Fragment of a bench-end with a cockatrice

Portion of a bench-end, with a moulded fore-edge and mortice. Integral to the structure of the bench-end is a carved cockatrice forming the elbow rest, with the head of a hen, with scaly breast and large wings and elongated claws extending down the front outside face of the bench-end.

Given by the Architectural Association and the Royal Architectural Museum

One of a group of pieces, mostly fragmentary from the chancel and nave of St. Nicholas Chapel, King's Lynn.

Given by the Architectural Association and the Royal Architectural Museum, 18 Tufton Street. See RF 1915/4020
'To be labelled "From the Royal Architectural Museum, Westminster. Presented by the Architectural Museum"

The Chapel of St. Nicholas, King's Lynn was founded by William Turbe, Bishop of Norwich, 1146-74, for the use of the inhabitants of the New Lande he had laid out for building north of the Purfleet. His chapel was pulled down and on its site was built a small chapel, the west end of which, probably dating from 1200-1210 remains. The present building was constructed in the early years of the fifteenth century and completed about 1419. Woodwork from St Nicholas, evidently part of the original fitted wooden furnishings, were sold by the churchwardens in 1852 and bought by the Royal Architectural Museum.

The wooden furniture and fittings of medieval English churches were frequently decorated with carvings of sacred and secular subjects taken from religious and folkloric traditions. The cockatrice was a fabulous and heraldic monster with the wings of a fowl, tail of a dragon and head of a cock. Figuratively, cockatrice is used to mean 'an insidious, treacherous person bent on mischief' (Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable).

W.7-1916