Victorian scrollwork on the West Door, Ely Cathedral, by Potter & Son

Victorian scrollwork on the restored West Door

Designer: George Gilbert Scott

Ely Cathedral

1868-70

Ely, Cambridgeshire

The cathedral's own brochure attributes the design of the ironwork on the door of the magnificent Galilee Porch both to Potter and Scott, suggesting a fruitful collaboration here. See below for more detail and photographs.

Photographs, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee, with many thanks to Patrick Carson for his valuable additional information.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. Click on the images to enlarge them, and mouse over the text for links.]

One of the great beauties of the cathedral is its vaulted Galilee Porch, "an exquisite example of Early English architecture" (Carey 3). Its inner portal, however, is described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "virtually new work" by Scott — which therefore, Pevsner says slightingly, "need not be considered too seriously" (346). But clearly this elaborate Victorian ironwork deserves more than a passing mention.

Left: The restored stone-carving above the doors. Right: A closer view of a small area of the ironwork, which harmonises so well with it.

The 1880 handbook to the cathedral tells us only that the "original oaken doors have been repaired, faced, and ornamented with scrollwork in iron" (31). But a more detailed account appears in the cathedral's much more recent brochure:

The Galilee porch was again restored, 1868-70 by George Gilbert Scott, when eighteenth-century plasterwork was removed and replaced with stone.... The west doors were improved on the outside by the addition of new ironwork, which had been designed by Potter (of South Moulton Street, London). This work, as well as other work in the Galilee entrance, was paid for by Mrs Waddington who "would sign cheques as often as called upon to do so. A grand example to benefactors." ... New ironwork did not sit happily on the old wood and it was not until the doors were also refaced with oak, that Bishop Harvey Goodwin on a visit to Ely could say that "the outer side of the doors is now very handsome, and the inner side is very interesting." ... It was Scott who designed the ironwork. [qtd. in Carson 31; emphases added]

In one short passage, then, Scott and Thomas Potter are both credited with the design of the scrollwork. The implication must be that they collaborated closely — although Potter and his craftsmen would, of course, have been entirely responsible for the execution.

Other Views of the Cathedral

Bibliography

Carey, M. S. Ely Cathedral. London: Pitkin Pictorials, 1973.

Carson, Patrick. Thomas Potter: Victorian Craftsman, 1804-1895. Privately printed, 2018.

Handbook to the Cathedral Church, with Some Account of the Monastic Buildings, etc. at Ely. 11th ed. Ely: T.A. Hills and Son, 1880. Project Gutenberg. Web. 12 September 2020.

Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1970.

Last modified 12 September 2020