Monuments in All Saints Parish Church, Fulham

All Saints Fulham.

All Saints Church, Fulham, is conveniently situated a couple of minutes walk from Putney Bridge Station, just north of the river. This church is well endowed with monuments from the late 16th and 17th Centuries, as well as more minor later work, with altogether over two score memorials, a considerable proportion of which have interesting carving. The building itself includes a medieval tower, the rest being a sympathetic rebuild of about 1880 by the architect Arthur Blomfield. What we see today is much as Blomfield left it, a Gothic building, battlemented, all in Kentish ragstone, with the dressings in Bath stone, more or less matching the early 19th Century refacing of the medieval tower.

The pictures of memorials inside the church are courtesy of All Saints, and no reproductions should be made without their permission: their website is at www.allsaints-fulham.org.uk.

Carvings on the exterior of the church.

We start with a sequence of early memorials, commencing with a brass and an early panel, and including half a dozen showy and significant monuments from the 1890s through to 1610, with and without figures, and all worth contemplation:

Brass to Margaret Saunders, d.1529.

• Margaret Svanders, (Dame Margaret Saunders) d.1529, notable as the earliest monument, a brass, diamond shaped, i.e. a tilted square, with portrait, two angels, rather Germanic, coat of arms, and minor decoration (see woodcut lower down this page). The brief Latin inscription translates as: Here lies Dame Margaret Saunders, a native of Ghent, in Flanders, who, by Gerard Hormbolt, an eminent painter of Ghent, had Dame Susan, the wife of Master John Palmer, bowyer to the King ... Pray for her soul.
• William Butts, d.1545, with Latin inscription on a black panel, and an interesting surround with skull above in a circle where the coat of arms would normally be, two narrow-stemmed pots containing flowers to the sides, a winged cherubic head below. This is really rather early for a panel monument in London, and deserves inspection.
• Edmund Gresham, d.1593, a small framed panel, above the Beilby Porteus monument, recessed, more or less filled with a modelled coat of arms and knight s helm above, extravagantly plumed, with brief Latin inscription, hard to see properly, on a grey backing. Perhaps a panel from some composite tomb. Above this little monument is a single coat of arms with three cranes and crossed swords.
• William Plumbe, d.1593, and Elizabeth Plumbe, date obliterated or never filled in, with long Latin inscription. An impressive monument. The inscription, on a black panel, fills less than a sixth of an alabaster panel with further small black rectangles and circles forming a geometric border around the central panel. Corinthian columns left and right of this, an entablature with black and red stone, and a shelf with a relatively large circular panel above enclosing shield of arms with two knight s helmets, with long feathers hanging down. To left and right, small plinths hold further shields of arms, seemingly replicas of the central one. All resting on a shelf with further alabaster below.

  1600s: Rich monuments to Thomas Bonde and Lady Margaret Legh.

