Saturday 12 August 2023

The Soldier Dick Murals

The top floor of the Soldier Dick was used by the Oddfellows who established their "Foundation Stone Of Truth Lodge" in 1829. A mutual society, the Oddfellows provided financial benefits to their members in times of sickness, hardship or death. They came to have a very large membership in Furness Vale. In 1840, they commissioned an artist, F. W. Roche to paint murals on the walls of their "Lodge House". These represented English armies in battle: In the Civil War; at the Battle of Crecy; in the Napoleonic Wars; and a portrait of the pub's landlord, either Joseph Gould or William Travis at the time. There was another mural in the Snug but that was much more recent. The photographs which are of poor quality show the murals. Presumably the strange seating was for the officials of the Oddfellows. When the upper floor of the pub was converted to letting accommodation, the murals were carefully panelled over and still exist, carefully preserved.

 






 A further mural was painted in the pub's "snug" in the 1970s by a New Mills artist. This was lost during modernisation of the pub.



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