19 November 2022

Cheapside Hoard - London's stunning jewels and gold

 Large Colombian emerald pocket watch, c1600. 
Museum of London.

For 300 years a buried treasure lay below a busy London street. No-one knew the hoard was there till workmen were demolishing a timber-framed building in Cheapside, near St Paul's Cathedral and St Mary-le-Bow.

The busin­ess had stood on the site since the C17th, but the cell­ars were older and lined with brick. The row of hous­es on the south of Cheap­side was owned by the Worshipful Co. of Gold­smiths, form­erly Lond­on’s centre of the manufacture and sale of gold and jewellery under Queen Eliz­abeth I. The shops sold of luxury goods, including jewels.

The location was probably the prem­ises of a Jac­obean gold­smith, and the hoard was thought to have been a jeweller's working stock, buried in the cellar during the En­glish Civil War (1642-6). Gold­smith's Row was dest­royed in 1666’s Great Fire of London then the build­ings were rebuilt by the Goldsmiths' Co soon after.

The workmen started to excavate the cellars with their tools  in 1912, and while they were break­ing up the floor, they noticed glitter in the soil below. They realised that they’d struck the remains of an old wooden casket, and to their immense delight a tangled heap of jewellery, chains and rings, gems and other prec­ious objects fell out. They had uncovered what is now called The Cheapside Hoard, a great cache of early jewellery and one of the most amazing recoveries from British soil.

Gold scent bottle, the bejewelled handle hung from a chain. 
White enamel with milky chalcedony carvings of leaves, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. 
Museum of London.

When the hoard was cleaned, the workmen sold the items to an ant­iques dealer who frequently paid labourers cash for special finds from London building sites. The dealer was appointed by Guildhall Museum to sear­ch for new items for its collection and bec­ame Inspector of Excav­ations for the new London Museum in 1911. NB the Goldsmiths' Co. did not declare ownership of the finds, and no treas­ure trove inquest was held!

Viscount Lewis Harcourt provided the funds for the London Museum Kensington to purchase most of the Hoard in 1912, though some pieces went to the British Museum and the Guildhall Museum, 5 items were bought by the Vict­oria and Albert Museum and 25 pieces by the British Mus­eum. The ent­ire hoard of Elizabethan and early Stuart jew­ellery was brought toget­her for the first time in 100 years for a recent exhibition Cheap­side Hoard: Lon­d­on's Lost Jewels.

The Ch­eapside Hoard was special bec­ause so little jewellery of this era survived, so little information on London’s role in the inter­nat­ional gem trade in an age of global conquest and exploration was available

The hoard in its entirety represents the stock-in-trade of a working goldsmith-jewel­l­er so its presence in Cheapside is highly significant. This street was not only the prin­­cipal artery of the City, its ceremonial route and main shopping st­reet, but was also the hub of the goldsmiths’ trade. The Hoard contained a fine array of 500 dazzling jewels and gemst­ones from many parts of the world. It included topaz and amazonite from Brazil; ruby from Burma; Afghan lapis lazuli; peridot from the Red Sea; Bohemian and Hungarian opal, gar­net and amet­h­yst; sap­phires, diamonds and rub­ies from India; spinel and chrysoberyl from Sri Lanka; pearls from Ba­hrain; turquoise from Egypt and Persia; and Byzantine classical gems which had been in circulation for centuries when the Hoard was buried.

Gold fan holder, white enamel and Colombian emeralds.
Museum London.

This international treasure might have been brought back to England from the East Indies in 1631, perhaps assembled by the Dutch jeweller Gerald Polman. He died en route, and his gem chest was taken by the carp­ent­er's mate on the ship who was eventually forced to surrender the box. The contents went to Ro­bert Bertie 1st Earl Lindsey, Treasurer of the East India Co. (He died at Battle of Edgehill in 1642).

Some of the display cases and portraits pr­ovided further information ab­out the gem trade, or clothing fashions of Elizabethan Eng­land. See the contemporary portraits that provided a great record of how some of the jewels on display were worn. In the por­trait of Countess Elizabeth Wriot­hesley from the National Portrait Gallery, she was wear­ing ruby or garnet earrings, like those found in the hoard. A small red intag­lio stone seal bore the arms of William How­ard 1st Viscount Staff­ord, exactly dating the burial of the hoard between his ennob­lement in Nov 1640 and the Great Fire of Lond­on in 1666 which des­t­royed the area.

Fortunately the cur­at­ors helped visitors see the size and the minute det­ail. First, large and strong magnify­ing glasses have been provided to magnify the objects. Second, around the exhibition are a number of video present­at­ions show­ing how objects were made eg pearl pendants that were worn as earrings or hair pendants. The pend­ant showed highly skilled enamelling and metalsmithing. 

Rose-cut sapphire and diamond cross pendant, enamelled chains. 
Museum of London.

See a clock set in an exquisite, large Colombian emerald crystal dated c1600. The unique round emerald had been hollowed out by the maker to hold a Swiss watch movement, and used the removed material to embellish the metalwork, Green enamel decorates various parts of the watch, for nobility.. Then cont­rast it with the green Elizabethan timepiece with the amethyst cameo of Byz­ant­ine age.

Historians want to know exactly why the Cheapside Hoard was buried and by whom. And why did the owners never return to retrieve it? Nonetheless the exhib­it­ion clarified what was known about the national and inter­nat­ional objects and the research it promoted, revealing much about crafts­manship and wealth in C16th and early C17th London.

