Not currently on display at the V&A

Door and Framework

early 16th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
England (made)

Doorway and Door; the doorway has a depressed pointed arch with a boss and a long serrated leaf in each spandrel; the lintel and jambs are moulded. The square-headed door consists of six slightly moulded vertical planks overlapping one another and studded with four rows of twelve iron nails, two of which are arranged on each plank. There are two hinges with long bands on the back and the marks of two long hinge bands on the front; it is also fitted with a latch and bolt of wrought iron.

CESCINSKY, Herbert & Ernest Gribble: Early English Furniture & Woodwork. Vol. I (London, 1922), p.209 describe the clinker-board construction using clout-headed nails as exceptional


Object details

Categories
Woodwork
Architectural Fittings
Object type
Door and framework
Materials and techniques
oak and iron
Carving
Carving
Brief description
Carved oak door and framework from the Church Farm, Clare, Suffolk. English, 1475-1525.
Physical description
Doorway and Door; the doorway has a depressed pointed arch with a boss and a long serrated leaf in each spandrel; the lintel and jambs are moulded. The square-headed door consists of six slightly moulded vertical planks overlapping one another and studded with four rows of twelve iron nails, two of which are arranged on each plank. There are two hinges with long bands on the back and the marks of two long hinge bands on the front; it is also fitted with a latch and bolt of wrought iron.

CESCINSKY, Herbert & Ernest Gribble: Early English Furniture & Woodwork. Vol. I (London, 1922), p.209 describe the clinker-board construction using clout-headed nails as exceptional
Dimensions
  • Height: 254cm
  • Width: 129cm
from catalogue
Object history
Acquired with an arch, and a ceiling from the Church Farm, Clare (Sudbury, Suffolk) 'Damaged and portions missing'. (The purchase of wall panelling and a chimneypiece from Church Farm was rejected as they had come from a different house, and were about 150 years later in date.) Purchased for £450 from Mr George von Pirch (7 Arundel Mansions, Fulham), who had removed them from the farm, probably acting for Sir Charles Lawes of St. Albans. Recommended by the architect T.G. Jackson and the artist Walter Crane.
Production
Suffolk
Associated objects
Bibliographic references
  • Charles Tracy, English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork (London, The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1988), cat. no. 248, fig.235 'DOORWAY and DOOR; the doorway has a depressed pointed arch with a boss and a long serrated leaf in each spandrel; the lintel and jambs are moulded. The square-headed door consists of six slightly moulded vertical planks overlapping one another and studded with four rows of twelve iron nails, two of which are arranged on each plank. There are two hinges with long bands on the back and the marks of two long hinge bands on the front; it is also fitted with a latch and bolt of wrought iron (PL.8o). From the Church Farm, Clare, Suffolk Oak. Early 16th century 254 x 1.29 cm Mus. No. 727-1902 Described in Basil Oliver,Old Houses and Village Buildings in East Anglia, London, 1912, FIG.22 as ‘A thoroughly East Anglian example, typical of hundreds which formerly existed in all three counties’. The mixture of styles used in the decoration is noticeable. In the door-head spandrels the leaf motif is typical of the fifteenth century, as are also the buttresses on either side of the cartway (Mus. No. 726-1902). Yet the spandrel carving of the cartway head is pure Renaissance in design'.
  • CESCINSKY, Herbert & Ernest Gribble: Early English Furniture & Woodwork. Vol. I (London, 1922), p.209 “To this early sixteenth century belongs the oak door with its surround, from Church Farm, Clare, Suffolk, Fig. 235, which may be taken as a representative specimen of a timber house door of the un ostentatious kind. The construction of this door is exceptional. On a framed back the front boards are nailed , each with a slight overlap over the next, or clinker-boarded, to use the technical term, the left hand edge of each (that is, the one that is not hidden by the overlapping of the next) being moulded with a scratch-bead. The original iron strap hinges, which are missing, were cut in across the width of the boards, at varying depths according to the forward projection, as the boards, in cross-section, are arranged thus: [ diagram ] Each board is nailed to the framing behind, with four courses of clout-headed iron nails. There are, of course, no vertical ribs, as the construction forbids.
Collection
Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Accession number
727-1902

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Record createdSeptember 10, 2007
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O139072/door-and-framework-unknown/
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