Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

ESSEX, Wanstead, Wanstead Park, copper, Earl’s coronet above arms of the Earls of Tylney with supporters, rev. die-struck bason canals &c, 33mm, 14.04g/6h (W – [cf. 1144]; Hawkins and Punshon, SNC June 1967, p.166; MG 1523ff; cf. DNW 36, 290). Very fine and extremely rare £150-£200

Wanstead Park was laid out by Sir Josiah Child (1630-99) in the late 17th century. Wanstead House, better known numismatically as the Palladian mansion depicted on Skidmore’s Globe series penny, was built for Child’s third son, Richard, the first Earl of Tylney (1680-1750). In the north-west corner of the Park was a body of water, square in shape but with rounded corners, known as the bason, which was fed by a string of channels and irregularly-shaped ponds. The passes appear to have been discontinued after the death of John, the second Earl (1712-84), when a number of them were engraved as memorials, presumably for acquaintances and servants, although by then the second Earl had been largely resident in Italy for 20 years following a homosexual scandal. Sold with further background information and a photocopy of a view of the bason from a coloured mezzotint, c. 1815