Edington Priory and Other Kitchens

Edington Priory Church, Wiltshire.

Being inside Edington Priory Church made me feel as if I were in a town, with different things to see round every corner. It was built from 1352 - 1361 by William of Edington, a local man who became Bishop of Winchester and who spent his money on this wonderful large church. There is a noticeable change of style from the chancel to the slightly later and plainer nave and west end, with periods of embellishment and restoration up to the twentieth century. It has plaster ceilings in three different styles, Jacobean woodwork in the screens, fine monuments and new fittings exquisitely blended in - I’m thinking in particular of the rows of lights below the gorgeous red and white ceiling that look as if they have been sprayed the same colour as the stonework (below right).

Edington Priory Church with monuments and plaster ceilings.

The gorgeous red and white ceiling pattern that is dated 1663 changes to a section of intricate 18th century fan vaulting, and then to a delicate Gothic white pattern in the chancel. Through the carved rood screen, then past a fine Jacobean communion rail in front of the altar, is a blue and gold reredos from the 1930s with figures carved by Christopher Webb (below right) an artist who is better known for his stained glass.

Edington Priory Church; looking through to the reredos with carving of the devotional poet George Herbert holding a mandolin..

Edington Priory Church; the Lady Chapel with 14th century stained glass.

The best stained glass is in the Lady Chapel (above), that is a rare fourteenth century crucifixion window restored in 1971 by the York Glaziers Trust. There are lovely photogenic details in every part of the building, like this small angel (below left) above your head in the chancel, see how the electric cable has also been sprayed stone colour. And being in a Wiltshire church, of course we have one of those kitchens with a sloping wooden cover, squeezed in between the tombs of two medieval knights that were formerly in Imber church and now lie in the south west corner at Edington (below right).

Edington Priory Church; stone angel, kitchen between the tombs of two medieval knights.

Left: St Mary’s Church, Garsington, Oxfordshire. Right: St Mary’s Church, Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire.

I last wrote about kitchens in churches on my blog in 2022, since then I’ve found and photographed about twenty more. Here is an update with six of the most extreme examples, starting with the kitchen in the south west corner of Garsington church that is watched over by Lady Ottoline Morrell in a carving by Eric Gill (above left). Only occasionally are the church kitchens hidden away - I know enough by now to guess that the doors seamlessly extending from the panelling of the organ in Collingbourne Kingston church (above right) would have a well equipped one inside including the drying dishcloth that features in many of my photos.

Left: Congleton United Reformed Church, Cheshire. Right: St Mary Magdalene Church, Hullavington, Wiltshire.

Sometimes the catering takes over the space with the monuments and stained glass just filling in the gaps between the sink - always with a dramatic hook shaped tap - the piles of chairs and the folding tables. In one of Europe’s oldest wooden churches at Marton (below right) I particularly enjoyed seeing an old school tea urn in front of a painting of Moses and some lovely fragments of glass in the windows. Best of all was the real play kitchen with the right kind of tap in Christ Church, Eastbourne (below right) that had been brought out for a children’s session as if to parody the whole idea of having a kitchen in a church.

Left: Church of St James & St Paul, Marton, Cheshire. Right: Christ Church, Eastbourne, Sussex.

Volcano Club

Volcano Club Magazine: Top row, pages from first issue (1995), bottom row, pages from later issues (2010).

I’m making a fanlight window for the founder of Volcano Club, established in 1995 and chiefly known for the zine produced by Augusta Ward at very irregular intervals until 2013. The pages above show the original volcano cover image, some dot to dots (including a pack of cheddars which featured heavily in the first issue) and some very concise instructions for crafting (as we would now call it), for example ‘get rocks and wash’. A later issue celebrated eyjafjallajökull which erupted in 2010 and wrecked the windows of aeroplanes, much like a sandblaster would; inside the zine there was always a wordsearch and a quiz. Augusta also made a stained glass window in 1995 of alternating volcanoes and pyramids, sadly no photo of this exists.

