Mice work

IT WAS a chance remark while carving a wooden screen that led to one of North Yorkshire's most legendary craftsman's trademarks. The First World War had just ended, and a young country joiner and craftsman named Robert Thompson was - so the story goes - working with fellow craftsman Charlie Barker in the roof of a church.

"I and another carver were carving a huge cornice for a screen and he happened to say something about being as poor as a church mouse," Thompson wrote to the Rev John Fisher almost 30 years later, in 1949. "I said I'll carve a mouse here and did so, then it struck me what a lovely trade mark."

And so the legend of the Mouseman of Kilburn was born.

Over the next 30 years, 'Mousey' Thompson - who was born at Kilburn and lived and worked there most of his life - established a reputation as a maker of great furniture. Inspired, it is said, by the medieval woodcarvings of master carver William Bromflet, whose work he saw in Ripon Cathedral, Thompson dedicated himself to making quality furniture out of naturally-seasoned English oak.

He disdained the use of machine tools and worked the beautifully-grained wood with an adze to produce furniture with a distinctive ripple surface effect.

But it was his trademark mouse - lovingly carved in relief into every piece of his later work - that became 'Mousey' Thompson's real signature.

His mice are to be found everywhere: scurrying across church pews and altars, sitting on oak ashtrays, inside clock cases and on oak bookends, even peeking out from beneath oak dining tables and chairs designed for grand country homes. Descendants of the Thompson mice still adorn the hand-crafted furniture produced and shipped all over the world by the company he founded, which today continues to operate from the same buildings at Kilburn where the Mouseman himself lived and worked.

His mice can be considered one of the earliest examples of 20th century 'logos', according to Patricia Lennon, author of The Tale Of The Mouse, a new book about the Mouseman.

Nevertheless, despite their fame, the mice always remained secretive creatures. "Robert Thompson never let the distinctive little symbol dominate his work," Patricia writes. "It is usually tucked away in unobtrusive corners, providing a special challenge to those who seek it out in dimly-lit church interiors."

That use of the word 'church' is instructive, because much of the Mouseman's finest work was reserved for churches and cathedrals - everything from lovingly-carved pulpits and pews to altar rails and even oak candlesticks.

It has long been a hobby of Mouseman aficionados to travel the region's great churches and cathedrals looking for his work. But now Patricia has put Thompson's mice firmly on the tourist map. Her book, as well as containing an account of his life and work, features eight circular 'mouse' trails, enabling you to track down the mice in churches and other buildings throughout the region.

One chapter is devoted entirely to York - the 'Mouse City', as Patricia calls it. Her trail takes you to St Olave's, Marygate, where the pews in the chapel on the south side of the chancel are 'unmistakably Thompson'.

"Chunky and heavily adzed with unusual castellated moulding, they date from c1936," she writes. "The mouse is found on the front of the kneelers."

There are several examples of Thompson's work at the Minster: a glass-fronted bookcase in the chapel dedicated to the King's Own Light Infantry; a chantry above the 16th century tomb of Bishop Savage; a stall in St Stephen's Chapel and eight oak seats in Lady Chapel; the Archbishop's Chair at the high altar and, on the north side of the sanctuary, five Deans' stalls. Opposite these, says Patricia, are three chairs and prie-dieux and servers' stalls.

"Whilst the rippled oak surfaces immediately identify these as 'Thompson', the enthusiast may be puzzled by the lack of the trademark mouse," she writes. "In fact, Thompson was simply following strict instructions from the Dean who insisted that the altar should not be over-run with mice: no more than one mouse to every three stalls!"

Other York churches to feature Thompson mice include All Saints, Pavement - although the recessed mouse on the massive organ case was produced in the early 1960s after Thompson's death by his successors - St Chad's and St Clement's. There is even a Thompson mouse nestling within one of the upper panels of the heavy iron-studded double doors of St William's College.

As well as York, The Tale Of The Mouse includes several mouse trails around the Dales, Ryedale, East Yorkshire, Ainsty country, Kilburn itself and the Lake District. One of the Dales trains, the Upper Dales, includes a visit to Ripon cathedral, where Thompson's work can be compared to that of the medieval woodcarver William Bromflet which inspired it.

There's even a chapter entitled Further Afield, which gives details of Mouseman carvings in Westminster Abbey, Brecon Cathedral, Pluscarden Priory near Elgin in Moray - and Canna, in the Hebrides.

It just goes to show you should never underestimate a mouse's ability to get about.

The Tale Of The Mouse by Patricia Lennon, published by Great Northern, price £8.99, is available from most main bookstores or direct from the publisher on 01943 604027.

Updated: 08:28 Saturday, February 09, 2002