of other local worthies. The carving of monuments must have become something of a production line; a monument to Thomas Ramsey, a miners’ leader who died in 1873, bears a marked similarity to that to Harry Clasper. Though capable of producing respectable work, such as a group of figures including Neptune on the former Fish Market in Newcastle upon Tyne, his work is often of a more dubious artistic merit: another statue to a local worthywasdescribedintheflrsteditionPevsner for Durhamas ”probably the funniest monument in the County” and by a colleague as resembling a giant garden gnome.

THE MONUMENTS

Two of these great oarsmen were buried in Gateshead and their monuments have been the subject of recent restorations, Chambers was buried in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne. Clasper is the only one of the three represented standing, and is depictedinformaiworking-class dress of the period. The monument is listed and a Buildings at Risk survey revealed it to be at serious risk as the four columns supporting his baldacchino were in an advanced state of decay. Repairs were recently successfully completed at a cost of around £20,000 with the help of a Buildings at Risk grant from English Heritage. Four new columns had to be carved

Monument to Robert Coombes, Clasper’s great

London rival, topped by an upturned skiff in

Brompton Cemetery, London. He died insane

in 1860.

together with various pieces of missing detail. The works were complicated by the monument’s position in the middle of a crowded graveyard and involved the delicate operation of lifting the

baldacchino some 40 m from the Rectory carparkwith the aid ofa very large crane.

James Renforth’s body was returned from Canada and interred in Gateshead East Cemetery. The monument shows Renforth dying in the arms of his friend and crew member Henry Kelly. The ifiustrated London News remarked that “the sculptor. . . has shown the relaxed muscles and fading expression of consciousness of the dying Renforth”. Unfortunately, his monument was repeatedlyvandalised andwas eventually removed to storage, where it lay half forgotten for a number of years. It has now been successfully reinstated, at a cost of about £4,500 outside the town’s art gallery as the focus of a newramped access.

In restoring these two monuments to heroes of yesteryear it is important to remember who these men were: the memory of their deeds is what makes these artistically rather ordinary monuments of special significance. The repair and reinstatement of these monuments seems to have been warmly appreciated by the wider public, and to mark this work, andto celebrate the history of rowing on the Tyne, it is hoped to stage a commemorative regatta during 1996.

John Pendlebury is Conservation Officer withGateshead Council Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily Gateshead Council’s.