Sculpture for a Roman Landing Place
MBE 1923-1999
John Skelton, letter carver and sculptor, spent 50 years working in Sussex close to Ditchling Beacon. At his home in the hamlet of Streat he made a sculpture garden and filled it with his own figures carved from stone, wood and cast bronze. In the side garden he sited the poetic Sculpture for a Roman Landing Place to greet visitors.
John Skelton was born in Glasgow in 1923, attended Norwich Cathedral Choir School and Bablake School, Coventry. He studied lettering, sculpture and architecture at Coventry School of Art and was then apprenticed to Eric Gill, his uncle, shortly before the artist died in 1940. He continued his training under Joseph Cribb, working at the Guild of Saint Jospeh and Saint Dominic on Ditchling Common. Cribb had taken over Gill's lettering and sculpture workshop in 1924, continuing his practice.
In 1942, John Skelton joined the Army, was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1944, and served in India, Burma, Malaya and Siam. On his return he worked as a stonemason, married Myrtle Bromley Martin, a silversmith and set up his first workshop at Burgess Hill, Sussex, in 1950. In 1958 the Skeltons moved their home, workshop and studios to Streat, near Ditchling.
Some of Skelton's most significant public commissions were for the cathedrals of Chichester (the font, 1983); Norwich (Our Lady of Pity Sculpture, 1967-8); Salisbury (inscriptions); and Winchester (inscriptions and side altar).
Also of special note are the memorials to the great generals of World War 11 in St Paul's Cathedral Crypt, London, and the tablet commemorating a member of the ship's company of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth Cathedral.
In Stratford-upon-Avon, he carried out commissions for a Lady Macbeth figure in carved walnut at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, as well as the Shakespeare family coat-of-arms, a sundial and other works, all dating from the mid 1960's.
