made from medieval timbers from the roof of St George's Church, Fordington, the canted top above a carved arcaded apron, standing on four carved and fluted legs joined by an undertier, 96cm wide x 69cm high x 37cm deep
| Estimate: | £200 - £400 |
| Hammer price: | £260 |
On the 7th December 1912, during restoration works being directed by the Vicar, Rev R Grosvenor Bartelot, the wind stripped some new lead covering the roof of the nave. Plumbers soldering the lead back into place caused the remaining medieval oak roof timers, riddled with death watch beetle, to catch fire. The roof had to be replaced, this time substantially in teak.
At the same time sculptors and carpenters were carving bosses and remodelling pews and the Car engaged them to make up furniture from the old oak. The designs could have been those of the Vicar himself, or the restoration architect Jem Feacey (who died the next year) ,or the carpenters themselves.
Provenance: The Bartelot Family Collection, mostly the property of Rev. Richard Grosvenor Bartelot FSA, Rector of Fordington, Dorchester 1907-1939, or his son Major R St G G Bartelot.
Grosvenor Bartelot was born in 1868 and went to Crewkerne Grammar School and Wadham College, Oxford, in the 1880s. In the next two decades he served as curate at Corfe Castle, Anglican chaplain in Turin, and as the Bishop of Salisbury's missioner covering duties of other clergy all over Dorset. He became a noted antiquarian and genealogist and was elected FSA. Having been born a Bartlett, in 1898 he changed his name to the original Norman form, Bartelot. In 1906 he became Vicar of Fordington St George, Dorchester, and next year he married Evelyn, daughter of Alfred Pope Esq of South Court and Wrackleford House, founder of the Eldridge Pope brewery. Having retired in 1936 to Timsbury, Somerset, he died in 1947.
