Find in Library

This essay examines the collaboration between architect and designer George Gilbert Scott and metalworker Francis Skidmore. It compares their metalwork screens at the cathedrals of Hereford, Lichfield, and Salisbury—projects which sometimes overlapped and were all completed in the relatively short time span between 1861 and 1870—within the wider context of Skidmore’s career. While Scott was lauded in his lifetime and has been much studied since, Skidmore has not often been written about, despite having achieved an impressive scale and pace of work in British cathedrals, parish churches, and town halls. This essay therefore shines particular light on Skidmore’s work as designer and maker, and particularly the high profile commissions for these great cathedrals, restored and enhanced with the aesthetics and ambition of the Victorian era.