When I was young, probably about seven, my father would take me into the grounds of Malmesbury Abbey and point out the gargoyles that stand guard over the intricately carved Norman south porch, and have silently watched the passing of thousands of Malmesbury lives over the centuries. All but one are beasts: the left-hand gargoyle above the front entrance has a human face.
The real purpose of a gargoyle is plumbing: routing rainwater in much the same way as we might use guttering and drainpipes today. They had another purpose, however — warding off evil spirits — although human gargoyles in particular are often supposed to serve as a mirror for human sins, and a point of contemplation for the congregation.
The concept of a plumber as somebody who works in our houses installing pipes and porcelain — and as a profession nowadays often taken up by investment bankers seeking better pay and a more flexible attitude to loose waistbands — is a relatively new one. The word “plumber” derives from the gently amusing Latin for lead, plumbum, and in the early 1700s a plumber would have taken on work we’d more commonly associate with roofers today.
Schooling, in the formal sense we think of it now, was then the preserve of the wealthy. It’s important to understand that whilst you wouldn’t yet be taking up a profession of your own at the age of seven, you’d almost certainly be helping family members with theirs. Which brings us to a sad incident at Malmesbury Abbey in 1726.
On Wednesday the 5th of October 1726, the following report appeared in the Kentish Weekly Post:
Malmesbury, Sept. 23. On Friday last, a Child of about 7 Years of Age, Grandson to a Plumber who was mending the Leads of our Abbey, fell thro’ a Hole in the Ceiling over the Porch, to the Floor, and broke his Skull, so that he died in an Instant.
Given the solid, Norman nature of the porch ceiling, one has to assume the unfortunate, unnamed seven-year-old must have fallen from the scaffold boards — perhaps through the ladder hatch — landing beneath the gargoyles that keep watch.
There’s a certain symmetry between the grim language of the article — “broke his Skull” — and the grotesque faces carved above the porch. One has to wonder, of the one face among them that is human, whether it is a mirror of the sins of man — or a reflection of the sights it has seen. It would be difficult, all things considered, to maintain a stony expression.