• Thomas Bonde, d.1600, another opulent monument, the inscription on a black slaty panel with rich alabaster surround, decorated pilasters, flowers, swirls and leaves, and a large roundel with shield on the top. Two little pedestals left and right of that suggest that there were once either urns or small figures. The epitaph is worth noting: 'At Earth in Cornwell was my firste Begininge/ From Bones and Corringtons as it may apere,/ Now to Earth in Fulham God dysposd my endinge/ In March the thousand and six hundred yere,/Of Christ. In whome my body here doth rest,/Tyll both in body & soule, I shall be fully blest. Thomas Bonde, obiit a aetis suae 68.'
• Lady Margaret Legh, d. 1603, and children, wife of Sir Peter Legh of Lime, a great ornate thing with a seated figure of the deceased, unusually facing the viewer, holding a wrapped infant, a second one standing mummy-like on one side, on the other an hourglass on a plinth. Her free hand is against her chest, her stance stiff, and she wears a broad basketed skirt, and a headdress which merges with her shoulder drapes so we get a strange view of an apparently hunched figure. But her face is youthful, symmetrical, her hair carefully curled, her fingers long and thin, and she wears a complex neckpiece and ruff. The effect is of opulence. The figure is not painted, relying on the coloured stone and contrast with the background for effect She is seated under an arch, recessed in a rectangular surround, with two Corinthian pillars, the whole supporting a broad shelf, with coat of arms above in a circlet, itself in a large rectangular mini-memorial with pilasters, upper shelf, pedimental semicircle, and with much minor ornament including repeating snakes on tasselled cords, open bibles, fruits, and to the sides, heads, grotesque bodies and single feet in the manner of Renaissance table legs. Several different coloured marbles, and gilding.
• Katharine Hart, d.1605, wife of Johanes Hart, with Latin inscription above and English below. A small but still rich figure monument. It has the conventional profile kneeling figure of the deceased, accompanied by four children, two sons in front, two daughters behind. Her hair is in a bun atop her head, she wears a large ruff, tight bodice, and padded shoulders. We see her slender, maidenly torso in profile, as opposed to the more familiar solid, well wrapped matron or widow of Elizabethan or Jacobite times. One hand rests on the head of one of her sons. There is some damage to the monument, and one daughter has lost her face, but the other, and the sons, bear a strong resemblance to their mother. All in alabaster, and with little paint, though there once would presumably have been at least some more black, and probably gold. Shields with ribbons above her, left and right, and the wide pilasters contain further decorative ribbons, and at the tops, winged cherubic heads. Above, a broad shelf, with a summit shield, with damaged round border, and two flanking skulls with spread wings. Below the figures, flanking the smaller inscription, are two hourglasses, one much damaged. A low apron contains a final winged cherub s head.
• Thomas Smith, d.1609. Small black panel with very large surround, modelled alabaster with little scrolls, two full pillars in marble, Corinthian, holding up entablature, shelf, broken pediment with round inclusion with shield of arms, and to left and right, marble obelisks of different colours.
• Jane Payne, d.1610, and husband William Payne of Pallenswick, with his dates omitted, but which a leaflet in the church gives as 1626. A bequest is noted: The sayd William Payne hath geven forever after his decease an Ilande in the Ryver of Thames called Kakenshaw for the use of the Poore of this Parish on Hamersmyth side. A pair of kneelers facing each other across a desk, praying, in a classic Jacobite memorial (see this page). They are under separate arches, also conventional, but which come down rather far in the centre to effectively cut off their view of each other s faces, which is less usual. Both figures are ruffed, gowned, and of serious mien. He wears a gown, and she a tunic and skirt, and both are typically solid contrast her with Katharine Hart above. The hands bear paint, and there are bits elsewhere, particularly his face, and both figures may once have been fully painted, though it could have been just the flesh and some highlights. The surround has much minor ornament, and there are two black pillars, Corinthian, at the sides, supporting a prominent shelf with a circle bearing shield and knight s helm etc above. The apron bears further ornamental leaves, crossed bones etc, in a light scrolling fashion.

17th Century figure sculpture: Jane Payne, 1610, and Lord Mordaunt, 1675, by Bushnell.

This brings us to the end of this sequence, and we move on to the latter 17th Century:

• Edward Limpany, d.1663 or 5, and wife Margary, d.1675 the surname looks more like Linipoms or Linipolns but is given on the basis of a later monument. The text on this small monument, in the porch, is rather crudely scratched on stone, with carved crossed bones left and right, and some sign there was once some upper portion to the monument.
• William Earlby of North End, d.1664, with a poetic eulogy, black panel with heavy alabaster or marble surround.
• Johannes Mordaunt (Lord Mordaunt), d.1675, a complex and original monument, the most remarkable in the church. The centrepiece is a standing statue of the subject, as a haughty nobleman, dressed in baroque robe, drawn up to show his legs and soft shoes. He stands, flourishing a rolled up scroll, other hand on hip, nose upward turned, in as flamboyant pose as can be managed. This white marble statue is on a table of black marble, with a plinth beneath, and two oddly styled legs at the back, which rise up above the rear of the table to support two oval inscriptions, that on the left being a long Latin inscription, and to the right, his family tree. Two further free-standing legs support a crossed pair of gauntlets, and some sort of coronet. The group as a whole aims and succeeds at extravagance. The sculptor was John Bushnell, an important early British sculptor whose most familiar work is the set of four statues on Temple Bar, now on the north side of St Paul s Cathedral. More pictures and a note on this monument on this page.
• Thomas Winter, d.1681, and on a separate panel below, his widow Anne, d.1689, who later married Sir Thomas Orby of Linconshire, Bt. A great block on a big base, with the inscription as if on a hanging drape on a still hefty upper block. Above, a rather undersized draped pot or chalice and a couple of small knotted drapes attached to the black backing. Against that backing, at a little distance above the pot, is a cartouche of arms, tilted forward. The lower block of this monument could have been an out of doors chest tomb; the upper one would have been better as the plinth for a life-size standing figure.

