The Website of Bob Speel

This website is mostly about sculpture, mostly in England, mostly Victorian and Edwardian, and lots of church monuments. It is simply intended for those interested in sculpture and related arts.

Recent additions to this site include a page on Peterborough Church monuments, one on sculptural interest in Huntingdon, brief pages on the early 20th Century sculptor Lady Kathleen Scott and on St Andrew's Burial Ground Gardens, Grays Inn Rd, a page on Sandridge Church, Hertfordshire, a page on Crumlin Rd Court House and Orange Hall, Belfast, a page on the Kirk family of Irish sculptors, and a page drawing together the Belfast sculpture on this site, small as the current selection is. Also a revised page on the recently, sadly burnt down church with mosaics of St Marks, Hamilton Terrace, London, including pictures of all the principal mosaics, and now a second page with more pictures.

Starting points: You can take a tour of the sculpture down Oxford Street or along Chelsea Embankment in London or Colmore Row in Birmingham. You can see the sculptured monuments in various churches, such as St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London, or Hillingdon Parish Church or Ealing Parish Church in the suburbs. Or tour churches elsewhere in the country, for instance St Bartholomew's in Wednesbury, St Stephen's in Bristol, or Bradford Cathedral. You can see brief biographies of over 100 British sculptors, such as the New Sculptor Alfred Drury, the Victorian architectural sculpture H. H. Armstead or the terra cotta sculptor and designer W.J. Neatby. You can explore the statues in some of the great squares of London, including modern South American works in Belgrave Square or the ancient queen of Queen Square. Or see groups of civic statues in other cities, such as another Queen Square in Wolverhampton, a noble equestrian king in the Queen Square in Bristol, or the set of statues in St John's Gardens, Liverpool. There are several pages on animal statues, including snakes, elephants, and of course lions. And mythological ones too - you may like dragons or mermaids. And there are lots of allegorical figures representing ideals, moods and emotions, such as Truth and Tragedy. And there are other things too, including architectural sculpture such as on pillars and above archways in spandrels or as part of the archways as bearded keystone heads, or supporting them as Caryatids.

Throughout the site, click on any picture to enlarge it in the usual way (rather than expanding the small pictures using your hand, if you are using a touch sensitive screen).

Main sections of this site:

• Introducing Victorian and Edwardian sculpture
• Sculptors
• Sculpture in London and Iconic Sculpture in London
• Church monuments, and sculpture in City of London Churches and some other London Churches
• Monuments in some Hertfordshire Churches
• Monuments in some Surrey Churches
• Monuments in some Essex-in-London Churches
• Monuments in a few Buckinghamshire Churches
• Sculpture in some English towns
• An Alphabet of Allegorical Sculpture
• Animal Sculpture
• Architects and Architecture page

Thoughts/comments/other regarding this site are welcome, though I generally respond quite slowly. If you do wish to write, please put some sensible title as anything that looks like it might be spam I generally delete without opening. Please also note that this is not a commercial site, and I neither buy nor sell artworks or prints, nor speculate on values of artworks. Address above, which you will need to type in if you want to contact me, as I've scanned it in to reduce spam.

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