The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-16
KEYSTONES.
Some Curious Survivals in London
 Architecture.

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 Architecture.
 Keystones and keystone masks are only to be found in classic, neo-classlc and Renaissance architecture, by req son of the Gothic styles not using the rounded arch, The pointed windows and doorways ranging from early Eng fish to late Elizabethan have no promi- nent keystones.
 Perhaps the best known and altogeth- CT most notable keystone masks are those that decorate the center arch of Henley bridge The present bridge of five arches that crosses the Thames at Henley was built in 17S6. The mask facing up river Is head of Isis; that facing dwn stream represents the con- ventional idea of Father Thames, and they are really admirable examples Of the sculptor's art They were the work of that very accomplished lady, the Honorable Mrs. Dawson Damer, who at that time resided at Park Place, Henley. She was cousin to Horace Walpole, for whom she carved an eagle so exquisitely that he wrote under it-- this enthusiastic cousin!-Non Prax- iteles sed Anna Damer me fecit. So, you see, Praxiteles can never filch the credit of that piece of sculpture from this lady artist of the eighteenth centu- ry. But the Honorable Mrs. Dawson Damer was, after all. but an amiable amateur. She gave her work to the bridge authorities-a most reprehensi- ble vagary. Yet the recipients were grateful, as witness the Bridge Min utes." True, they only acknowledge one mask: May 6, 1785. Ordered that the thanks of the commissioners be giv- en to the Honorable Mrs. Damer for the very elegant head of the River Thames which she has cut and presented to them for the keystone of the center arch of the bridge"
 There are several good examples of sculptured keystones in London. There is an elaborate design, for instance, over the western doorway of St. Brides, Fleet street, contemporary with Wren possibly his work. It exhibits that widespread convention of the winged cherub, podgy and smiling, whom you may find gracing all the city churches in different positions of usefulness; now as keystone, now a corbel, and again, most appropriately used as adecoration for fonts. The Guildhall museum-that olla podrida' of London antiquities, from Romano British old boots and potsherds to massive Jacobean carved fireplaces- | has two keystones in its crepuscular l crypt One came from an old house in l Paternoster Row, now demolished; 1t was the keystone of a window. Anoth- CT, from the doorway of a house in Spital Square, is an example of that very debased art the domesticated key stone mask, so to speak. There was at the end of last century, and at the be- ginning of this, quite a classic rage. Buildings fondly believed to be of clas- sic design sprang up everywhere, and traces of that fallacy are to be seen at this day, even In the undistinguished | streets of what were at that time the suburbs of London, Parts of the Ma | rylebone road, the Clapham road, the Old Kent road, and many streets of l Remington and Brixton show this de- based classicism. and many of these | houses bear keystone masks over their arched doorways. For the most part, however, they are not sculptured. They are of, perhaps, half dozen diff ferent patterns, and they are nearly all cast In plaster from mould. Also, the would-be classicism of them Is general ly very dreadful to look upon.
 l A keystone that no longer fulfils it's office of completing an arch is to be seen in the shape of a grotesque head built into the wall of a house in Kings Cross Road, above q singular tablet bearing the inscription: This is Bag nigge Huse neare the Pndar a Wake feilde 16S0' The "Pindar of Wake field' was the sign of an old inn that stood near here, and took its name from a popular play of that title that was written in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Bagnlgge House, too. Is gone and also Bagnigge Wells, that one-time fashion able suburban spa
 There is an archway in the Renais- sance style leading into New Square, Lincolns Inn, that has a sculptured keystone on either side-gaping and glowering masks that look down with
 forbidding aspect upon the barristers and solicitors, the attorneys and clerks
 who pass beneath them continually to
 and from the law courts across the
 street. Dour and threatening they are,
 and typical of the terrors of the law to
 unsuccessful suitors, mulct In heavy costs, but never yet have portents, even
 more insistent than these guardians Of
 the legal precincts of Lincoln's Inn, dis
 suaded the angry and litigious Briton
 from rushing in where oft-times law
 yers fear to tread on their own account. t-St. James Budget