From ‘Lady Woodcarvers’ to Professionals: The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters
NOW AVAILABLE
This splendidly illustrated book brings the story of three remarkable nineteenth-century women to life. It recounts in rich detail the beginnings of the Rashleigh Pinwill ecclesiastical woodcarving company in Ermington, Devon, in the early 1890s, through to the establishment of a Plymouth-based business, ranked among the best in the Westcountry, and run single-handedly by Violet Pinwill until the 1950s. The front cover, featuring a beautifully-carved praying angel from Plympton St Mary, Devon, is shown on the right.
Paperback; full colour throughout with 350+ illustrations; xii + 300 pages; 246mm x 191mm; second impression (2023): £30.00 including p&p
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Trade terms available for independent bookshops.
For those living in (or visiting) Devon and Cornwall, there are several independent bookshops that stock The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters. These are:
- The Ivybridge Bookshop 18 Fore Street, Ivybridge, Devon
- The East Gate Bookshop 62 Fore Street, Totnes, Devon
- Westcountry Books 64a Queen Street, Newton Abbot, Devon
- The Box Shop Tavistock Place, Plymouth, Devon
- The Bookshop Liskeard 2 Borras Street, Liskeard, Cornwall
- St Ives Bookseller 2 Fore Street, St Ives, Cornwall
- The Edge of the World Bookshop 25/26 Market Jew Street, Penzance, Cornwall
- Clemo Books 33b Bank Street, Newquay, Cornwall
- Nigel Smith Books Tamar Way, Gunnislake, Cornwall
- Book Stop 3 Market Street, Tavistock, Devon
- Harbour Bookshop 2 Mill Street, Kingsbridge, Devon
- Ermington Store & More 1 Church Road, Ermington, Devon
- RAM Museum Shop Queen Street, Exeter, Devon
PODCAST
The Devon and Cornwall Record Society (DCRS) presents a series of podcasts interviewing authors of books on subjects related to the area. Here is the DCRS podcast on The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters, in which Todd Gray interviews Helen Wilson about her research.
REVIEWS
The book has been reviewed by several national and local journals, magazines, newsletters and websites. Here are online ones from Victorian Web and Public Statues and Sculptures Association, plus some extracts from printed reviews.
At 300 carefully referenced pages, this is a substantial book to have and to hold. With eight chronologically arranged chapters, and a useful chapter on the workshop (which examines production methods and employees), is a model of its kind and a work of scholarship to treasure. Julian Holden, Institute of Historic Building Conservation, September 2024.
One hopes that Helen Wilson’s superb achievement in chronicling the Pinwill sisters, with such lively writing and scholarly skill, will now generate widespread interest and enable an important part of the West Country’s artistic heritage to be properly appreciated. Peter Cormack, The Victorian Society, November 2021.
Their work is described in detail in a highly readable style by one who is clearly completely in awe of all the pulpits, bench ends, rood screens and other ecclesiastical carvings the sisters created and repaired. One is left with a new understanding of the art of woodcarving and an empathy for the past times which allowed for its creation. Stella Beaven, Devonshire Association, Autumn 2021.
The title speaks of performers being summoned onto the stage of the Music Hall by the Master of Ceremonies and that sense of anticipation is fully rewarded by this outstanding book, with plates to match. Matthew Saunders, Ancient Monuments Society, Summer 2021.
The author has already made the Pinwill sisters more widely known in recent years through her articles and lectures, but this volume firmly establishes their reputation and will be a valued resource for all those interested in the history and decoration of churches in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as those who love visiting country churches. Kate Hay, Furniture History Society, November 2021.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Helen Wilson (2015) The Pinwill Sisters: Woodcarvers Par Excellence. Institute of Historic Building Conservation SW Bulletin 30, 5.
Helen Wilson (2016) The Emergence of the Pinwill Sisters. Devon Buildings Group Newsletter 34, 59-67.
Helen M. Wilson (2016) The Architect Edmund H. Sedding and his Devon Churches. Transactions of the Devonshire Association 148, 255-292.
Helen Wilson (2018) An Edgcumbe Memorial at Maker and the Remarkable Violet Pinwill. Tamar: Journal of the Friends of the Tamar Valley 40, 20-27.
Helen Wilson, Featured churches: St Mary, Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot, Devon The Ecclesiological Society.
Helen M. Wilson (2019) From ‘Lady Woodcarvers’ to Professionals: The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters. Transactions of the Devonshire Association 151, 273-294.
Helen Wilson (2019) Devon: Ermington Reredos, St Peter and St Paul, Ermington. In: The Arts Society South West Fifty Treasures of the South West. pp 74-75 (The Arts Society South West).
Helen Wilson (2022) Early Work of the Sedding Dynasty in Cornwall. Cornish Buildings Group Newsletter Winter 29-32.
Helen Wilson (2023) The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters. West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network Blog.
Helen Wilson (2023) The Architect Edmund H. Sedding. In: Paul Holden (ed.) The Distinctiveness of Cornish Buildings. Conference Papers Marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Cornish Buildings Group Presented at St Austell in 2019. 217–35 (Shaun Tyas).
Helen Wilson (2023) The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters. Heritage Now: Magazine of Historic Buildings & Places Winter 16-19.