Three Small windows / August 28, 2023 by Sasha Ward

St Margaret, St Margaret’s, Herefordshire.

The last church we visited on our trip to Hereford and back was St Margaret’s, the name of both the village and the church, which is in a field high up with a view of the Golden Valley to the east (above). It’s a beautiful spot, the small church is notable for its carved oak screen which is also a loft (below), a rare survivor from the Tudor period. Beyond the screen is a low chancel with more of the painted biblical texts on the walls and a wonderfully detailed east window by Archibald Davies, otherwise known as A.J. Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild.

St Margaret’s, Herefordshire, looking through the tudor screen.

The chancel, St Margaret’s with east window by A.J. Davies 1926

The window fits perfectly with the other features in the church in terms of its colouring, its size and its scale of detail with an oak leaf border that echoes the screen. It’s so satisfying to see this sort of harmony in a church interior - the wonderful details you find on closer inspection (below) are an added bonus.

Details from the A.J. Davies window that shows a scene from the life of St Margaret.

This window was the third I had seen on this trip where a low decorated chancel was beautifully complemented by a small east stained glass window. The other two were in Gloucestershire churches, both with a series of Norman arches carved with zig zags. At St John, Elkstone (below) zigzags also arch over the virgin and child window by Henry Payne who taught A.J. Davies at Birmingham School of Art.

The chancel, St John, Elkstone, Gloucestershire.

The features of this beautiful chancel are the vaulted arches with dragons’ heads where they meet and the amazing yellow light that fills the space through the south windows. The stained glass window is simple and fits in as well as an ancient one would. I always admire Payne’s flower details, here the floral border seems to nod to the Norman carving with the flowers contained by diamonds and separated by a string of circles.

Elkstone: left, looking through the norman arches: right, east window by Henry Payne 1929.

Kempley: left looking through the Norman arch: right, east window by C.E. Kempe 1876.

I found the most remarkable combination of stained glass and church decoration to be at St Mary, Kempley, a church that is famous for its Romanesque wall paintings. The paintings start in the nave and above the arch as you can see in the photo above left, then past the checked pattern under the arch to a low vaulted chancel. Once inside you are surrounded by a background of strong, earthy colours and the pale silhouettes of patterns and figures as the walls and ceiling are completely covered with frescoes that were painted around 1130 then covered over between the Reformation and the 1870s. The small east window by C.E. Kempe (above right) is in his familiar style but really looks at home here with a similar balance of pale silver stained figures against a dark red background, silhouetted by the light.

The chancel, St Mary, Kempley, Gloucestershire.

I was reminded of how much I value a small window, as opposed to metres of glazing. And how refreshing it is in a church to progress to a small, intimate space which, in all three cases, has a truly divine atmosphere.

St Mary, Kempley - no hint of what’s inside but a fabulously pink wall.

Drayton and Yarnton, Oxfordshire / November 27, 2021 by Sasha Ward

When we decorated our cellar Ray set some of his relief plaster panels, made about twenty years ago, into the walls. It may not be obvious why from the photo above, but I like to think of the link these have to altar pieces, particularly those carved in Nottingham alabaster from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. We went to St. Peter’s church in Drayton, Oxfordshire to see a set of particularly fine examples of the genre which had survived because they were buried for safety and rediscovered when a vault was dug out in 1814.

Fifteenth century altar piece in St Peter’s church, Drayton, Oxfordshire

There are six scenes crowded with dynamic figures, heads, animals and angels. The panels, some with missing sections, are about 40 cms. tall with traces of paint visible and are mounted in the wall behind an altar. I was so captivated that I couldn’t really be bothered with the (nineteenth and twentieth century) stained glass in the church, but we did find a guide book that told us about a similar Nottingham alabaster altar piece in St. Bartholomew’s at Yarnton, only 15 miles away - a church I knew by name but couldn’t remember why.

The two end panels of the Drayton altar piece

Fifteenth century altar piece in St Bartholomew’s church, Yarnton, Oxfordshire

This altar piece (above) with two of the six panels missing, proved much less exciting than the Drayton one mainly because of the way that the panels are mounted, surrounded by heavy stone, and lit with a dim yellow light. However, every window in the church is filled with fragments of the most fantastic medieval english and continental stained glass, most of it given by alderman William Fletcher, Mayor of Oxford, in 1813. We stayed for a long time, admiring the details and the style of the figures so in keeping with the altar piece; I was delighted not to have my medieval reverie interrupted by any more modern glass here.

Yarnton church: East window (above the Nottingham alabaster altar piece) mainly English C15th and detail.

Two more depictions of the virgin and child (with other painted fragments) in the north windows of Yarnton church.

Details from the north west window of Yarnton church.

Left, The only C15th pieces that are in their original position in the top tracery, north window. Right, Head and birds in the sanctuary window, Yarnton.

To me, the most exciting windows are the reset angels in deep alcoves, lit by sunshine in the south west corner of the church (below). The windows are small enough for the mainly fifteenth century pieces to make a complete picture in each one, with some pattern, some objects ( a wheel or a surveillance camera, a football or a flower?) some border pieces, some incongruous bird and animal segments, fritillaries and bluebells. The faces that loom out of the bottom of the right hand window (bottom picture) have a particular other worldly quality - there is nothing in the centuries of stained glass painting that I would rather see.