members of the extensive Manning family of masons and sculptors.

'Thomas Manning' who is described in John Nost I's will of 1710 as 'my manservant,' and was left a suit of apparel (LMA AM/FW 1710/89).

 It is likely that he learned his craft as an assistant to van Nost.

 His earliest recorded works date from 1720 and were sent, at a cost of £l 17s, by 'Waggon and car' to Gough Park, Enfield  - they were Fame, Mercury £12 guineas and Neptune £21 also two boars £8 8s.and two large vases £25 presumably of lead (Davis).

 Richard Gough, the antiquary was the most eminent person to live at Gough Park, a house his father Harry had bought in 1719.

 

The house at Gough Park was demolished shortly after 1900 and a planned replacement building never built. Some of the brickwork from the site was salvaged by E.A. Bowles, the famous botanist and plantsman, and taken to Myddelton House. These included part of a pillar and some other unidentified stonework and were placed in the garden. Two lead ostriches that were originally on the roof of Gough Park overlooking the garden at the rear of the house were also taken to Myddleton House. Also two lead boars that were originally displayed on pillars at the entrance to the house, but they have since been stolen. Some original wrought ironwork forming part of the boundary wall still remains at Gough Park.

 

 In 1729 Manning moved into a property in Portugal Row next door to Catherine Nost which was, from 1734, next door to the sculpture workshops of Thomas Carter I. His premises were initially rated at £8, but his business must have expanded by 1737, when he had two properties in the street, rated at £10 and £12.

In 1734 Samuel Carter moved into a yard next door rated at £12 annually on Portugal Row,  previously occupied by Catherine Nost (check this!). The Carter workshop stood here for over fifty years. His immediate neighbour was Thomas Manning.

 He appears to have taken over the second premises from Andrew Carpenter, who died that year. By 1744 he had taken over another property, with tenants, in the street, renamed White Horse Street in 1737.

 In 1735 Manning supplied a statue of Britannia to the London Assurance Company of King William Street in Westminster, one of the earliest recorded works in artificial stone? produced in this country.

This statue of Britannia has disappeared but it is tempting to suggest that the Sotheby's  River God illustrated here is also a product of Manning in "artificial Stone".

 

Manning stood as a character witness in the trial of Mary Johnson, otherwise Sudley, otherwise Barker, on 5 December 1746, who was accused of the theft of a gold ring from a William Archer.

 Manning described himself as a 'Master Statuary of "Hide - Park" and testified that the defendant had 'lived in two houses of mine for these two years'. The properties were in 'White-horse street, just as you go down the hill' (POB 1674—1834, ref t17461205-24).

 

Manning died in 1747. An obituary describes him as 'an ingenious statuary near Hyde Park Corner' - Gentleman's Magazine 1747, 545).

 

 

In his will, PROB 11/758/131 proved on 19 November 1747, he left his stock in trade, utensils, chattels, books, plate and his house on the corner of White Horse Street to his wife Mary.

 Another 'little house' in White Horse Street was left jointly to his wife Mary and his mother, Elizabeth, together with the lease of three houses and a stable on the same street.

 

He mentions two brothers, Edward and Arnold, to whom he left the proverbial one shilling and his nephews, Thomas and John Manning (PROB 11/758/6).

The Lead Reclining Statue at Parham Park in Sussex and the Artificial Stone River God originally at Hagley. 

It is very obviously related to the lead river god now at Parham. The figure was brought to Parham by Robert Curzon from Hagley Hall in Staffordshire in the second half of the nineteenth century.

 Here attributed to Thomas Manning (d.1747) of Portugal Row (later Picadilly) and White Horse Street.

The life size terracotta /artificial stone river god was sold by Sotheby's Lot 133. 9 July 1987. Length 180 cms. Current location unknown. - where is it now?

It appears to have been fired in two halves.

Prior to the terracotta River God appearing at Sotheby's, I had seen it in a garden of a house which was being developed in Kingsbury St (East side) Marlborough in 1986.

 I am very grateful to Christopher Mason and Eleanor Goldthorpe of the Sculpture Department at Sotheby's for providing the 1987 Sotheby's Catalogue entry.

The Manning River God at Stourhead

Henry Hoare Ledger 1734-49, 28 January 1743/44, ‘Thos Manning for a River God &c’ £15-15s. Anonymous 1764 (Stourton Gardens 1749), p. 102 -

 ‘For yonder silver god they sigh, they burn, | And pour their tears incessant thro’ his urn; | But cold as lead, and deaf when they complain, | Supine he lies, and they but weep in vain. | See from beneath him (tinctur’d by the sun | With colours radiant) sheets of water run’.

 WSA, 383/907(1), Henry Flitcroft to Henry Hoare, 25 August 1744, ‘My Next shall bring you… the Temple of Ceres with the Rocky Arch in which I propose to place the River God, & a Sketch how I conceive the head of ye lake’;

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-lead-original-from-parham-park-in.html

The Sotheby's River God.

Thomas Manning (d.1747).

Terracotta / Artificial Stone.

Fired in two halves - the joint is obvious.

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The Other River God at Stourhead.

Henry Flitcroft (1697–1769), elevation, Rocky Arch (the Cascade below the Temple of Flora), Stourhead, c.1744.

 

 

Thomas Manning (d.1747). There were two river gods at Stourhead - the one in the grotto survives but the reclining figure is missing.

https://drawingmatter.org/the-temple-of-flora-stourhead-a-paradise-revisited/

 This is an extract from Stourhead, Henry Hoare's Paradise Revisited by Dudley Dodd pub. 2021.

 

Maybe not the last word on the architecture and sculpture in the garden at Stourhead but the best work on the subject to date - and highly recommended!

 

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 The Temple of Flora, Stourhead, Wiltshire, designed by Henry Flitcroft (1697–1769). 1753

 Drawing by by C. W. Bampfylde (1720–1791). Pen and colour wash, 280 × 470 mm.

Pen and colour wash, 178 × 315 mm. DMC 1233.

 © The Trustees of the British Museum.