Volcano from a window in St Andrew’s church, Halberton by G Maile and Son, 1931. It is dedicated to Sir Robert Harvey who made his money in South America.

On the hunt for other volcanoes in stained glass I remembered two that I had seen, both made in the 1930s. One was in a Devon church (above) and one was in a huge and fabulous window at Airbus headquarters that I worked on during the restoration of the building in 2013 (below).

Volcano in etched and enamelled glass from the staircase window by Jan Juta, 1936, at the headquarters of the British Airplane Company, now Airbus, in Filton, Bristol.

Design for a fanlight window 2025: Miniature glass sketches, initial design, and full sized final drawing.

Of course we know that the angle of the sides of a volcano should never exceed 45° but sometimes this doesn’t fit in to the format of the picture, for example the vertical zine cover and the window in Devon. This new window (see designs above) is horizontal and the volcano has a more realistic shape that is based on Mount Fuji. It is also influenced by a grid of 48 picturesque views of Vesuvius that we saw in Compton Verney’s 2010 Volcano exhibition, the source of most of my volcanic facts.

Then I remembered a window I made in 2002, a period when I was particularly busy and particularly bad at getting photos of completed commissions in sensitive spaces - this one is in a mental health unit at St James’ Leeds. I just have the tiny and lovely piece of glass for the 1:50 model that I made (below left) and a couple of drawings (below). I rather sneaked the volcano image into the fantasy landscape which was the result of workshops I held with local service users. Amazed that I came up with the same colour combination 23 years later and that I’m still using the same pot of purple enamel, Ferro 77396, which is actually a vibrant and very transparent pink.

Design for a window at St James’ Hospital, Leeds 2002: Miniature glass sketch (54 × 90 mm) for model, design, and full size collage (700 mm square) of the volcano.

Shrines In Two Dublin Churches

For my first ever visit to Dublin the sun was shining and the windows looked amazing in the dozen or so churches visited on my stained glass itinerary. They were all open, busy and filled with a wealth of mostly Irish stained glass from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here are two of the largest Catholic churches, both of them with side chapels containing shrines to saints with an invitation to light a candle and recite an appropriate prayer.

St Augustine & St John The Baptist Catholic Church, known as John’s Lane Church, looking north towards the altar, where the stained glass is by Mayers of Munich.

John’s Lane Church, served by the Augustinian Order, was designed by Edward Pugin with his brother in law George Ashlin. It was built in the Gothic style from 1862-74 with a second phase completed in 1895 that includes a spire designed by William Hague that is the tallest in Dublin. Inside are elaborate spaces, lit by high windows and richly decorated with mosaics, carvings, metalwork and gilded panels, with just a couple of incongruous banners (above and below). The dramatic statue (below right) on one of many tasteful radiators that appeared in my photos is of St Monica the mother of St Augustine, the suggested prayer at her feet begs for her to watch over the family.

John’s Lane Church, Left: In front of the Shrine of The Sacred Heart, Right: statue of St Monica.

John’s Lane Church, Left: east facing aisle windows with windows by Michael Healy and Harry Clarke Studios. Right; west facing aisle windows by Harry Clarke Studios above The Shrine of St Rita.

The most celebrated window in this church is by Michael Healy from 1933-4 (above left). It shows St Monica with St Augustine and the major events in his life in the lovely bottom panels. It’s an incredibly dark window, especially on the afternoon of a sunny day when not much light is coming through the glass, and when even the decorative, almost borderless, sections are in such an intense colour palette. The stained glass in the windows adjacent and opposite (above right) is from the Harry Clarke Studios, and although their style is familiar and some of the details very fine, they are not mentioned in any of the listings of the actual work of Harry Clarke - an artist whose style lived on after his death in 1931 in the work of the studio that continued to use his name. The symmetry of these aisle walls, with rows of confessionals below the windows, appeals to my sense of order as does the placing of the shrine to St Rita with its blue lights (below left) under the bluest of the Clarke windows.

John’s Lane Church, Left: Shrine of St Rita. Right: Harry Clarke Studios stained glass in the window above.

