Above: Click to view a larger image of the painting. If anyone can help identify the artist, please get in touch. Or leave a comment below.
Above: The artist’s signature (click to enlarge). Can anyone make it out?
Above: The shrine today, taken by Gail under grey skies in early June 2017. (Click to enlarge.)
Here’s another little gem recently discovered in Buxton Museum’s art collection. Most visitors to the Valley, approaching from the Buxton end of the Whaley Bridge road, will recognise this small shrine, set into the dry-stone wall beside the lane on the approach to the twin reservoirs.
It always seems to be decorated with flowers – no matter what time of year. I don’t know when the shrine was built, but I’m guessing it dates from the time of Samuel Grimshawe, the owner of the Errwood Estate, who converted to Catholicism in 1851, shortly after the death of his father.
Page update #1: Mike has discovered the name of the artist: Harry Kingsley (1914-1998). And Gail thinks the date is 1954. Click here to view more examples of Harry’s work. And click here to read more about his painting of the shrine.
Page update #2: Gail has discovered a webpage explaining all about the shrine. As well as information about its history, the page includes a slideshow of photos showing the shrine being blessed (example above). Click here to view the page.
Doh!
It seems I was wrong to think it had been the work of Samuel Grimshawe. It was actually built in the 1950s by Brian Foxton, who claims it was the first shrine to have been built on public land since the Reformation in the early 1500s.
But there is a connection between the shrine and the Grimshawe family. It’s maintained by St Anne’s Church in Buxton. Samuel Grimshawe donated £100 towards the cost of building the catholic church in 1860. And later that year, his 7-year-old daughter, Genevieve, laid the foundation stone.
The Dolores shrine was almost entirely demolished in the 1990’s by a heavy goods vehicle. Kenneth and Oliver Budd, a father and son company of mosaic artists, were charged with remaking it. I was given the task of making the image of Our lady and the Christ child. It was re-instated and re-consecrated in the mid 1990’s. I understood that the shrine was dedicated to the memory of the Grimshawe family governess. I hope this information is useful.