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Lot 367
A pair of Cornish serpentine wall brackets by Stevens of Wherrytown, Penzance. Height 14cm.'THE STEVENS FAMILY OF WHERRYTOWN, PENZANCE IN THE 19TH & 20TH CENTURIES''My maternal grand-mother, Mahala Brown, came down to Penzance with her family from Matlock in Derbyshire, 1850. At that time, the railway ran only as far as Bristol, from there they had to take a ferryboat to Hayle, doubtless an arduous journey which the family never forgot.Mahala's father, Joseph Brown, was a skilled worker in the Blue John stone which was found only in Derbyshire and was highly prized in France where it was called "Bleu Jaune" hence the English name. I believe the Blue John ran out so the family decamped to Cornwall to work with the recently discovered Serpentine at the Lizard. There was a Serpentine Works in Wherrytown which must have offered employment.They young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Mounts Bay in 1846 on the royal yacht. Prince Albert landed in Penzance and was conducted to St. John's Hall where he admired a set of serpentine vases, readily presented to him by the Mayor. Victoria & Albert subsequently ordered a number of items for Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, which immediately popularised the serpentine ware.Mahala Brown later married a former sea-captain, Charles Grenville Stevens in 1869. Legend has it that they walked in bridal dress from Wherrytown to Madron church and back. Charles gave up the sea and was instructed in the art of stone-carving by his father-in-law, Joseph Brown.Extract from The Western Morning News, Dec.17th 1984...." Joseph Brown was a skilled worder of serpentine, but he was eclipsed by his son-in-law Charles Stevens....who, within a few years, had been accepted as the finest carver of serpentine in the country. Charles had an instinctive feel for the stone and carved some magnificent ornaments on of which, a 3' anchor, circled by a dolphin, is to be found at the V & A Museum".Mahala gave birth to 2 sons, Samuel and Joseph who later learnt the skill of carving serpentine from their father and became equally accomplished. They established 2 small shops in Wherrytown where they sold a wide variety of ornaments in serpentine all turned on a treadle lathe in a shed in the back yard.Samuel married Matilda Lawry in 1898 and Matilda bore him 3 daughters. The middle of the 3, Norah Maria, was my mother and she grew up with her sisters in Wherrytown in the early years of the century. The serpentine shops continued to flourish due largely to the increase in tourism. My mother later married John Cyril Mann who became Mayor of Penzance in 1969.I was born in 1934 and as a boy, I well remember visiting the shops and workshop on many occasion marvelling at the vast range of serpentine goods the brothers had produced.Sadly, the shops and most of Wherrytown were destroyed in the disastrous storm of 1962'.David MannOctober 2020
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