John’s Lane Church, Left: Shrine of The Sacred Heart. Right: Shrine to Our Mother of Good Counsel.

To the left of the altar The Shrine of The Sacred Heart (above left) ‘offers an opportunity for good photographs’ (this from the church website). All the fittings, carvings and mosaics, by the Oppenheimer firm, are so detailed but make such a complete whole that is a wonderful setting for stained glass by the Dublin firm Earley & Company. To the right of the altar (above right) is the oldest and most popular shrine in the church, dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel and served since 1900 by a Confraternity of Knights of the Shrine who act as ushers and recite the Little Office of Our Lady daily. Blue lights in the cabinets on either side of the shrine - another incongruous touch that is at least symmetrical - lead up to a window by Early & Son with a turquoise sea and sky.

The Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, known as Whitefriar Street Church, looking west towards the altar and window behind.

Whitefriars Street Church, served by the Carmelite Order, has been on the same site since the 1820s. It looks like a block of apartments with an ornate entrance, this was added along with many of the shrines inside when the church was completely remodelled in 1951. The neo classical/utilitarian style of the interior houses a row of beautiful 1930s stained glass windows by Early & Company (below), with others by Mayers and Abbey Studios. The Lady of Mount Carmel window behind the altar (above) is attributed to Hubert McGoldrick by the church website but to Leo Earley in the definitive study of Irish stained glass that is the Gazetteer of Irish stained glass. This window, a simple arched opening like all the others in the church, glows from within the organ pipes behind the domed altar, small in size but huge in impact.

Whitefriar Street Church, South aisle with windows by Mayer and Co, Earley and Co and Abbey Studios.

Thrillingly, for my new found interest in shrines which is teaching me so much about saints, there are 17 shrines listed on the Whitefriar Street Church website.

Whitefriar Street Church, Left: Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. Right, Shrine of St Valentine.

First, on the south aisle, is the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (above left) with her statue between a gorgeous vibrant window and a restrained mosaic band, all very 1930s. In the new extension off the north aisle is the Shrine of St Valentine, above his statue is a window made of the most golden coloured glass and below is a casket containing the remains of the saint brought from Rome.

The shrine of St Therese of Lisieux was also built in the 1950s (below left). Here a marble statue, a replica of the one in the Basilica in Lisieux, stands on a plinth beneath a mosaic that depicts Our Lady of the Smile. In the most lavish shrine to the north of the entrance doors is an unpainted life size oak figure known as Our Lady of Dublin, she has a history that stretches back, anecdotally, to medieval times. In all of these shrines there is hardly an item out of place or carelessly displayed, with discreet information panels and rows of candles or battery operated lights in vintage style trolleys.

Whitefriar Street Church, Left: Shrine of St Therese of Lisieux. Right: Shrine of Our Lady of Dublin.

Whitefriar Street Church, Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The best two shrines, have different qualities - more homespun than lavish. Next to the entrance is a huge fibreglass cave that suggests the rocks at Lourdes where St Bernadette had her vision of the Immaculate Conception hovering there in a niche - a naturalistic scene so she is off centre. Beside this fabrication is a real piece of the rock, about the size of the eraser on the top of a pencil (above right).

The Shrine of Blessed Titus Brandsma (a saint since 2022) also at the back of the church, tells the story of this committed Carmelite philosophy teacher and anti Nazi who was murdered in the concentration camp at Dachau. This shrine is a much more modest affair, a life size statue with wonky glasses and plain colours that is barely raised off the ground and whose history stayed with me throughout the tour of Dublin churches.

Whitefriar Street Church, Shrine of Blessed Titus Brandsma.

Cornwall in Cornish Stained glass

St Winwaloe, Gunwalloe, view through the beach facing window and from the porch.

St Winwaloe in Gunwalloe is the sort of church I hope to see when on holiday in Cornwall. There has been a church here, practically on the beach, from the fifth century with several stages of rebuilding since. It remains a small, stoney structure at the foot of the sand dunes with a view of the sea through the pale colours of the simple windows and from the porch (above).