The Hoard is not currently on display in the Museum of London. A purpose-built gallery for the permanent display of the Hoard is planned for a new museum in Smithfield, scheduled to open in 2024.

Salamander brooch, gold set with emeralds and diamonds
Museum of London

Many thanks for GIA photos.








25 comments:

DUTA said...

Gold, gemstones, jewels are always a fascinating subject!
Cheapside Hoard sounds like an amazingly significant treasure found in English soil.
Great idea to provide visitors at the exhibition with magnifying glasses, and video presentations!

roentare said...

The pendants look exquisite! It is amazing how wealthy the royals and the riches are to acquire these items

Pipistrello said...

What a delicious subject! I occasionally come across images of select items from the Cheapside Hoard but haven't been to the museums to have a good goggle at them all. This must be rectified! Beauty aside, there's much to be fascinated by the find. Such as the idea that decades, even centuries, after the hoard was stashed, tenement dwellers, who could only dream about a different life, were living only feet above this treasure trove.

Deb said...

The salamander brooch set in gold with emeralds and diamonds is special.

Hels said...

DUTA

the magnifying glasses and the video presentations were essential ideas, yes indeed, because the stunning and minute det­ail of the jewels is so easy to miss. I even had to expand the photos for this blog.

I will add a photo of a gem in someone's hand, just to see its relative size.

Hels said...

roentare

the royals and nobles must have had endless money, to pay for these diamonds, gold, emeralds, pearls etc! So it is interesting that no wealthy family claimed the hoard, even after the Great Fire of London ended.

Hels said...

Pipistrello

we have to assume that the Bubonic Plague and the Great Fire of London sooo destroyed peoples' families, homes and businesses that they could never return to a normal life again. Like Covid, only much much worse.

But Cheap­side was already a very special area - the Worshipful Company of Gold­smiths worked in Lond­on’s most fabulous centre of gold and jewellery. [Even in the 20th century, I loved crawling around every inch of the luxury workshops]. Anyhow, there was no way of knowing what the workers would find back in 1912, when they were pulling up the cellar floors. But the goldsmiths and jewellers in Cheapside might have been an inspired locational guess :)

Hels said...

Deb

the salamander brooch is unlike anything I have ever seen. I will add an image to the post straight away so that you can see the gold and emeralds easily, but you will have to look for the diamonds more carefully.

Fun60 said...

I missed that exhibition annoyingly. I knew it was on but just didn't get a ticket before they were sold out. The Museum of London closes on the 4th Dec and will be relocating to Smithfield market. The date of its opening is still to be announced but you can be sure I'll one of the first visitors and hopefully get to see some of the Cheapside Hoard.

hels said...

Fun60
I spent the best 2 years of my life living on London, seriously underpaid but close to every gallery and exhibition that we could never have seen in Australia. My thesis was on Huguenot goldsmiths.. a sublime subject *sighs happily*

House Buyer of Virginia said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
CHILBACH said...

Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have provided here.

hels said...

Chilbach
thanks for reading the post. What is your particular area of interest?

Britta said...

Thank you Helen for all these interesting Informations and adorable photos!
Now I have another reason to travel to London in 2024 - though who needs a reason, even if it is such a beautiful one?
Why wait... 2023 is coming up. And London has so many gems to revisit!

Hels said...

Britta

I love Australia's galleries and museums, but London has a much bigger population than Melbourne has, plus London is much closer to all the European cultural centres when it comes to sharing treasures.

So you and I must plan to meet at the new museum in Smithfield in 2024 :)

Hels said...

House Buyer

What type of gold and jewels are you most interested in?

Hels said...

Ishaq

thank you for reading the post, and enjoying it. For an engineer, I am very pleased you enjoy beautiful things.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Hels - I went to this exhibition and wrote about it in detail in March 2015 ... it was quite extraordinary ... in fact I went twice and took a friend with me ... she was blown over too.

I've been to a few exhibitions at Goldsmiths Hall and their new teaching establishment nearby where they foster brilliant metal workers and creatives ... I've written those up too at various times in the blog.

The story of the find was so fascinating ... cheers Hilary

Hels said...

Hilary

Thank you! This weekend I will have a close look at your posts; it isn't very often I find a blogger with similar passions.

Hels said...

Hilary

I had a good look at your terrific post about the Exhibition the Goldsmiths’ Company that they displayed in conjunction with the World Gold Council. Thank you.

More than likely we could put on a goldsmiths' exhibition in Australia, but it would start later in history, end earlier, be smaller and less diverse :(

Anonymous said...

The Museum of London (the London Wall site) is closing this week. The new Smithfield museum that you mention will be the new home of the Museum of London when it reopens.

The pieces in the Cheapside Haul are so beautiful and ornate. They were on display during one of my visits to the museum but we'd gone to see something else

Hels said...

Anonymous/Mandy

don't worry about missing on a message of yours. As careful as I am about not ever commenting as Anonymous, it still happens once a week or so :(

I wonder if the purpose-built gallery for the permanent display of the Hoard that will be opening in Smithfield is necessary. The items are beautiful but limited in number and size.

Mandy said...

I shall be sure to report when it reopens!!

Who is the Father said...

Your insights on this topic are so valuable. I will definitely be referring back to this post in the future."
Who is the Father

Hels said...

Father

I am very pleased when an electrical engineer and web developer reads blog posts on decorative arts and other non-engineering topics :) Blogging broadens all our horizons.