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A view of our workshops.
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One of our authentic miniature Green Men.
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We are a small Herefordshire based family business, founded in 1983, Martin and Oliver being father and son respectively, specialising in making extremely accurate miniatures of stone carvings for the connoisseur and serious collector, and our work can be found in many private collections around the world.
All of our miniatures are hand made "in house" by ourselves, they are not simply casts taken from the originals. We have been very privileged to work with the cathedral organisations whose carvings we have miniaturised, indeed in most cases we have made the miniatures at their request. We are extremely grateful for their faith in our work and assistance given in taking detailed photographs of the carvings.
The majority of our pieces are roof bosses and corbels found in cathedrals throughout Britain.
A roof boss is the carved, usually protruding, underside of the key-stone that forms the meeting point of several converging vaulting ribs, which, in turn, are the load bearing arches supporting the vaulting itself. See the diagram on the right, showing the boss' position in relation to the vaulting.
Because of their protected position high up in the vaulted ceilings roof bosses, in particular, have survived the ravages of weather, iconoclastm and "restorers" that claimed so many medieval carvings more accessible at ground level. Thus it is that today some of the finest surviving medieval stone carvings are on roof bosses. The roof boss itself, though extensively decorated, fulfils an important structural role in architecture - it is not merely a carved stone trinket. The boss stone is generally considerably bigger than just the part visible to the eye, with a lot of its bulk performing the structural role of anchoring the various ribs together.
A corbel is a load bearing stone which protrudes from the face of a wall. The load is carried upon the part of the stone which is cantilevered out, whilst the greater mass of the corbel is built into the wall to stabilise it and provide strength. Corbels can often be found supporting such elements of a building as beams, or a parapet which projects proud of the wall below. Like the roof bosses, corbels frequently are sited high up and safely out of harm's way.
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Many of our miniatures are of the Green Man. The following text is an attempt to describe this extraordinary and ancient piece of imagery.
The Green Man.
The term Green Man, or Jack O' The Green, has been applied to an amazing array of images of the human form sprouting, or combining with, foliage. No single physical definition of him is possible, since he encompasses a multitude of variations on a theme. The representations range from almost portrait-like faces which sprout foliage almost as an afterthought, to the highly stylised, in which the leaves dominate and the human features are secondary. Images of the Green Man are as varied and diverse as nature itself; he has no definitive fixed form, but is the collective result of thousands of stone masons and wood-carvers expressing the concept that is the Green Man. |
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With his luxuriant foliage he is thought to represent fertility and regeneration. But the Green Man also frequently wears a stern expression; he is not unconditionally benign to mankind. He also serves to remind us that the natural laws of the earth cannot be ignored – nature, not man, is the definitive master of this environment. Nature, bountiful and beautiful provider, is quite capable of delivering a formidable rebuke to humanity if we should abuse or disregard it. No matter how clever humanity becomes, we still inhabit, and are supremely dependant upon, a world created and governed by nature - not ourselves. We can only live in harmony with our environment, ultimately nothing less is possible. So the Green Man is to be seen, therefore, not as a cuddly or sentimental puppet of man’s, but a primitive symbolic ambassador from the natural world. It is perhaps, in part, this autocratic aloofness which gives the imagery of the Green Man such appeal.
Although the Green Man's image is not the sole preserve of the Church, he appears on other buildings (notably the many Green Man pubs scattered across Great Britain), it is true that the vast majority of them are to be found in churches. His proliferation in churches is almost part of his mystery, since he frequently appears more than once (occasionally many times) in any particular church, yet he is not fundamental to the church’s teachings. Neither is the Green Man a British phenomenon, his images are scattered liberally across Europe and, indeed, can be found virtually all over the globe. The combining of the human face with foliage is a theme which has transcended many cultural differences, religions and backgrounds.
The Green Man is one of the most ancient and most pagan of all symbols to be found in the Christian church. Certainly his origins are entwined inextricably with paganism, folk lore and superstition as well as the church, but just how old is he? Where exactly did he originate? Who carved the first Green Man? And how exactly did this extraordinary piece of imagery come to spread so comprehensively across Britain and Europe? Perhaps there is a certain inevitability with such an enigmatic figure as the Green man that no records exist to give us any clue to his exact origin – no one has claimed him. His message to humanity, as we attempt to manipulate and further dominate every aspect of our planet and all the miraculous life therein, is probably more relevant today than ever before. Yet he remains forever mysteriously swathed in foliage and cloaked in silence.
By Oliver Webb. |
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