St Uny, Lelant, view of the church and Trencrom hill from Hayle, view of Hayle from the church.

St Uny in Lelant, between St Ives and Hayle, is also a three hall church dedicated to a distinctively Cornish saint and with a view of the river estuary from its windows (above). The central stained glass window is a fine twentieth century one designed and made by Michael Farrar-Bell of Clayton and Bell in 1973. It succeeds in complementing the decorative glass on either side, maintaining a twentieth century style (obvious even from the outside) and packing in Cornish references, which is something that local people and holiday makers love to see.

The three east facing windows of St Uny with 1973 stained glass by Michael Farrar-Bell in the centre.

East window donated by Col. Giffard Loftus Tyringham, formerly of Trevethoe House, Lelant, in memory of his parents, wife and son. At the bottom of the window Tyringham House, Bucks, is on the left and Trevethoe House is on the right, where you can also find a portrait of R.W.G. Tyringham out shooting with his dog.

The saints depicted are St Uny, St Erth, St Anta, St Ia, St Gwinear and, thrillingly, St Winwaloe holding the church on the beach that I’d just visited. In the centre is the Cornish cross, above are recognisable birds - chough, woodcock, puffin and gulls - and below are nicely painted details that either relate to the history of the donor family or show the local landscape.

The Tyringham coat of arms on Trencrom Hill.

This is the coastline of St Ives that I’d been looking at from Hayle beach and in the foreground the rocky hill fort of Trencrom Hill that has a view of the Hayle Estuary and also over to St Michael’s Mount. How satisfying to see actual details of the region, crisply painted against a patterned sea and sky.

The coastline of St Ives with R.W.G. Tyringham’s yacht.

The Bolitho war memorial window at St Pol de Léon Parish Church, Paul, Robert Anning Bell 1917-18.

For comparison, here is another celebrated twentieth century window in the region that has a Cornish sea at the bottom. Although this could be interpreted as the view of the west coast of the Lizard as seen from the churchyard at Paul, it looks to me more like a decorative pattern with repeated cliff motifs rising above curling waves. The window was given in memory of Lieutenant William Torquill Macleod Bolitho who died in 1915 at the second battle of Ypres, at the top of the five lights are scenes from the battlefield and the first world war trenches.

For another comparison, we have Alfred Fisher’s 1987 window in Penzance that shows St Mary as Our Lady, Star of the Seas. Here the sea is shown in wavy bands engulfing a tower and reminding me of the sea sickness I felt on the Scillonian ferry.

I would have found this window, designed at the time I was starting out on my own career in architectural glass, difficult to date just by looking at it. I remember the 1980s as a time of experimentation with technologies, materials and a mix of artistic styles which included a return to figurative imagery in painting. Perhaps the period of commissioning abstract (non representational) stained glass for English churches was mostly over by the 1980s as artists like Alfred Fisher, who had previously experimented with new techniques for making windows, returned to the old ways.

St Mary, Penzance, Alfred Fisher 1987. St Mary in front of the Scillonian ferry, a fishing lugger, nets and lobster pots.

silk purse, sow's ear

Although it is true that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, I really don’t believe in the concept that this proverb expresses especially when applied to the making of stained glass. I’ve always used old scraps of glass - scratched, industrial, too thick or too thin - to paint on. I use old jars of powdered enamel that people have given me and ancient pots of iron oxide that I don’t spend hours grinding down (as I was advised when studying). I use these same materials when I run glass workshops, most recently for Arts Together in five different venues in Wiltshire, previously described on my blog here and here. So I’m not being critical of other people’s work when I describe the process of making a stained glass panel out of their painted scraps of glass in terms of the silk purse and the sow’s ear, but I feel as if this is what I have done with the discarded bits from the workshop sessions (above).

This small panel is a nice reminder for me of the project and the people who made the pieces, which were mostly samples to try out the painting techniques. It is also a reverse of the participants panels, which go from a dark centre to a bright and light border, as it spirals from a dark edge to a clear centre. I’ve laid out the group members’ finished panels below, all 71 of them, categorised mostly by subject matter.