Lowewood Museum
Samaritan Woman

Samaritan Woman in Hoddesdon

Created 21 June, 2008

Samaritan Woman After being taken down from its position in the Market Place, the Samaritan Woman was placed in Tuck's - later Turners, and still later Gocher's - yard on the opposite side of the road where it stayed for the rest of the century, during which time it suffered much damage through being used as a cock-shy by boys with stones. In 1894, the year in which the Hoddesdon Urban District was formed, a plan was placed before the Council for its consideration, strongly supported by Mr C. P. Christie, by means of which it was proposed to re-erect the figure at the north end of the Market Place, on a small pedestal protected by an iron fence. A booklet was published setting out details of the plan with illustrations. The scheme was abandoned when a well-known sculptor gave it as his opinion that it would be impossible 'to renovate it to make it worthy of display in a public place'.

One good thing came out of this; the interest aroused by the plan made the Hoddesdon UDC aware of the historical importance of this example of seventeenth century sculpture, and they rescued it from the butcher's yard and placed it in a building at Rye Farm. And so the years passed and its existence was almost forgotten; the Great War of 1914 came and went.
The depression which followed, made rigid economy the order of the day, and many post-war plans for Hoddesdon remained in pigeon holes, but in 1934 the Council was able to go ahead and build the new Council Office which it so badly needed. Not everyone however had forgotten the Samaritan Woman; Colonel E. I. Christie, a son of Mr C. P. Christie who had hoped to get it re-erected in 1894, headed a group of people who felt that a prominent place for the figure could be found in the layout of the forecourt of the new building. Mr Giddings of the of Hoddesdon, a very competent sculptor was invited to undertake the restoration of the historic figure, which, after its sixty-eight years in a butcher 's yard, and forty-one years at Rye Farm, was found to be in a very bad state, covered with the dirt of 109 years, the head severed from the body, the nose broken from the face.

The Samaritan Woman at the rear of the Council Offices. Various holes had been made in the body through which odd pipes had been inserted. The result of Mr Giddings's work was most pleasing, and it appeared as though she would now begin another long period on display to the people of Hoddesdon, but the sinister events of the years immediately preceding the 1939 war, and the national emergency, threw much extra work on both Councillors and Officers of the Council, and the Samaritan Woman was placed temporarily at the rear of the Council Office. Another move became necessary when the Council transferred its offices to Bishops College, and in 1986 the statue was placed in the garden at the side of Lowewood.

During the years prior to the Second World War, Mrs Elliott of Bridge House, Broxbourne, carried out much valuable research, mainly concerning the artistic place of the Samaritan Woman in seventeenth-century art, and in an endeavour to discover the name of its sculptor. This led her to visit many examples of the sculpture of that period, and to correspondence with many interesting people. As a result of her correspondence with Professor Geoffrey Webb, an eminent authority on the subject of sculpture in relation to buildings, Mrs Elliott visited the 'Venus of Bolsover' in the courtyard of Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, which was erected for William Cavendish, the great Duke of Newcastle at about the same time as the Samaritan Woman in Hoddesdon, viz c 1631. As with us at Hoddesdon there was no documentary evidence as to who carved the figure, but Professor Webb did mention three names of sculptors who might have done so, Nicholas Stone, Maximillian Colt and Edward Marshall.

It was in 1938 that Professor Webb sent a copy of Mrs Elliott's correspondence to Mrs Arundel Esdaile - whose family gave its name to our Esdaile Lane - the greatest authority on English sculpture of the seventeenth century. In her subsequent correspondence with Mrs Elliott, Mrs Esdaile mentioned the three sculptors named by Professor Webb, and discussed the possibility of one of them being the sculptor of the Samaritan Woman.
She wrote: 'Marshall's work has only been seen in illustrations by the writer; it is however a splendid thought that the mason-contractor of St Paul's Cathedral might have been the sculptor.' In this case he was probably the master-mason of Marmaduke Rawdon's house, as Mrs Esdaile also said 'The architect of Rawdon House would probably be the author of the Samaritan Woman.' It is disappointing that Mrs Elliott's researches did not reveal the name of the author of Hoddesdon's famous statue; it looks now as though we shall never know his identity, but I feel that it could be said that the finger of probability points - perhaps a little uncertainly - to Edward Marshall.
It is pleasant to know that there is a happy ending to the story of the Samaritan Woman, and that after its years of usefulness, and its years of exile, it is again to 'pour water from her pitcher into a pond'. The Hoddesdon UDC approved a plan by its Engineer and Surveyor to have an ornamental pool made into which the figure, connected to a supply of water, is again giving aesthetic pleasure to the townspeople after a lapse of 143 years.
The HUDC has further agreed to place an inscribed plaque on, or near the figure, giving a brief outline of its history over the 338 years of its existence.

With the opening up of the land to the south and west of the Council Office, and the building of the Clinic and the Police Station, and with the laying down of grass and pavement, and the planting of flower beds, this famous old piece of sculpture will be seen by a larger number of people than at any time during the past thirty-four years.
Now that Rawdon House is no longer the home of the Canonesses of the Order of St Augustine, they have offered through their agents, to convey to the Hoddesdon UDC free of charge, a parcel of land relating to the Conduit House and Conduit leading to Rawdon House. The Council accepted the offer with thanks, and agreed to be responsible for their maintenance.

It will be seen that reference has been made to the Samaritan Woman in English literature by two poets, one in the seventeenth century, and one in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century Samuel Henley, are, 1740-1815, first Master of the East India College at Haileybury from 1805-1815, in reference to a passage by Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale, act v, scene ii: know he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather bitten conduit of many kings' reigns,' wrote 'Conduits representing a human figure were not uncommon; one of them, a female form stands at Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.' He could have added 'of many kings' reigns'; in 1810 it would have been eight kings and two queens, today it would be thirteen kings and four queens.

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Last updated: 19 July, 2008