Dr Todd Gray has devoted his life to researching and writing about Devon’s rich history. Few other historians have established such a close and lasting bond with a single county. He is a much admired and prolific author, University of Exeter research fellow and director of the West-Country Late-Medieval Bench Ends project, a venture funded by The Pilgrim Trust and administered by the University of Exeter’s Centre of Early Modern Studies. The project’s ambition is to record more than 8,000 bench ends from 300 churches throughout Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire – a tall order perhaps, but one that promises, in time, to create the first full study of the South West’s rich collection of bench-end carvings. The benefits of such a comprehensive record are many. Firstly, this research will inform and educate those who have an interest in this ancient artwork; secondly, it will act as a check to those hell-bent on desecrating historic church seating through re-ordering schemes.
From the start, the book’s intended rationale is clear: ‘[T0] provide church officers with details of their Bench Ends which are ancient, that is, of those that were erected before the Georgian period.’ In his introduction, Gray notes: ‘Of Cornwall’s 225 churches, eighty-one have retained at least one early Bench End. Altogether some 1,800 ancient Ends have been identified in Cornwall’s churches and they make up twenty-two per cent of the South West’s collection of 8,100 Ends.’
If the sole purpose of this book is to educate church wardens and other officers, then it is an unqualified success. The introduction is rather flimsy, but does helpfully set the book’s tone and direction in content and sources. The text is well written, lively and engaging, but, being a gazetteer, which may work for those who use it on individual church visits, it does submit to the common pitfall of being rather formulaic. The narrative gives a reasonable chronology of Cornish bench ends through first-hand accounts and provides a fascinating insight into the ebb and flow of this humble feature’s fortunes over time. Some astute first-hand reflections towards style, markings, position and repairs give confidence that each church has benefited from at least one visit and portray well the significance and setting of the bench ends within the parochial church.
Yet, it is obvious that church officers are not the only target audience for this work. As a non-church officer, my conclusion is that this book may well be a missed opportunity. To be fair to the author, it is unlikely that it was ever intended as the last scholarly word on the topic; however, any book with 917 endnote references announces itself as a serious work. While undoubtedly useful, the notes do lay bare the notion that the majority of research has been drawn from standard Cornish topographical antiquarian surveys, church guides, notes from the Exeter Diocesan Society (commencing in 1841) and a wide range of local newspapers. This will raise some concerns with local historians and/or church or ecclesiastical specialists, who will immediately notice that primary sources, particularly from the Cornwall Record Office or Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall (Truro) and Morrab Library (Penzance), are a little thin on the ground. Such an oversight might also raise concerns as to why later churchwardens’ accounts and rural deans’ records held in Truro, or useful material by William Borlase in Truro and Penzance, or even the Lyson brothers’ detailed notes in the British Library were not consulted.
Gray’s foray across the Tamar must be celebrated, but, without getting too parochial, this is a Devonian’s take on Cornish bench ends. This is particularly evident by his lack of familiarity with standard Cornish antiquarian accounts. Serious dating inaccuracies have occurred with the use of William Penaluna’s shamelessly plagiarised versions of C S Gilbert’s original three-volume set, An Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall (which, in turn, drew on Borlase’s research and has a significant amount of detail on bench ends); hence, when ‘1838’ is referred to in the text, the text should actually read ‘1817–20’. Further disappointment will follow with the lack of a bibliography and index; such an omission creates a barrier to forming connections between, for example, individual tradesmen, patrons and places. Also, the volume contains no illustrations – a definite turn-off for those who are constantly reminded in the text of the vigorous and exuberant carving depicting a whole manner of ‘hybrid creatures, sacred subjects, initials and heraldry, and village art’.
Notwithstanding these quibbles, the book is a valuable and useful addition to the canon. It adds to our knowledge, particularly as this is an area long in need of some reassessment. As such, it will be welcomed and no doubt cherished by the general reader, church officers, visitors with an interest in church interiors and advisors, such as the Diocesan Advisory Committee. Also, it is eminently affordable and good value for money. It is not entirely clear whether a Cornish volume to match Gray’s Devon’s Ancient Bench Ends – a lavish publication with over 300 colour images, produced in Reference Gray2012 with the support of English Heritage – is planned. If it is, then more time in Cornish and national archives, along with conversations with Cornish experts, including Paul Cockerham, Joanna Mattingly and Michael Warner, are to be recommended. Nevertheless, this book is a fine companion to the recently revised The Buildings of England: Cornwall by Peter Beacham and Nikolaus Pevsner (Reference Beacham and Pevsner2014). It is shame that this work appeared too late to inform the new Pevsner guide, although the same inevitable fate has befallen Early Cornish Sculpture by Ann Preston-Jones and Elisabeth Okasha (Reference Preston-Jones and Okasha2015) and Celebrating Pevsner, edited by Paul Holden (Reference Holden2017).
