BEAKERS - TUMBLER CUPS - GOBLETS

Engraved to base:

NUMBER 587 OF A LIMITED EDITION OF 600 MADE BY ORDER OF THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF ST PAUL’S TO COMMEMORATE THE 300TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE CATHEDRAL IN 1675

Booklet certificate signed by Martin Sullivan, Dean of St Paul’s

Edition of:                   600

Designer:                     Jocelyn Burton

Maker:                        Hector Miller –Stuart Devlin Workshop

Maker’s Mark:             JB

Weight:                        311g

Height:                        16 cm                                      Cost new:        £127

Before starting the rebuilding of St Paul’s following the Great Fire, Christopher Wren stood on the empty site and called for a stone to mark the centre of the new building. A workman pulled a fragment of an old gravestone from the rubble and handed it to him: it was inscribed ‘Resurgem’ - ‘I shall rise again’. It had already been rebuilt three times and now for the fourth, like a phoenix from the ashes. Over the great south door of the completed cathedral stands the carved phoenix which he placed there, above the solitary word ‘Resurgem’

Engraved to base:

 NUMBER 366 OF A LIMITED EDITION OF 500 MADE BY ORDER OF THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF YORK TO COMMEMORATE THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMPLETION OF THE GOTHIC MINSTER AND THE END OF THE FIVE YEARS OF WORK OF RESTORATION IN 1972

Booklet certificate signed by Alan Richardson, Dean of York

Edition of:                               500

Designer:                    Hector Miller

Maker:                         Hector Miller – Stuart Devlin Workshop

Maker’s Mark:             HM

Weight:                       474 g

Height:                        16.5 cm                   Cost new:        £88

 The Minster is the fifth cathedral in York and took nearly two and a half centuries to complete before it was re-consecrated in 1472. In 1967 the foundations were seen to be failing and the great central tower in danger of collapse. The frieze around the base of the goblet symbolises the restoration with twelve figures representing the hundreds of skilled workers involved: Engineers; Woodworkers; Plasterers; Surveyors; Decorators; Masons and Stone Carvers; Scaffolders; Steelworkers; Drillers and Concreters.

In a letter from the Dean promoting the York Minster Bowl he said: "…..the first piece produced, the Aurum York Minster Goblet, exceeded our hopes in every one of these respects. The almost instantaneous over-subscription of the entire edition on its first public announcement was gratifying but not surprising.”