  1690s: Elizabeth Limpany and Dorothea Clarke, the latter by Grinling Gibbons.

• Elizabeth Limpany, d.1694, an infant, presumably descended fromor related to Edward Limpany noted above. Again hanging in the porch, this is a carefully rendered cartouche of prodigious size, with hanging drapery to each side, drawn up into knots near the top, the lower part falling through swirls to a lower, fringed drape, enclosing what once may have been a coat of arms and with a small fierce skull biting on bat wings underneath; a painted coat of arms survives near the top. Above the inscription, a winged head, perhaps the little girl rather than a cherub, with small festoons of fruit and flowers, and on the top, a small flaming urn. The whole on a large wooden panel, with further festoons and cartouches and foliage. While the elements are all familiar, the ensemble as a whole is remarkable.
• Dorothea Clarke, d.1695, and Samuel Barrow, d.1682, nicely cut text on a full size tomb chest, a great sideboard of a monument, with a large cushion with a shelly border, above, raised on two short pedestals, and on that a large flaming urn on a pedestal, with knotted chords hanging left and right, the backing rising further with marble pilasters and shelf and pedimental construction. Two cherubic heads, winged, hold a shield of arms above the urn; a further shield of crossed keys hangs from the cushion. It is the work of Grinling Gibbons, no less, best known for his woodwork in Wren churches, but a significant statuary also. A familiarity with his woodwork does not prepare the viewer for the sculpture, and the elements of the monument vary from the conventional those winged cherub heads could be by a number of sculptors and plonked above the doors or windows of many 17th or 18th century churches to the original. The composition alone tells us this is the confident work of a master.
• Sir Thomas Kinsey, Knight and Alderman, d.1696, and two grandchildren, stone panel with two cherubic heads above, with between them a now blank shield. The centre of the panel is also empty, here indicative of plans to include text for further members of the family, which were never fulfilled.
• Anthony Nours, d.1704, and wife Katherine, also d.1704. Another significant cartouche, with hanging drape surround, with additional curls, enthusiastically rendered, two cherubic heads above the inscription, and a shield at the top with a hand clutching a writhing snake at the summit. At the bottom, a little skull with furled wings for the bracket. Extremely competent work. Cartouches tend to emphasise the oval, often accentuated by a domed centre, but here, in a fairly close echo of the Elizabeth Limpany from a decade previously, we have a point-down triangle, or lozenge, depending on whether we look at just the panel, or include the upper portion with the coat of arms.

The later works, a mix of rather plain works with a few which stand out, sculpturally speaking:

• Dr Edmund Gibson, d.1748, Lord Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapels Royal, and a Lord of the Privy Council. Our only mid-18th Century monument, grand in a different way, with the inscription in two parts, briefly on a hanging drape, on dark and tan brecciated marble, then below a shelf, a larger panel with notes on his character etc, eminently distinguished, not only by his Invaluable Collection of [C of E] Laws, but by his prudent & Steady Opposition to every Attack made upon Them . Book, mitre and quill pen on the baroque apron, and much minor detail. In its own way, taking classical down a baroque route as far as it can go.
• Christopher Wilson, d.1792, Lord Bishop of Bristol, wife Anne, d.1782, herself daughter of the Bishop of London, and two sons and one of their wives. The plaque in a thick surrounding frame, as if a massive marble fireplace, with ornate curved pediment bearing flowers, and in the lunette a small coat of arms. Signed by Dawson, Fulham not a familiar name.

