Welsh Journals

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The Powis Castle Gates. IORWERTH C. PEATE, M.A., D.Sc., F.S.A. With further reference to Mr. Stanley Davies's discussion (in the Montgomeryshire Collections, XLVI, 1939, pp. 38-40) of the origin of the Powis Castle Gates and to Lord Powis's illuminating comments thereon (pp. 194-5), it seems that both writers have overlooked the fact that there is internal evidence for attributing the gates to the Davies brothers, the well- known eaily 18th-century smiths of Y Groes Foel, Bersham, near Wrexham. But to make definite such an attribution documentary evidence is necessary. Robert and John Davies were responsible for much of the fine ironwork found in the borderland of north Wales: examples of this occur in the gates and screen of Wrexham Parish Church; at St. Peter's Church, Ruthin, and Oswestry Parish Church; the entrance gates at Chirk Castle; the Black and White gates and screen at Leeswood Hall, Mold; the screen at Eaton Hall, Cheshire; the gates at Erddig Hall, Wrexham, and those which formerly stood at Emral Hall, Flintshire. Those at the Abbey House, Shrewsbury, are also attributed to the Davies brothers but only on internal evidence. Concerning the Powis Castle gates, Maxwell Ayrton and Arnold Silcock in their Wrought Iron and its Decorative Use (p. 117) write: In the magnificent though florid gates at Powis Castle, we find a great contrast with the Shrewsbury gates. The ironwork is obviously in an earlier and cruder manner. It has much in common with the Chirk Castle gates and shows the same love for extravagant detail and (in the plate iron shells at either side especially) the same lack of a sense of scale. On the whole however it is more refined and strives less for effect, and as it lacks sufficient of the hall-marks of the Davies' work, is at present ascribed only and not definitely classified as of their forging.' The Davies brothers flourished between 1702 and 1755; the Chirk Castle Accounts show that the Chirk gates were made in 1719-21. The gate at the Abbey House, Shrewsbury, exemplifies the later manner of these smiths.' Ayrton and Silcock hold that the Powis Castle gates show an earlier manner.' They have much in common with the Chirk Castle gates but at the same time are more refined.' Therefore, if they are the work of the Davies brothers it is likely that they were made in the 1720's, but later than the Chirk gates. The Earl of Powis suggests that the gates may have been erected