Keystones and Social Identity in the Classical Architecture of England's North East

This chapter addresses the adornment of buildings in North-East England with sculpted heads over arched entrances or above windows on the façade. It argues that because of the tectonic significance of the keystone going back to antiquity, the placement of heads in such positions had particular communicative force. Between around 1850 and 1890, such figured keystones on North-Eastern buildings re-used classical precedents to express social and cultural statements of local identity. Instead of the flamboyant triple keys without figural ornament associated with wealthy ‘Baroque’ residences as a carrier of elite identity, it was the classical figured keystone, popularised by Sir William Chambers in the late eighteenth century, that became a vehicle of expression. The chapter considers two particular manifestations in the Victorian North East: first, in the idiosyncratic combination of classical and contemporary portraiture by the sculptor William Wilson to decorate his houses at Berwick-upon-Tweed; and, second, in the adaptation of classical types on public buildings in Middlesbrough and Newcastle to highlight the corporate and industrial identities of these new cities.