Regular visitors to the Cathedral may have noticed that the Friends Notice Board which was on the wall near the North door of the Angel Choir has disappeared.
The Friends had a desk in the North transept until the late 1980s when it had to be removed at the time of a major event in the Cathedral. It was never replaced and I, therefore, asked if the Association could have a notice board and the result over time became known as 'The Cosmati Box'. It was installed in 1990 and at the Annual Meeting for that year Nigel Leaney described the significance of its decoration prior to its dedication by the then Dean, Very Rev Oliver Fiennes. The following is taken from the description written by the then Cathedral Architect, Keith Murray in the 1989 Friends Annual Report:
"To display the Friends' work for the Cathedral and to serve as an information desk, with notice board and pamphlet rack, a very beautiful piece of furniture has been designed to fit in one of the bays of the arcade next to the north door of the Angel Choir aisle. The design and decoration have been based on the work of the Cosmati, an Italian family, who worked all over Europe, from Kiev in Russia in the east and Westminster Abbey in the west, where they made Henry III's tomb -contemporary with the Angel Choir. Usually the Cosmati worked in white marble, decorated with coloured and gold mosaic, but in the Abbey they replaced the white marble with Purbeck. This desk has been beautifully made by Tony Devonald of Gayton-le-Wold, near Louth..."
The decoration was done by a Final Year student at Lincoln Art College, in the Department of Restoration and Conservation, under the supervision of Nigel Leaney, who was in charge of all the teaching and conservation of painted surfaces. The student concerned far exceeded his brief and turned the whole commission into a work of art and concentration...he spent many hours on the refining of the surfaces, putting layer on layer of glazes and paint to get the right effects of the shadows within the faux marble etc. He had also carried out the major part of the work on the restoration of the Wren Library.
The cost of the 'desk' as Keith described it was ₤1,314 and
the following year a matching notice board was placed on the other
side of the North Door at a cost of ₤347 on which to display
Notices relating to the Young Friends of Lincoln Cathedral.
It seems a pity that it has disappeared from its familiar place, as there is no doubt that it is a marvellous piece of work of great artistic value.
I acknowledge information communicated to me by Linda Tilbury.