  Early 1800s panels: Elizabeth Hatsell, by P. M. Van Gelder, and Viscountess Ranelagh, by Thomas Cook.

• Elizabeth Hatsell, d.1804, previously married to Major Newton Barton, the monument erected 1805. An unusual one the rectangular panel with plain side pilasters has two swelling, fluted side pieces which almost look as if the intention had half been to put some subsidiary sculpture on the sides. The apron is as if with swirling drapery around a small circlet, presumably once bearing a coat of arms. On top a more conventional small pot with drape, with the black backing shaped as a pediment. Signed 'P. M. Van Gelder, Fc' [Fc = fecit, or 'made it']. Peter Van Gelder, or Vangelder, was of Dutch origin, but lived in London from a young age, and carved a number of signed works across southern England.
• Caroline Elizabeth Viscountess Ranelagh, d.1805, her father Sir Philip Stephens, Bt, d.1809, husband Thomas, Lord Viscount Ranelagh, d.1820, and two infants, white panel with pilasters, unusually with bananalike leaves hanging down, with bluebells beneath, ears above, curved pediment with coat of arms with two griffins, and below, apron with crossed branches. Delicate work by the sculptor Thomas Cooke of London.
• Madame de Stark, d.1805, little oval panel, no ornament or border.
• Jemima Bigge, d.1806, and daughter Eliza, d.1819. Plain panel with a modelled border, on black backing. Signed by PISTELL, New Road. William Pistell has several not very adventurous works in London churches - see this page.
• Revd. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, and Dean of his Majesty s Chapels Royal, d.1809, a plain panel with a dark border by the obscure statuary, Coulman of London.
• Lady Sophia Margaret Kent, d.1834, and husband Sir Charles Egleton Kent, Bt, d.1834, with a poem. With curvy pilaster sides, fluted with ferns and ears on top, a pediment with coat of arms, and a frondy apron.
• William Townsend, d.1836? with a low relief bust of an austere, balding man, clearly an intellectual, on a tomb-end with swirly pediment with a drape hanging down asymmetrically on each side.
• John Goldsborough Ravenshaw, d.1840, a Director of the East India Company, and wife Hannah, d.1862. Plain panel with shelf and shield of arms above, with fronds, on a shaped black backing. Signed by the Patent Works, Esher St West.
• Thomas William Ravenshaw, d.1842, Colonel of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, panel with pilasters and a pediment bearing a cross with a book behind, itself covering an anchor and two sprigs of foliage. Beneath, a small shield on the apron between two brackets. With a black backing. This is a minor work by the prolific Humphrey Hopper.
• Theodore Hook, d.1841, square bronze panel with wreath, and surrounding blue-green tile in a narrow metal border. The style is of the 1890s or later, and as the panel was put up by his grand-daughters, presumably the monument was erected considerably after his death.
• Mary Barnard, d.1842, white panel with upper and lower shelf on shaped backing.
• John Thomas Bigge, d.1843, one time Chief Justice of Trinidad. Plain chest tomb end on black backing, presumably related to Jemima Bigge noted above.

  19th Century: panels to William Townsend, Sir John Beckett and Alfred Bassano.

