Photograph of the Lichfield screen made in 1861 in the photographic studio of Francis Skidmore's firm at Alma Street, Coventry.

Photograph of Lichfield screen showing a row of angels below the canopy and a central arch in which there is a roundel.

Purchased with the assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries

Made in the photographic studio of Francis Skidmore's Skidmore's Art Manufactures Company, Alma Street, Coventry.

Attribution note: 'The factory was described as follows: "the buildings comprise an extensive showroom filled with a valuable assortment of ornamental metalwork, of a medieval and Italian character, the designs for which are in daily request. Two drawing offices, with collection of ornamental designs and photographs very ably executed. Pattern shops with iron, brass and lead patterns, ready for use. Large general workshop with small lathes and steam hammer, for fitting, smithing and casting light work. Photographic studio. Enamelling rooms and furnace, stamping room, with a variety of dies for ordinary metal work. Electrotyping room, with bath and stone figure models; together with a separate engine room, containing a 14 hp engine nearly new. Boiler house, extensive stores, containing brass, malleable iron castings etc. Carpenters room and packing shop"

From: Huw Jones and Annette Wickham, Francis Skidmore: A Coventry Craftsman, (Coventry Arts and Heritage, 2003), pp. 9-10.

Photograph of Lichfield Cathedral choir screen which separates the choir from the nave and aisles. This albumen print, a type of photograph, was made in 1861 from a glass negative in the photographic studio in the factory building of Skidmore & Co., at Alma Street, Coventry. This photograph is thus a record of the work done and comes from an archive of designs and photographs from the firm. Francis Skidmore (1817-1896) was a leading Victorian metalworker in the Gothic Revival style, which was an architectural movement the nineteenth-century practitioners of which sought to revive medieval forms. Skidmore also produced church plate, light fittings, and furniture but was best known for his innovative architectural ironwork of which this screen is an example.

E.3008-2007