Brass in Boston

The pride of many an English country church is its brass--not the personages in the pews but the medieval nobles whose likenesses, engraved on brass plates, are lovingly laid into parish floor and wall. Their lively presences have long been prized by those Americans who, on pilgrimage, spend long hours in drafty naves rubbing the images onto paper.* Now, for would-be brass rubbers, the transatlantic trip is no longer necessary. A unique shop in downtown Boston, the London Brass Rubbing Centre, makes available to plate rubbers meticulous plastic copies of top brasses ranging from a rare depiction of a 17th century child to an armored, gauntleted, 6-ft. knight who served Kings Edward III and Richard II.

Minute Detail. Some 8,000 commemorative brasses are still to be found in England, dating from the reign of Edward I to the Civil War in the 17th century. They record in continuous, minute detail the costumes, weapons and fashions of those four centuries. Thus they are greatly prized not only by historians but also by rubbing collectors who find a gentil parfit knight and his wimpled lady good company on their walls. William Hawkes, owner of the Boston brasserie, charges customers from $2.50 to $18 to take an impression, depending on size.

One top-priced favorite is the 3-ft.-tall skeleton of a person unknown from the church in Hildersham, Cambridgeshire; another is Lady Margaret Peyton, wearing a richly detailed gown of Italian brocade and an elaborate butterfly coiffure, who lies with her husband Thomas and his first wife, also named Margaret, in Cambridgeshire.

Hawkes gets his replicas from an English firm that obtained the churches' permission to make them. Brass-colored and authentic to the last rivet mark, they are impossible to differentiate from originals--many of which have been rubbed so smooth that they are now off limits to collectors. Indeed, an English couple visiting the Boston establishment were filled with indignation that their churches had allowed the original treasures to be pirated to America.

*A process similar to transferring George Washington's likeness from a quarter, using paper and crayon.

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