This little mouse was found in the church in Hubberholme, Yorkshire. Read on to find out a little about the mice.
"IT WAS a chance remark while carving a wooden screen that led to one of North Yorkshire’s most legendary craftsman’s trademarks. The First World War had just ended, and a young country joiner and craftsman named Robert Thompson was – so the story goes – working with fellow craftsman Charlie Barker in the roof of a church.
"I and another carver were carving a huge cornice for a screen and he happened to say something about being as poor as a church mouse," Thompson wrote to the Rev John Fisher almost 30 years later, in 1949. "I said I’ll carve a mouse here and did so, then it struck me what a lovely trade mark."
And so the legend of the Mouseman of Kilburn was born.
Over the next 30 years, `Mousey’ Thompson – who was born at Kilburn and lived and worked there most of his life – established a reputation as a maker of great furniture. Inspired, it is said, by the medieval woodcarvings of master carver William Bromflet, whose work he saw in Ripon Cathedral, Thompson dedicated himself to making quality furniture out of naturally-seasoned English oak.
He disdained the use of machine tools and worked the beautifully-grained wood with an adze to produce furniture with a distinctive ripple surface effect.
But it was his trademark mouse – lovingly carved in relief into every piece of his later work – that became `Mousey’ Thompson’s real signature.
His mice are to be found everywhere: scurrying across church pews and altars, sitting on oak ashtrays, inside clock cases and on oak bookends, even peeking out from beneath oak dining tables and chairs designed for grand country homes. Descendants of the Thompson mice still adorn the hand-crafted furniture produced and shipped all over the world by the company he founded, which today continues to operate from the same buildings at Kilburn where the Mouseman himself lived and worked.
His mice can be considered one of the earliest examples of 20th century `logos’, according to Patricia Lennon, author of The Tale Of The Mouse, a new book about the Mouseman.
Nevertheless, despite their fame, the mice always remained secretive creatures. "Robert Thompson never let the distinctive little symbol dominate his work," Patricia writes. "It is usually tucked away in unobtrusive corners, providing a special challenge to those who seek it out in dimly-lit church interiors."
That use of the word `church’ is instructive, because much of the Mouseman’s finest work was reserved for churches and cathedrals – everything from lovingly-carved pulpits and pews to altar rails and even oak candlesticks."
The church in South Kirkby also has some of these mice.
