Fund raising A committee, including
Lord Burghersh, and chaired by the
Marquess of Londonderry,
Design and production The 4 foot 8 inch (140 cm) high trophy, weighing in at 1600 ounces (45 kg), was designed by Edmund Cotterill (1795–1860), made in a medieval
Gothic style by
Messrs. R & S Garrard, Silversmiths of London at a cost then of £1,775 (£78,277 in modern terms) and took four years to complete.
Edmund Cotterill was in charge of the design studio at Garrards in 1843 and at the time of the Empire Exhibition (1851) he was said to stand "at the head of the class of artists who model for silversmiths and his productions, annually exhibited at Messrs Garrard, have earned that house a celebrity which no other can equal". The trophy is formed from modelled and cast silver components which were assembled together to create the final piece. The Eglinton Trophy has a
hallmark and is therefore silver and not silver plate. It rises from a wide
crenelated base on the sides of which are located the shields bearing the coats of arms of the fourteen Knights of the Tournament; a fifteenth shield is blank and four of the shields are in alcoves that extend from the base, accompanied by swords, quills, coronets, laurel leaf crown, and so on. The 4 foot 8 inch (140 cm) trophy rises up as a highly ornate Gothic pulpit sitting beneath a pinnacled canopy under which Jane Georgiana, Lady Seymour, the Queen of Beauty stands in the act of placing a wreath upon the brow of the Earl of Eglinton, Lord and victor of the Eglinton Tournament. Beside the figure of the earl are the
Knight Marshal, Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb, with a dismounted squire, and a
halbardier, his escort and the presentation party. and finally the Duty Mark stamp of Queen Victoria's head indicating that duty was paid on the item and that it was made before 1890. The apparent disparity in dates just reflects the fact that the trophy was returned from the
Assay Office in 1842 and finally assembled, completed and stamped by the maker for delivery to the committee and its presentation to the earl in 1843. The Maker's Mark is not in alignment with the official Hallmark, lying slightly above.
Use The trophy, presented to
Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton in 1843, was originally housed within the library at
Eglinton Castle and later at the Ayr County Hall in Ayr. It was featured and illustrated in
The Illustrated London News of June 1843. The trophy is now kept, housed within its original glass and wood case, in
Cunninghame House, headquarters of
North Ayrshire Council, having been loaned to the people of Ayrshire by the 14th Earl it is however still the property of the present Earl of Eglinton. For a while during the construction of the headquarters of the then Cunninghame District Council it was housed at Wellwood, the home of the
Irvine Burns Club and the official Royal Burgh of Irvine Museum. It was moved to the
Eglinton Country Park visitor centre in 1989 for the re-enactment that marked 150 years since the tournament and was also loaned to the
Victoria and Albert Museum. at the
Dick Institute in
Kilmarnock. The trophy is of great significance to the local and social history of the area and can be viewed by small groups during normal working hours by prior arrangement, after going through appropriate security procedures. ==Other Eglinton Tournament trophies==