The carving and the panels are all of
oak, and fit in with a Devon tradition of paneling rooms in houses and churches
– paneling could be ordered and bought by the yard from workshops in
the region. The elaborate carvings in the room were done by master craftsmen
in workshops, and probably were done by many hands and possibly different
workshops.
The carvings tell stories – in a real sense the room is a text, a narrative
to be read and a series of moral lessons to be learned. Some of the stories
are familiar to modern audiences, while others are more obscure.
The main door tells the stories of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written in
8 or 9 CE, recently translated and published in Elizabethan England. The carved
images on the door include:
- Hercules vs. Cerberus
Hercules defeats Cerberus, the three-headed dog, accomplishing
one of his 12 tasks
- Acteon and Diana
The accomplished hunter, Acteon, stumbles upon the goddess
Diana at her bath and is changed into a stag then suddenly the hunter becomes
the hunted
- Pyramus & Thisbe
These ill-fated lovers are doomed by simple misunderstandings
and are the basis for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Other familiar symbols in the room include the signs of the zodiac on the
small doors on the same wall – six per door – with no Pisces,
Sagittarius is shown twice, and a Devon “crab” apple tree appears
instead of Cancer.