• Sir John Beckett, Bt, d.1847, of Stratford Place London, and Somerby Park, Lincolnshire, and Revd George Beckett, d.1843, as a casket of bath-tub design seen side on, with the panel on the side, diagonally fluted ends, little carved feet, and on top an ornate pot on a stand, flanked by a palm tree and a more conventional deciduous tree, all on a black, shaped backing.
• Sir Charles William Kent Bt, d.1848, captain in the first regiment of life guards. As a chunky tomb-chest end, without backing (see earlier Kents above, 1834).
• Robert Richard Wood, d.1857, a bordered panel on a dark backing obscured in a corner of the tower.
• Brass to Francis Blomfield, d.1860, son of a Bishop of London, lost in the wreck of the Northerner off Cape Mendocino, North America. In the style with black letters, red initials, with scrolly inscribed border, and a feature made of the corners in the form of bosses. Signed by T. Peard [Feard? Beard?] 159 High Holborn.
• Francis Matthias Bassano, d. 1869, wife Charlotte, d. 1855, and offspring, as a Gothic window in stone.
• Alfred Bassano, d.1882, Major General at Indian Mutiny etc. Panel with surrounding blue and white tiles and floral devices, and little gold mosaic borders, very arts and crafts.
• Susan Annie Easton, d.1907, Mayoress of Fulham, Panel with ornate oak leaf wreath in bronze, shelves above and below, and a pediment above, all on a black backing.
• Edward Beslay, d.1909, of Hurlingham Court, Fulham, coloured bronze panel with the usual black letters and red capitals, mildly decorated border, and coat of arms.
• 25th Cyclist Battalion London Regiment, two WW1 monuments, comprising a panel with wreath and alabaster surround, and a smaller bronze panel.
• Matthew S. Morrison, d.1925, churchwarden, circular monument with coloured wreath and ribbons around, unusually late for this sort of work, and most decorative.
• William Richard James McLean, d.1932, Priest and Colonel, and wife Esther Fanny McLean, d. 1938. Plain stone.
• Martin Stevens JP, d.1986, MP for Fulham, brass roundel with the House of Commons portcullis.

After WW1: monument to the 25th Cyclist Battalion London Regiment.

I should mention one further monument, as a black panel with Gothic window surround, above the Thomas Ravenshaw memorial, which I could not read; also that there are other bronze panels, including Sidney Herbert Foster Monel(?), d.1915 in action in the Dardanelles; and a modern panel to William Sharp, no date, surgeon to King George III etc etc.

All in all a most satisfying church. The ambience is enhanced by some decorative elements, including carved, gilded wooden angels with wings held high, presumably from the end of the 19th Century, a carved half figure of Virgin and Child, of earlier date, two fonts, of medieval and 17th Century date, and a fine beamed roof. There is a goodly amount of stained glass from the Victorian 1880 rebuild, the artists being the firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Apparently the Reredos, with its painted panels of Moses, David, Isiah and Aaron, is by the same firm, but dating from a few years later.

Some of the chest tombs in the churchyard.

Outside, the church is adorned with minor sculptural elements (see near top of this page), including gargoyles, and small angels and a crucifixion of 19th C date, and the pleasantly overgrown churchyard contains a number of tomb chests of various designs, though nothing particularly sculptural. There are however some sculptural things to see by the church and in the surrounding open spaces. There is a crucified Christ in bronze under a canopy, with a WW1 dedication, in the churchyard. Also a modern work, of Modiglianilike thinness, Mother and Child by Helen Sinclair, dated 2000. In a separate small open space is a fine war memorial, as a Portland stone obelisk, with a bronze standing female figure holding a wreath and a torch on top, and also in bronze, a kneeling, grieving cherub in front of a cross below. The sculptor was Alfred Turner, an artist of merit who came to the fore rather late for these pages. Apart from several war memorials, he has an important public work in the panels for the front of the Old Bailey.

War Memorial, by Alfred Turner.

Nearby, a pleasant walled enclosure, with a central stone fountain bearing dolphins, and several weathered stone statues on plinths, entitled Protection, Adoration, Grief, and a Leda in a different style. Although the faded inscription on a couple of these looks more like JW than FW, apparently all of these are by F. Wedgwood, not a sculptor I am familiar with. Also there is Affection, an excellent nude mother and child group by Herman Cawthra, and elsewhere in the vicinity, and without a plinth, a particularly fine Eve Tempted by Alan Howes, I believe.

Affection by Herman Cawthra, Protection by F. Wedgwood, and Eve Tempted by Alan Howes.

Also just by All Saints is the excellent Sir William Powell s Almshouses, founded 1680, rebuilt 1869 with a good tower, and gothic sandstone stone sculptures of female saints: Miriam, Anna, Deborah, Dorian, Ruth and Mary; and Faith, Hope and Charity. Good details all along windows, including gargoylic fish.

Across the road from the church, on the side of an ugly modern building, is a highly stylised Henry Moore-like figure of a man with what seems to be a swan.

Figures from Powell's Almshouses.

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Monuments in some London Churches // Churches in the City of London // Introduction to church monuments

Angel statues // Cherub sculpture

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