The symbols of Freemasonry’s mysteries are not to be found in the Ross Bridge carvings
This morning, I spent an interesting hour with the librarian of the Grand Lodge of Tasmania. I had years of questions to distil into time available, having formed the opinion that many of the symbols in the sculptures were derived from the mysteries of freemasonry. He was well prepared and pleased to help me.
The mantelpiece at 31, Church Street, Ross
There is a mantelpiece in a room through the shop and dining room of Bakery 31 that I had heard was carved by Dan Herbert. But was it?
I scrabbled around its base and under the shelf hoping for a signature but could not find one.
In the Ross village interactive map, it is stated that the house originally belonged to Robert Standaloft.
Caterpillars and cocoons, sea serpents, a seahorse and a mermaid
On the south face of the western arch, on the right side as you look at it, is a pair of sculptures that is recognisable, referring to metamorphosis: that change from one form into another, like a maggot into a fly, a caterpillar into a butterfly, from an egg via a cocoon. A pair of five-petalled flowers, not a butterfly, is juxtaposed.
Three jobs to be done at Ross last Sunday
Whether it rained or not, my mind was made up to do three things:
1. To dig around the bases of headstones in the burial ground, looking for the stonemason’s signature, particularly Dan Herbert’s.
2. To site the first St John’s Church, using a photograph in Hawley Stancombe’s booklet on the Parish of Ross.
3. Knock on the door of the cottage that is purported to have belonged to Dan Herbert at 2 Badajos St, to determine if my memory of the back yard with sheds was correct.
Dan Herbert’s cottage, perhaps
I think, the low-lintelled cottage that I had visited was that one, still standing on the far end of the block, possibly built by Dan in conjunction with his workshop. Perhaps it was a quiet place to be after arguments about the money. He would have built a workshop because he was a monumental mason.
The Angel on Sarah Ann Ellis’ Grave
Sarah Ann’s angel is tender, personal, idiosyncratic … she tells us that the mason was empathic; that he was sad for this family who had lost their baby girl at one month old. She holds her trumpet and wreath, the symbol of her victory over death as she flies up towards Heaven. It is said Dan Herbert carved the head and footstones; if so, it is clear that he had learned his trade among the gravestones of an ancient people elsewhere in the world.
2 hours at the archives all for one sentence
It was the report that I had sought yesterday afternoon in the archive’s rolls of microfilms of the Colonial Secretary’s correspondence (CSO1-654-14662 Z1904). Henry Richardson had accepted a situation as a shopman in Campbell Town. I thought this was reasonable proof that this was the same bloke who had survived the wreck of the Hibernia.
Mona Vale Cottage
To tie up the research into James Colbeck, though with a loose knot as there are undiscovered facts and legends out there to be tied in, I travelled to Lochiel, Ross, the home of Valerie and Roger Lemaitre.