AUSTRALIA'S IRON LACE - BRIAN TURNER (N/FINE)

Australia's Iron Lace
 By Brian Turner

Australia’s Iron Lace, sets out to explore out rich heritage of decorative cast iron and to portray it in all its exuberance and variety – from Cooktown to Hobart, from Brisbane to Fremantle.

Less than 30 years ago, while international tourist flocked to New Orleans to admire the cast iron filigree which graced its French quarter, house owners in Sydney, Melbourne and country towns were busy tearing down similar ironwork or enclosing it in fibro in the urge to ‘modernise’.

This was but one phase in iron lace’s remarkable history. Cast iron railings had surrounded English houses for 70 yeats before the First Fleet sailed into Port jackson. Within a few decades the Sydney herald carried advertisements for ‘balcony railings, in panels of different patterns’ recently landed form the william .By 1835 th ‘Hobart Town Foundry and Smithery’ was offering locally made decorative cast ironwork. By the 1860s local manufacture supplied the bulk of the demand. The Victorian-era mania for iron lace was well under way. Brian Turner’s extensive research reveals the fascinating story behind this love affair – its beginnings, its flowering, its extinction and its renaissance.

Publisher: George Allen, Sydney
Date Published: 1985 First Edition
ISBN: 0868614815

Description: Near Fine as new:  Line Illustrations by Robyn Fookes. 4TO. pp. 192. Profusely illustrated in colour and black & white. Catalogues, registration of designs, bibliography, directory and index. Very good hardcover in very good d/w. ISBN 0868614815. This volumes ets out to explore our rich heritage of decorative cast iron and to portray it in all its exuberance and variety from Cook Town to Hobart,

from Brisbane to Fremantle.