Turned Snakeskin - Serpentine Fancy Goods from the Lizard Peninsula
The Lizard is a remote peninsula at the southernmost point of Cornwall. Its coast is characterised by a chaos of jagged rock ridges, and the wild seas that beat the cliffs here have long been feared by sailors. (Engravings of Tintagel and Botallack on this website show how unfriendly the Cornish coast can be). Much of the Lizard's grandeur derives from its unique serpentine rock, which assumes extraordinary shapes and colours; at Kynance the brilliantly-hued rough green stone forms spectacular caves in the cliffs. Their very names conjure up the ancient romance of this mysterious county: the Devil's Letter Box, the Devil's Mouth, the Bellows.

The serpentine stone reveals yet greater wonders when it is polished. The rich colouring it attains has been compared to the sinuous skin of a snake. In the 1850s there was a considerable local industry devoted to turning and forming the stone into a variety of sought-after gift objects. The Penzance Serpentine Works employed twenty craftsmen, and held a stock of 160 tons of rock in their yard. They made chess tables, chimneypieces, vases and flower stands, and boasted that 'orders were constantly received from the nobility and gentry at home and abroad'. Prince Albert commissioned decorative serpentine slabs for his Isle of Wight residence at Osborne. (This website has an engraving showing Prince Albert deerstalking).



Serpentine souvenirs thus became very popular in Victorian times. The most popular were models of lighthouses. These were made in sizes from a few inches to several feet high, and Victorian travellers and holiday-makers bore them home with delight. (On this website you can see engravings showing the interior of the Eddystone Light and a lighthouse during a storm - see below).

Courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection

 

 Image

Comments (0)add comment

Write comment

busy