Nicholas Purefey

Date of Brass:

1545

Place:

Fenny Drayton

County:

Leicestershire

Country:

Number:

Style:

Description

October 2024

F A Greenhill's The Incised Slabs of Leicestershire and Rutland (1958) includes, as well as a gazetteer of the slabs of these two counties, a 'Brief Manual of Incised Slabs’ and an appendix listing slabs with incised effigies in England, Scotland and Wales, arranged by county. Greenhill recognised that the bulk of the earlier slabs were likely to have originated at or close to Chellaston in Derbyshire, while the later ones were the work of Burton-upon-Trent engravers. The latter were much more likely to have acquired their alabaster from Staffordshire quarries, such as that at Fauld.

Greenhill attempted to group slabs with incised effigies by style (pages 12-14), listing fifteen groups, some of them consisting only of two members. Although he does not remark on it, groups 4 (late fifteenth-century), 7, 8 and 10 have distributions (mainly Leicestershire, with a few in east Warwickshire, south-east Derbyshire or south Nottinghamshire) suggesting an origin in west Leicestershire. The existence of a major Midlands alabaster workshop at Ashby-de-la-Zouch run by Hugh Hall from around 1610 until his death in the early 1640s, and of a nineteeth-century alabaster ornament cottage industry centred around the gypsum outcrop at Whitwick, suggest whence the alabaster came to support both, although the deposit appears to have been exhausted by the early twentieth century. The presence in 1530 of a carver at Whitwick, unhelpfully named John Carver, may indicate the person responsible for one of more of the later groups.¹

Group 10, including two table tombs with sculpted figures in niches on the long sides and dates of death of 1543, 1544 and 1545, required someone who could both carve and engrave. It is to this group that the well-preserved monument at Fenny Drayton commemorating Nicholas Purefey, d.1545, and his wife Jane Vincent belongs. The village lies close to Leicestershire’s south-western border with Warwickshire.

Nicholas Purefey died on 20 October 1545 and his tomb chest is against the wall at the east end of the south aisle. It has two sides visible, with an incised slab on the top. There is a close stylistic connection with another Leicestershire slab that once formed the top of a chest, of which one side is preserved. This is at Peckleton and commemorates Thomas Harve, died 1544/5 and his two wives. The long sides of both tombs have sculptured figures under seven round-headed arches mostly representing adult children in various poses, the Harve tomb having an angel holding a shield under the central arch, while the Purefey tomb has angels either side of a shield under a double arch (see photo). What looks like an earlier production from the same workshop was a tomb in the former Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during the wartime bombing.² It probably commemorated Christopher Wade, who died in October 1539. This alternated round-headed arches with ogee ones.

All three chests feature corner pilasters with Italianate vase decoration similar to that used in 1544 by Richard Parker of Burton-upon-Trent on the tomb he made for the earl of Rutland at Bottesford, Leicestershire. Despite these similarities, the Fenny Drayton, Peckleton and Coventry chests were not made by Parker, but by someone strongly influenced by his work. The north end of the Fenny Drayton tomb (not illustrated) has two angels supporting a heraldic achievement. The way the panel is framed differs from Parker’s approach in omitting the moulding running around the recessed area of the panel.

This omission is repeated on two panels at Rothley in Leicestershire. One panel forms part of the side of a recessed tomb topped by an incised slab commemorating Humfrey Babington, d.1544, and his wife Eleanor Beaumont, with a small slab to their kneeling son Thomas forming the other part of the side. (The current arangement is relatively modern, but they belong together.) The second panel, now on the wall, once formed part of a tomb chest commemorating George Kingston, who died after October 1548, and his wife.

The marginal inscription is in raised lettering and reads:

Here lieth Nicholas Purefey & Jane hys wyfe son & heire apparant / of Rauf Purefey esquyer & one of the coheyres of Richard Byngh(a)m esquyer disceassid And also of Nicholas Strelley knyght late of lynby disceassid which

[continued in two lines of incised lettering below the feet of the couple:]

Nicholas Purefey dyed the xxth daye of Octobre in the yere /of o(u)r lorde god a thowsand cccc xlv

Nicholas and Jane stand under a canopy that mixes gothic and renaissance styles. He wears armour of the period; she has a square-necked dress, the sleeves of her under-garment having fashionable slashing showing folds of a further layer of cloth on their underside. A purse and rosary hang from her belt. The toes of her square-toed footwear also have slashing.

Nicholas and Jane hold hands, a late example of this representation on tombs. This is also shown on the lost slab of John Rudyng and his wife Joyce, d.1543, from St Mary de Castro in Leicester, illustrated in Nichols’ History of Leicestershire, and obviously from the same workshop. Joyce was Nicholas Purefey’s sister.

 

Copyright: Jon Bayliss, text and photos