Victorian: Massive sideboard was a match for grandma's

Jump to: navigation, search

Maxwell Craven was reminded of his grandmother’s gargantuan Victorian sideboard when he came across one of similar proportions at a recent sale. On closer inspection, he discovered it was carved by a well-known Derbyshire craftsman.

Victorian sideboard

I CANNOT say that I am a lover of high Victorian furniture; I think I must have been surrounded by too much of it as a child – especially sideboards.

My grandmother, for instance, had a titanic mahogany affair that was so big that a half life-size statue of a Cavalier ancestor, modelled by my eccentrically artistic grandfather, in black burnished plaster, failed to look in the least out of place.

I must confess to hating it and, when I came to sell up her house last year after my aunt died, I was relieved that the aunt had unsentimentally dispatched both items to the local auction rooms when the old girl finally, in her late 90s, passed on.

I was reminded of grandmother’s sideboard at a recent auction, for I was confronted by a sideboard of similarly epic proportions, though this time in light oak and much more ornate.

It had a crested and un-mirrored backboard dated 1853, inset with carved mahogany armorial panels. The overall decorative scheme was an eclectic mix of Renaissance curly pediments and pilasters, Classical pie-crust edgings and Tudor linen-fold panelling; a cultural riot in 3-D.

It certainly lacked the post-Regency refinement of my grandmother’s but none of the monumentality.

The armorials were the weirdest of all. For a start, they were not authentic heraldry. Most non-authentic coats-of-arms I call “fag-packet heraldry” because of their resemblance to those seen on makes of cigarette like Rothman’s. But here we had, on the left, a trophy of agricultural paraphernalia and, on the right, what looked like the arms of Touchet, Lord Audley, matched with a nocturnal encounter with a duck.

Both shields sported a crest of a swan and cygnet. The Latin motto, Lucus primaceres ungoclebam dimovit aratro, was particularly impenetrable, but the references to a sacred grove and turning with the plough seem apt enough. The item was probably made for a well-off farmer – with a pretty spacious farmhouse.

In fact, it turned out to have been carved by a man of some fame, Godfrey Shacklock of Stanfree, Bolsover (1821-1880).

His obituary in the Derbyshire Times informs us that he made a “monumental chair” for the Great Exhibition of 1851, eight-foot high and decorated with the arms of the sovereigns of England. He was a third generation cabinet maker and great-grandson of clockmaker Francis Shacklock of Stanfree (1703-1777).

A brass dial clock , c1750, is probably his or that of his son, Francis II (1737-1819), who himself may also have made an elegant 30-hour clock with round, painted dial in the Whitehurst style.

It is difficult to tell who made the clocks, except by dating them by style and matching that to the working life of a particular Shacklock, because they are all signed simply “Shacklock/Stanfree”.

Fortunately there is in existence a Victorian-looking short door, long case clock which, unusually, is signed and dated by both clockmaker and cabinet maker.

The movement is signed “G Shacklock/1831” and the case “F Shacklock/1832”, confirming that Francis III (1770-1841) made the case and the clockmaker was his brother, Godfrey (1768-1850).

Francis Shacklock was commissioned by the Duke of Portland to refurnish his long empty Jacobean fantasy, the Little Castle at Bolsover, when it was converted into a rectory in 1823. There were also some later additions from one or other of this talented family a decade later, when the aristocratic William Hamilton Grey took over the living.

The maker of the sideboard, Godfrey II, was the grandson of the brothers’ eldest sibling, John.

The sideboard was not made for anywhere as spectacular as Bolsover Castle, but was reputedly commissioned by Robert Bagshaw of Scarcliffe, a wealthy yeoman farmer.

Strangely, despite being very reasonably priced, this marvellous piece of furniture failed to sell.