Patrick Comerford
Elm Hill is a picturesque street in the Cathedral Quarter in Norwich, with its cobblestones, mediaeval jettied and timber-framed buildings and independent shops. It runs from the Church of Saint Peter Hungate, where the top of Elm Hill meets Princes Street, to the Church of Saint Simon and Saint Jude at the bottom of Elm Hill on the corner with Wensum Street. This was a thriving area at the height of the weaving trade. Since its renovation, Elm Hill has been a location for a number of films and has attracted many specialist independent businesses.
As we were walking back down the street towards the cathedral last week in the early darkness of a January afternoon, one of the inviting shops that caught attracted our gaze is ‘Antiques and Interiors’ or ‘Art and Craft Antiques’, a double shopfront with warm embracing mid-winter lighting and an interesting display of the work of Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson.
The shop is run by Patrick and Liz Russel-Davis, a husband and wife team who have been dealing in antiques for 30 or more years. Their shop at 31-35 Elm Hill is constantly changes stock and the window display last week included a Mouseman table and six chairs, including two carvers, each with the trademark ‘Mouseman mouse’. Together they have an asking price of £8,950.
Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson (1876-1955), also known as ‘Mousey’ Thompson, was a furniture maker who lived and worked for most of his life in n Kilburn on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, where he was born on 7 May 1876.
Thompson featured a carved mouse on almost every piece of his work. It is said his mouse motif came about accidentally in 1919 following a conversation about ‘being as poor as a church mouse’. The conversation which took place between Thompson and one of his colleagues while they were carving a cornice for a screen. This chance remark led to him carving a mouse and it remained part of his work from then on.
Thompson was in his teens when he began visiting Ripon Cathedral and sketching its 15th century woodcarvings and interiors. He later spoke of this period as his inspiration to ‘bring back to life the spirit of medieval oak work, which had been dead for so many long years’.
During World War I, he was asked to remain in Yorkshire after his craftmanship was designated a ‘protected profession’ by the authorities. After the war, he was commissioned to create decorative oak war memorials and remembrance boards to honour the dead in towns and villages across Yorkshire.
Father Paul Nevill, who became Headmaster of Ampleforth College in 1924, met Thompson in 1919 and commissioned him to make furniture for Ampleforth Abbey. The school liked Thompsn’s work so much that Ampleforth kept asking him for more work, including the library and most of the main building. Most of Ampleforth College’s houses are now decorated with his furniture, and it is seen as the original home of his trademark mouse.
Word of his Arts and Crafts style oak furniture spread among parents at Ampleforth, who begin placing commissions for bespoke pieces. Thompson was part of the 1920s revival of craftsmanship, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris, John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle. Other furniture makers in this genre and era include Stanley Webb Davies of Windermere.
The Thompson ‘mouse’ was officially registered as a trademark in 1931, and the carved mouse, still beloved by children and adults, became synonymous with his work and products. It inspired the ‘Mouseman’ name and remains one of the earliest British brand logos still in use, unchanged.
He received prestigious commissions from York Minster, Peterborough Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, as well as from Ripon Cathedral, the place of his early inspiration. I have also seen his work in Saint Nicholas Church, Adare, Co Limerick, Saint Peter’s Church, Harrogate, Yorkshire, and Bangor Cathedral.
Another collection of Thompson’s work is in the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Hubberholme, in North Yorkshire where, in the 1930s, he designed most of the interior furnishings, including pews, choir stalls and chairs. However, I have failed on a number of occasions to see his work see in Saint Clement’s Church, York.
Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson died on 8 December 1955, aged 79, and was buried in the churchyard in Kilburn.
Interest in Thompson’s work become more widespread new heights a quarter of a century after his death with an episode in the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow in 1979 when Arthur Negus picked out a large oak dining table and told viewers: ‘Items of furniture made by master craftsman Robert Thompson of Kilburn will become antiques of the future’.
The family of Cardinal Basil Hume bought a Mouseman prayer desk in 2017 to sit at the side of his tomb in Westminster Cathedral, London. Pre-owned furniture, from dining tables and chairs to cheese boards and coffee tables, are quickly being sold for similar sums as new pieces.
His workshop is now run by his descendants, and includes a showroom and the Mouseman Visitor Centre, beside Kilburn Parish Church, which has ‘Mouseman’ pews, fittings and other furniture. The company is now known as Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen Ltd. The Mouseman showroom displays examples of his handmade furniture signed with early examples of his carved mouse symbol. The viewing gallery is open Monday to Friday. However, the visitor centre and café are currently closed.
• Arts and Craft Antiques on Elm Hill, Norwich, is open Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm. Outside these hours, customers are welcome by appointment.
