File:JohnCoombeFireplace Precentor'sHouse ExeterCathedral 1833Drawing.jpg

English: "Chimneypiece in the Precentor's House at Exeter", drawn in May 1833 by Solomon Hart (1806-1881). Depicts the "John Coombe Fireplace", formerly in The Chantry House, Cathedral Precinct, Exeter Cathedral, Devon, as it appeared in 1833. After that date it underwent much remodelling and repainting and now survives in a much altered form (narrower, missing top section, repainted, new style of top section, etc) in the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. Commissioned between 1496 and 1499 by John Coombe, Precentor of Exeter Cathedral, for the great hall of the Chantry House. Possibly a copy of the surviving "Courtenay Fireplace" in the Bishop's Palace, commissioned c.1486 by Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter.

Text below based on article by "Wolfpaw", The John Coombe Fireplace, formerly in The Chantry, 21 February 2012[1]:

George Oliver in his 1861 book 'Lives of the Bishops of Exeter' describes a "stately mantelpiece" then existing in the great hall of the Chantry. According to Oliver the fireplace was modified between 1747 and 1762 by Precentor Rev. w:Jeremiah Milles (1714–1784), President of the Society of Antiquaries and Dean of Exeter between 1762 and 1784. Milles repainted it and "surmounted it with the arms of his family". Apart from Oliver mentioning the presence of John Coombe's initials, almost nothing in his description can be matched to the "John Coombe fireplace" as it exists today. Oliver describes ten complete armorial bearings on the fireplace. (Oliver's convention of starting with the central shields on each tier and then describing them from right to left):

• 1: "1st - Of Canterbury, impaled with Potter's". This matches the 1833 drawing exactly. Precentor Milles's father-in-law was Dr John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1737 and 1747.
• 2: "The Precentor of Exeter's... Impaled with Milles's". This bearing wasn't depicted in the 1833 drawing.
• 3: "Milles's impaled with Potter's". This bearing also wasn't depicted in the 1833 drawing.

None of the details of the next four bearings were included in the 1833 sketch. At first glance it's difficult even to locate their position on the drawing but Oliver described the heraldry on the fireplace from top to bottom and these four were "on the deep moulding". The only place where the four coats of arms could've been located was between three of the winged angels on the lintel.

• 4: "Precentor's impaled with Roger Keys's".
• 5: "Bishop Grandisson's".
• 6: "Bishop Lacy's".
• 7: "Precentor's and John Coombe's".

The three shields on the main lintel, "below the mouldings", are the last to be described.

• 8: "In the centre. The arms of St. Edward, King and Confessor, as adopted by Richard II". This bearing consists of five gold marlets surrounding a cross impaled with the arms of the Plantagenet Kings of England, exactly as drawn by Solomon Hart in 1833.

• 9 "Dexter" (in heraldry to the viewer's left, bearer's right): The see of Exeter impaling Courtenay", matches exactly the central armorial bearing on the Courtenay fireplace in the Bishop's Palace

• 10 "Sinister" (in heraldry to the viewer's right, bearer's left). Oliver describes it as "three bends wavy" and he believed it was supposed to represent either Brewer or Stapledon, both medieval Bishops of Exeter.

The fireplace remained in the Chantry until the building was demolished in 1870. A photograph of the fireplace still in situ at the Chantry just prior to the building's demolition in 1870 shows that the surviving arrangement of the fleur-de-lis and pinnacles along the flat top (i.e. mantelshelf) was already present before the fireplace was removed from the Chantry. According to Ethel Lega-Weekes, the fireplace was salvaged, placed inside a packing case and left in a stable until was it purchased by a stonemason. In c.1900 the fireplace was installed in the nearby Deanery (which building survives) by Alfred Earle (1827-1918), Dean of Exeter, where it remained until the early 1970s. The surviving paint scheme seen on the fireplace is the handiwork of a later Dean's son who painted it in the 1960s. The Deanery underwent various modifications between 1971 and 1972 and during the course of the building works the Cathedral's own surveyor, Peter Gundry, came to the conclusion that the fireplace was "Victorian" (then a term of abuse), and it was discarded as worthless, ultimately ending up in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.

The Exeter museum's website still suggests that the Chantry "had two very elaborate late medieval fireplaces, one of which is now lost", but (according to Wolfclaw) the mystery of the "missing" fireplace can now be solved. The drawing made by Solomon Hart of the fireplace in 1833 proves that it is the same item as that now called "the John Coombe fireplace", in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. Thus there never was a "missing" Chantry fireplace.

Source: Wolfclaw[2]