A mid-Victorian hand-scrivened and illuminated manuscript ve...

Hammer

£260

A mid-Victorian hand-scrivened and illuminated manuscript vellum address, "To The Rev. Stephen Bridge MA., on his relinquishing the Incumbency of St. Matthew's Denmark Hill, [Camberwell, London], 1868", subscribed to and presented by his congregation and other residents of the district, ff. [12] Designed & Executed by Witherby & Co., London, signed ffep, gilt-ruled borders enclosing decorative initials and scrolling foliate tendrils, the valediction is concluded by an ink MS list of the contributors' names, finely bound in contemporary red morocco gilt over bevelled boards, elaborately blocked and tooled in gilt, the covers outlined with a graduating and alternating double-fillet border, enclosing foliate spandrels and rolls, the upper-cover centred by the recipient's name, restrained spine of raised bands, gilt dentelles, all-edges gilt, silk moiré endpapers, folio (37.5cm x 28cm), [1]

The Reverend Stephen Bridge, M.A. (1812-1895), was "of the extreme Evangelical type. [And] of that type of Churchmanship, while he liked the services to be decently and reverently conducted and was jealous for the appearance of the Church": presumably his aesthetic eye was gratified by this sumptuous gift. Following his incumbency at St. Matthew's, Bridge was the rector of Droxford, Hampshire, - where he had his pulpit from St. Matthew's moved to! - until 1886, and where he died in 1895.