From tusks to turkey
Creature comforts... work by Yorkshire’s renowned critter craftsmen is more popular than ever. John Vincent reports.
His nickname provides sufficient identification: Mouseman. And work by the Yorkshire furniture maker Robert Thompson (1876-1955), whose inspiration came from the Arts and Crafts movement founded by designer William Morris in the 1860s, has long received international recognition.
But other “Yorkshire critters”, most of them trained by the master himself, are becoming increasingly popular with collectors. At a Tennants design sale, for instance, a stunning oak mantel clock bookended by two elephants by Stan “Woodpecker “Dodds (1928-2012), fetched £6,000. Dodds showed his determination to succeed by making a 60mile round trip to Kilburn by bicycle each day from his parents’ home in Normanby to be trained by Thompson. His oak owl realised £5,400, sparrow hawk £2,880 and three other carved creatures – turkey, otter and squirrel – each went for £2,400.
Pieces by Colin “Beaverman” Almack, from Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe, also went down well. His set of six oak lattice-back dining chairs sold for an above estimate £1,560, while an oakpanelled linen/pantry cupboard by Lyndon “Cat & Mouseman” Hammell, of Harmby, made £1,320. Six dining chairs by Wilf “Squirrelman” Hutchinson, of Husthwaite, fetched £2,760 and a sideboard made £1,200.
Top price, unsurprisingly, went to a piece by the master himself: an oak refectory dining table with two carved mice running up and down the legs, which realised
£9,360, the most ever at
Tennants for a Mouseman table. It came, with a collection of other furniture and furnishings, from Byland Abbey Inn.
Another batch of Mouseman pieces comes under the hammer at Tennants on March 6 in the form of a private collection formed by a lady collector from the North over many decades. It includes a rare anthropomorphic oak carving of a mouse craftsman wearing cap and apron and holding tools (estimate: £2,000-£3,000) Another rarity, with a similar estimate, is a carving of Mr Toad from The Wind in the Willows, dressed in a driving coat, scarf, hat, boots and goggles.
A 1960s Mouseman owl standing on a rock-work base with a mouse in its talons should fetch £1,500-£2,000 and a money box in the form of a wedge of cheese and three carved mice may go for £400-£600.
A final few words on Stan Dodds and Wilf Hutchinson. Dodds, who worked at Robert Thompson’s from 1942 to retirement in 1994, originally signed his work with a carved rabbit but switched to woodpecker in the late 60s when fellow Kilburn craftsman Peter Heap registered the rabbit as his own trademark.
Hutchinson, another Thompson apprentice, went solo in 1957 and, as Squirrelman, became a master woodworker. He passed on his skills to son Trevor, who runs the family business in Husthwaite. His father died in
2013.