Deep in the Irene Mawer Archives (otherwise known as ‘the old biscuit tin in the attic’) there lies a lovely photo, probably taken in the 1930s. It shows Miss Mawer sitting side-saddle on a stone lion.
I didn’t know where it was taken and no-one else had a clue either. Nothing was written on the back of the photo – it was yet another Miss Mawer mystery.
The stone lion is huge, more or less life-sized, and beautifully carved. It is like no other lion statue that I have seen and it is wearing the most wonderful crown. Or to be precise, as I was later to learn, it is a coronet, not a crown! (I had to look up the difference.)
For years, I had wondered where the photo was taken, I wasn’t even sure it was in Britain. Miss Mawer travelled to Italy and Greece, so perhaps the statue of the lion may have been there? I tried a Google image reverse search, but that wasn’t any help, and I put the mystery to the back of my mind.
Then, a few days ago, I was at a point in my biography of Miss Mawer, where I had a completed draft of the manuscript. I sent it to my friend, Toby. I have never met Toby, I’ve not even seen a photo of him – yet I consider him to be a friend. We ‘met’ in the early days of my Irene Mawer research – he is a historian and genealogist and has been of immense help with my work. He ping-ed an email back to say he had received the manuscript, and in among the chit-chat, he happened to mention that his hobby was doing detective work on old photos.
With nothing to lose, I immediately asked him if he could help with identifying the location of the lion. In a matter of hours, an email appeared in my in-box, and it was packed with facts about what I now know is the Godstow Lion, or, as I call it the Godstow Heraldic Lion.
To keep this blog post short and sweet, I will finish here, and continue with the uncovering of the mystery next week.