Such a gorgeous, detailed, and artistic door and knocker! This lion’s head knocker is on the door of Cologne Cathedral, in Koln in Germany. It is far from the cathedral’s only feature though – the whole building has a history spanning the hundreds of years it took to build it, its ravages in several wars, and the illustrious contributors to the cathedral’s architecture.

There are plenty of lions head knockers in our range, but this one stands out for its size, firstly. It is among the three largest cathedrals in the world, it has a bell which weighs 3.8 tonnes, and quires engineered to be as large as possible while barely avoiding collapse … so you won’t be knocking the knocker with your thumb and forefinger! Unfortunately, you probably won’t get a chance to knock it at all, since it is on a door which is nearly always open. You may have to make an excuse for an urgent visit at 3 o’clock in the morning, just so you have an excuse! And given its size, you could hardly just give it a surreptitious little test on your way in, walking through the door. The boom would probably call priests out of their private chambers!

It looks as if the knocker, at least, is made of polished brass or bronze – given the colour that the wear on the lion’s nose and on the handle are. Brass would have been a common and obtainable metal since the current cathedral started being built in 1248. It is doubtful whether the entire door would be made of brass… it would likely be made of a stronger metal, with the brass coloured to match. The detail on the door is amazing nonetheless. Remember that modern tools and techniques for metalworking make things relatively easy and achievable, however, the door was not made in modern times! (more…)

Wow – such an awesome door knocker that if you had the chance to put it on your door, you probably wouldn’t even mind that it is a bit chipped. This is what cast bronze can look like as it ages, when it is left un-lacquered – you get some gorgeous contrasts between the protruding metal, which is polished by time and people’s hands, and the receding metal, which collects a layer of time and darkens.

Archaeologists believe that this door knocker was made in southern Italy around 1100. Given that there is a lettered inscription in Arabic around the edge, it is interesting to imagine who might have made it, paid for it, owned it, and had it on their door… Perhaps one of the earliest immigrants from Arabia to Europe wanted a reminder of his faith. Perhaps he didn’t want his Muslim faith submerged by the dominant faith of the area, and made a constant reminder of it to hang on his front door – both for himself and others. Either way, when you think about it, he/she must have been a very strong willed person to put a statement going against the popular religion of the area on his door, back when religion was an even touchier subject than it is now.

The actual knocker is made by both casting and engraving the bronze, so at least a couple of people were probably involved in making it – each skill was quite specialized, back in the day. Another great feature of the knocker is that the lion could be either male or female – another way it flies in the face of tradition at the time. It does have a mane, but while the actual face is cast, the mane is engraved, making it much less prominent. It’s there, but you have to look for it.

An enigma wrapped in a mystery…!

Photo credits: Cosmophilia by McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

Have a guess what the most famous door in the UK might open onto. Perhaps the UK’s most beautiful woman? Perhaps … Liam Gallagher of Oasis? Perhaps it’s the door to the Chief’s office in The Bill? Well, that would be close to the most famous door in the UK! But this one has certainly seen many more people with much more power and influence than that one – it is Number 10 Downing Street, London , SW1A 2AA. It opens onto the British Prime Minister’s home, offices, meeting rooms and dining rooms. For such an important door, it is really very nondescript, if much cleaner and better-looked after than many of our own doors!

The door came into being as a political figure (!) around 1732, when King George II offered 9 Downing Street, and the ‘house at the back’, a mansion built in 1530, to Robert Walpole, who is often known as the first Prime Minister of England. Walpole accepted the gift on the condition that they would be a gift to the office he held, rather than himself personally. That office was the First Lord of the Treasury, and in recent times, whoever is Prime Minister is also First Lord of the Treasury.

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One of the oldest door knockers known to mankind is this one from the town of Olynthos in Ancient Macedonia, which has been dated at manufacture sometime around 340-430 BC. Nearly two and a half thousand years ago!

The knocker is quite well made, considering the tools they would have had at the time to cast metal and so forth. This would have been on the door of one of the wealthiest people in the town … very lucky that we don’t have to be the richest person in our suburb or town to own a little bit of class like this!

You can expect the knockers that we sell here to be standing in two and a half thousand years time, as well!

Photo credits: macedonian-heritage.gr

We may have discovered the origins of nose piercing, in this door knocker at Brasenose College in Oxford, England!

This brass door knocker in the shape of a nose dates back to the twelfth century, when there were no celebrities with nose piercing, and the actual process would have been painful, unhygienic, and most likely involved a needle made from the bone of an animal, rather than beautiful shiny surgical steel…

While the actual shape of the knocker is more like an abstract, imaginary nose than a realistic one, it was definitely created to look like a nose. The shaping of it is likely a representation of the limitations of brass working at that time of history. We know that the nose is intended to be the college symbol firstly because of its name, which means ‘Brazen Nose’ in a pidgin form of English. We also know this for the fact that there are nose ornaments over several of the main doors, a carved nose in the Archives which was once attached to the college Eight, a tie pin from the college in the 1870s made in the shape of a nose, and the characteristic nose-shaped pipes smoked by Brasenose undergraduates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

All this focus on noses, though, begs the question … why?!! The nose is hardly a symbol of intellect and gentility – more of animal instincts and disease! We can only wonder, perhaps assuming that it represents having a nose for knowledge or something similar.

And also hope that the ring protruding from the nostrils is not allowed to become slimy, for the unsuspecting knockers… !

Photo credits: Wikimedia