Listed Building record TR 13 SE 291 - Moses Drinking Fountain

Summary
A wall-mounted drinking fountain cast by the Coalbrookdale Company from a design by sculptors William and Thomas Wills. It was erected in Hythe High Street in 1886, relocated to Red Lion Square in 1911-1912 and restored in 2023.

Reasons for Designation
The Moses Drinking Fountain, Red Lion Square, Hythe is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a C19 cast-iron drinking fountain of notable artistic quality, finely modelled with carefully articulated drapery, anatomy and expressive facial features;
* for the high calibre of its design by leading sculptors William and Thomas Wills and the quality of its manufacture by the Coalbrookdale Company, one of the most accomplished ornamental iron foundries of the period.

Historic interest:

* as one of the few surviving mural drinking fountain designs produced through the Wills Brothers’ collaboration with the Coalbrookdale Company, which exemplifies the influential artist-led industrial design promoted by the company into the mid-C19;
* as a rare form of public street furniture once widely found in Victorian townscapes, representing a period when the provision of clean, freely accessible drinking water was regarded as a valued philanthropic gesture and civic amenity.

Group value:

* with the adjacent Grade II-listed K6 telephone box.

History
The Moses Fountain at Hythe was produced by the Coalbrookdale Company of Shropshire, one of the most significant cast-iron manufacturers of the C19. Initially specialising in utilitarian industrial products, the foundry became noted for its ornamental ironwork by the 1830s, including drinking fountains, lamp standards and architectural and domestic objects. Coalbrookdale’s castings earned medals from the Society of Arts in 1849 and at the Great Exhibition of 1851 for innovation and craftsmanship (De Haan, pp30-1). The foundry collaborated with leading artists, including William and Thomas Wills, sculptors active in the second half of the C19 who were renowned for their drinking fountain designs. Their partnership with Coalbrookdale was characterised by the Art Journal as ‘Art-Manufacture’, reflecting the foundry’s important role in the emerging mid-C19 practice of artist-led industrial design (Art Journal, p114).

The fountain was donated by the Mayor of the borough, Thomas Judge. Although installed in 1886, the Moses design dates from the mid-C19 and is one of a group of mural drinking fountain designs by the Wills Brothers, illustrated in Coalbrookdale’s 1875 castings catalogue (registered design number 110). Another Moses fountain, installed in 1860 near St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, is now lost. A limited number of comparable Coalbrookdale fountains remain, including two of the Queen Victoria design (number 106) at Bristol (Grade II, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1279656) and Hampton Court Palace (Grade I, NHLE entry 1358066) and two of the Woman of Samaria design (number 107) at Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil (both Grade II, Cadw National Historic Assets of Wales entries 11441 and 13688). In the mid-Victorian period, public drinking fountains were often donated, as in this case, and were widely regarded not only as objects of artistic value but as moral agents. The Moses iconography drew on the Book of Exodus (17:6) in which water is miraculously brought forth to sustain the Israelites. At Hythe the literal flow of water into the basin beneath Moses’s uplifted rod would have reinforced spiritual associations with the provision and benefits of clean water supply.

Archival photographs show the fountain was originally set into a boundary wall on Hythe High Street, between the Town Hall and the building subsequently occupied by the London and County Bank in 1887. When the bank was rebuilt in 1911-1912, the fountain was relocated to Market Square (later Red Lion Square), where it was inset into the boundary wall of the Mackeson brewery (demolished in 1975) on the north side of Military Road. Water was originally discharged from a spigot concealed behind a scallop shell (now lost) at the back of the niche. A drinking cup attached by a chain was provided but removed in 1965 due to public health concerns; evidence of its fixing survives. A recessed trough at ground level supplied overflow water to dogs. The fountain was restored in 2023 and reinstated as a public amenity.

Details
A wall-mounted drinking fountain cast by the Coalbrookdale Company from a design by sculptors William and Thomas Wills. It was donated by the Mayor of the borough, Thomas Judge and erected in Hythe High Street in 1886, relocated to Red Lion Square in 1911-1912 and restored in 2023.

MATERIALS: painted cast iron and marble fountain mounted on a section of rendered ragstone wall.

DESCRIPTION: the fountain takes the form of an elaborate cartouche with scrollwork edges framing a figurative tableau sculpted in relief. The figures flank a central arched niche with a curved marble back, fitted with a modern tap and containing the fountain bowl below. To the left, Moses is depicted robed and bearded, standing in a contrapposto pose, extending a rod in his left hand across the top of the niche; to the right, a robed woman is shown in profile offering a bowl of water to a naked child at her side. Both figures are set against backgrounds of tall reeds. The niche is surmounted by an ogee arch containing a relief of two winged cherubs emerging from clouds, one of which gestures toward an inscription below, which reads: ‘HE OPENED THE ROCK AND/THE WATERS GUSHED OUT/THEY RAN IN THE DRY PLACES/LIKE A RIVER/PSALM CV 41’. The relief is modelled in high detail, with careful articulation of facial features, hair, drapery and anatomy.

The curved outer frame of the niche carries the sculptor’s signature: ‘WILLS BROTHERS…SCULPts LONDON’, while the projecting edge of the basin is engraved with the foundry name, ‘COALBROOKDALE CO’. At the base of the fountain is a commemorative inscription: ‘PRESENTED / TO THE BOROUGH OF HYTHE/ BY/ THOs JUDGE ESQr / MAYOR / 1885.6.’ A fixing ring for a cup and chain (now lost) is located on the pedestal beneath Moses.

The fountain is set into a rendered and gabled section of front boundary wall to Mackeson Court. The remainder of the boundary wall is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing under S1 (5A) (a) of the 1990 Act.(1)

<1> Historic England, National Heritage List for England (Index). SKE29372.