Blog post by Corinium Museum Volunteer Lynda Isherwood
I want to introduce you to an object in the Museum’s collection which is unusual to see in an archaeological museum as it belongs to the Arts & Crafts movement. It is located in the last room before you leave the galleries. Nevertheless, it is important to the story of Cirencester and also is a beautiful object depicting the town.
Alfred Powell Bowl, Accession Number 2015/63
It was only donated to the museum in recent years and was crafted by Alfred Hoare Powell. Alfred Powell was trained first at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and then joined the Seddings practice in 1887 which was the hub of the activity of the Arts and Crafts movement and were Alfred came into contact with William Morris, Phillip Webb and John Ruskin, names we are now familiar with for the Arts and Crafts movement in this country. For a while after his training Alfred became a ‘wandering architect’ working on sites throughout Britain and undertaking commissions from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. It was when he moved to the Cotswolds in 1901 due to a period of ill health; that in 1909 he was activity involved in restoring The Orpheus Mosaic which is now on show in the main Roman Gallery. At the time this mosaic was still in situ at Barton Farm where it was discovered in 1825. However, work had to be done on it to stop its deterioration and subsidence which Alfred Powell worked on. During this time two Anglo-Saxon skeletons were found under the pavement. Alfred was living in Oakridge Lynch and then later in 1916 moved to The Thatched House in Tunley where he had studio.
Orpheus Mosaic
In 1906 he married Louise Lessor. A skilled Calligrapher and needle woman, they worked individually and collaboratively on painting furniture and ceramics. Both Alfred and Louise had collaborations with Wedgewood and together they set up a studio for Wedgewood in London to train ‘paintresses’ in the art of decorating simple patterns inspired by nature on to the Wedgewood pieces. Alfred Powell’s designs included architectural landscapes and small scenes often in underglaze blue. Whilst in the Cotswolds they worked with furniture designers Ernest Gimson, Sidney Barnsley and Peter Waals. Also the architect Norman Jewson and the brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley. When Claud Biddulph commissioned the building of his new house at Rodmarton, Alfred designed the furniture, carved woodwork and metal work, while Louise designed the textiles.
The blue and white earthenware painted bowl that was donated to the Corinium Museum was designed in the late 1920s and shows four scenes of Cirencester:
1. Cirencester Park (a woodland scene
2. The Paen, showing the surviving portion of the Hospital of St John
3. The old Gateway on Grove Lane, the last remains of Cirencester Abbey.
4. The Porch Panel, depicting the three storey south porch of the Abbey built in 1490. It then became the Town Hall and only in the eighteenth century was joined to the church by a corridor.
We know of two other similar bowls that he painted, one of which is now at the museum in Cheltenham showing the connections of the Arts & Crafts buildings in the area (Daneway House, Owlpen Manor and Rookwoods Farm. The other one, from about 1928 showing panels of the Thames Head, the Severn Bore, Rookwood Farm, Daneway House, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Cotswolds and Cirencester.
Blog Post by Lynda Isherwood
Comments
Thank you for this interesting and informative blog. We live in Oakridge Lynch, Stroud in a house that Alfred Hoare Powell lived in from 1902 to 1915. We’ll visit the museum when lockdown is over to see the bowl.