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selected the softest of the rubbers for the hood as they could be cut and carved
more easily for this delicate part of the work on a niche.
There are many fine examples of Dutch-styled gauged niches throughout
southern England, for example, at Hampton Court Palace ( c. 1690) and at
Finchcocks in Goudhurst (Kent) ( c. 1725). A good example of a gauged niche
with a carved boss is one originally from Bradmore House, Hammersmith
( c. 1700), which has been re-erected in Geffrye's Garden at the Geffrye Museum,
London, where the delightfully carved boss is particularly worthy of note. This
niche, like that for the Eltham Orangery in London (dated c. 1710, with the boss
carved as a scallop-shell), have both undergone successful conservative restora-
tion under the guidance of the author.
Normally the gauging of the niche hood is more accurate and finely set than
the gauged work of the body, though an exception to this rule is to be found in
the niches at Chicheley Hall (Buckinghamshire) of 1723. The two niche hoods
at Mottisfont Abbey (Hampshire) of 1836 are also particularly worthy of note,
being of superior quality of clean-bodied rubbers neatly wrought with a most
wonderful carved boss; displaying the main brickwork tools, including the large
brick axe, used to set-out and cut the niches. The bodies are of low-fired face
bricks, cut and rubbed and exposing their inclusions so rendering them inca-
pable of the fine cutting necessary for the hood, set to a standard gauge, and
pointed flush with a pigmented mortar to reduce the impact of the wider joints
(Fig. 110).
Figure 110
Gauged hood to a
niche with a carved
boss displaying some
of the tools used in
its construction. Set
on a body of cut and
rubbed standard bricks
at Mottisfont Abbey
(Hampshire), 1836.
(Courtesy of Mike
Hammett)
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