LONDON, 1601, MAKER'S MARK POSSIBLY A GOTHIC B

BELL-SALTS

The Townshend Bell-Salt comes from a small group of distinctive double bell-shaped salts that developed from single bell-shaped examples of the mid 16th century, known from contemporary documents such as the inventory of the Duke of Somerset’s plate of 1552 - ‘two salts gulite of bell facon with a cover’, cited by Schroder in English Silver Before the Civil War, The David Little Collection, Cambridge, 2015, p. 64. The earliest known complete single bell-shaped example, known as the Chorley Salt, is dated 1586, illustrated in M. Clayton, Christie’s Dictionary of the Silver and Gold of Great Britain and America, Woodbridge, 1986, p. 313, fg. 443. The double bell-shaped salt is also recorded in inventories of the time, such as that taken at Hardwick Hall in 1601. It lists ‘a double bell salt with a cover and a pepper boxe gilt’, Clayton, op. cit., p. 309. The surviving double bell-shaped salts number only around thirty. They consist of three sections, two for salt and a detachable finial formed as a caster for pepper.

The bell-shaped salt evolved during a period of greater prosperity for the country. The merchant classes were able to acquire grand pieces of plate for display and use. In medieval England the salt had historically held a prominent position in the display plate of Royal and aristocratic households. Placed on the table rather than the buffet it had both ceremonial, religious and practical significance. During the medieval period it was only the standing cup that was as rich in design and magnificence as the salt. The order of precedence determined the placing of the grandest salt on the dining or banqueting table by the host. One's closeness to the salt signified one's importance in the eyes of the host. Salt symbolised purity and was a component of pre-Reformation christening services. It was a vital addition to food, used widely as a preservative. It was a taste the Tudor palate was deeply attuned to. During the latter years of the Tudor period the role of the salt became less ceremonial in both aristocratic and merchant households, however, collegiate foundations continued the traditions of precedence. In 1622 it was noted that at All Souls College, Oxford, the most highly prized silver-gilt salt was for the use of the Warden. The Subwarden’s salt was of ungilded silver and fellows shared two sets.

THE HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHEND BELL-SALT

The history of this bell salt has not been previously recorded and in the absence of documentary records its is based on the presence of the later engraved crests and the family of the vendor in the 1938 auction. When the salt was entered for sale at Christies in 1938 it was receipted under the name of a ‘Miss Townshend’, however, following the sale the name of the vendor was changed to ‘Mrs H. Duncan’. An examination of marriage records for 1938 reveal that Miss Hester Townshend (1905–1991) had recently married Philip Duncan; hence the change of name. Miss Townshend was the daughter of Edward Lee Townshend (1868-1914) of Gorston Hall, Cheshire. The Townshend family had been long established in Cheshire at their ancestral home Wincham Hall. When the family pedigree is examined it is apparent that the first or second name Lee appears in no less than four generations. The first being for Lee Porcher Townshend (1804-1871), the great-grandfather of the vendor in 1938. It is very likely that the crests of Lee and Townshend were engraved by the Townshend family, having received the piece from their kinsman Hester Lee (d.1790), who bequeathed the Darnhall estate to Edward Townshend (1736-1811), grandfather of Lee Porcher Townshend in 1790. It was perhaps he who engraved the two crests, recording the previous ownership of the piece and its gift to the Townshend family.