Details of Sculptor

Surname

Broad

Alternative Surname

First Name

Richard

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1692-1720

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Broad was working at Longleat before 30 April 1692 when he received £9 for unspecified work. Vouchers issued between 1705 and 1710 record that he supplied stone and carved pedestals for two figures by Claude David in the new plantation (3). He also provided ‘great copeing’ for ‘ye pallasaids stands at ye opening nere ye middle of ye wilderness’ and stone to be fashioned into dolphins and basins for the Hall Court.
Gunnis identifies the Longleat mason with Richard Broad of Box, who was responsible for two signed Wiltshire monuments. The Tipler memorial(1) is a large wall monument with an architectural frame flanked by standing cherubs, with two more in the elaborate cresting above. The other commemorates the wife and children of Thomas Smith (2). In his diary for 1720, Thomas Smith noted that he ‘walked this morning, being frosty, to Broad, the stone-cutter near Bath, to see a monument he has just finished to be put up in memory of my dear spouse and children’ (Diary of Thomas Smith, reprinted in J A Neale's Charters and Records of Neale, 207).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 62
Archival References: Longleat HA 200, 01/01/1705; Longleat HA 275, 30/04/1692; 275, 01/11/1709; 16/11/1709; 23/09/1710