Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore's Clerkenwell DH #153
Obverse: The southeast front of Fulham Palace. THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S SEAT AT FULHAM MIDDLESEX.
Reverse: The fictitious Arms of the Skidmore family surmounted by LONDON, P. SKIDMORE MEDAL MAKER COPPICE ROW CLERKENWELL
Edge: I PROMISE TO PAY ON DEMAND THE BEARER ONE PENNY X
Diesinker: Benjamin Jacobs
Manufacturer: Paul Skidmore
Rarity: Scarce
Fulham Place was built on the site of a former Norman edifice by Bishop Fitzjames during the reign of Henry VII on the north bank of the Thames. Fulham Palace was the official home of the incumbent Bishop of London until 1973.
The family business of the token manufacturer Peter Skidmore was an iron foundry at 15 Coppice Row in Clerkenwell with a shop at No. 123 High Holborn. Skidmore realized that there was a market for tokens as the genuine tradesmen's pieces of the time were very keenly collected as they were issued.
Paul Skidmore was the son of Peter. This is from Skidmore's series of 20 ‘Clerkenwell Pennies' that featured well known Provincial buildings, - mainly Guild-halls, Hospitals and Palaces. They were issued them in quite small numbers - plus the dies that Jacobs engraved were quite brittle and many broke before the required number was struck. The coins were primarily sold to collectors but in these times of desperate need for copper change they often got into circulation alongside the regal copper and other genuine tradesmen's tokens.
Atkins: Middlesex 82