Details of Sculptor

Surname

Losh

Alternative Surname

First Name

Sara

Initial of Surname

L

Year of Birth/Baptism

1786

Flourished

Year of Death

1853

Biographical Details

She was the architect of the singular church of St Mary, Wreay, in Cumberland. She designed the prolific and expressive naturalistic decoration and a local builder’s son, William Hindson, provided the stone carving while her gardener executed the carved woodwork. According to the memoir of a historian, Henry Lonsdale, the local craftsman had 'never shown the slightest feeling for art' so Losh made models in clay of her preferred decoration and asked the carvers to copy them in stone' (quoted in Bullen 2001, 682). Sara and her cousin William carved the font (3). She was also responsible for an irregularly shaped slab with a carved pine cone erected in the churchyard as a memorial to her schoolfellow, Major Thain, who was killed by a poisoned arrow in the Khyber Pass (1).
Literary References: ODNB (Plouviez); Bullen 2001, 676-684