Georges and Dragons

Left, late fifteenth century St George in St George’s Church, Kelmscott. Right, St George by Veronica Whall 1928 in Christ Church Eastbourne,

Over the years I’ve been collecting St George windows, a saint easy to identify from the red cross that is his emblem, his suit of armour and the dragon that always appears at his feet. In the more dynamic versions he is spearing the dragon from his horse, the similarities of the pose in versions made almost 500 years apart, shown above, are striking.

Left, St George by Jones & Willis 1905 in St George, Orcheston. Centre, St George by Morris and Co. 1860s in St Nicholas Beaudesert, Henley in Arden. Right, St George by Theodora Salusbury c. 1920 in All Saints, Newton Linford.

More often he is standing more or less on the dragon, holding a shield and a spear. What really interests me are the dragons which are always at the bottom of the windows and therefore easy to examine and photograph. In every example I have from the 1860s to the 1930s (above and below) the dragon is made of luscious streaky glass in a range of rich colours, purples, pinks, greens and blues. They are lovely but confusing pictorially as the deep colours jump forward, even when the dragon is in the background.

Left, dragon by C.E. Kempe in St David 1898, Moreton in Marsh. Right, dragon by Morris of Westminster 1930 in St Barnabas, Swindon.

Left, dragon by Aldam, Heaton & Co. in St Michael and All Angels, Brinkworth. Right, dragon in St Oswald, Lythe.

Some of the loveliest dragons are at the feet of the Archangel Michael instead. In the two examples above their long jaws and scales show up better on paler streaky glass, and in the two examples below (left and middle) you know it’s St Michael not from the inscription but from his wings. In one of my favourite sets of local windows there is a beautiful dragon made of red flashed glass at the feet of St Margaret (below right).

Left, St Michael in St John the Baptist, Kingston Lisle by Heaton, Butler and Bayne 1911. Centre, St Michael by Powell & Sons 1919 in St Michael, Highworth. Right, St Margaret by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in St Nicholas, Grafton 1888.

There is a really effective window of St Michael in one of the large, beautiful arched windows of Romsey Abbey (below). The lighting in the alcove made it difficult to get a good photograph of the glass, which is delicately coloured and dynamic with a swirl of feathers and banners as the blue and green streaky dragon gets speared.

St Michael by C.E. Kempe 1897 in Romsey Abbey.

Three Small windows

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.

Rose Windows

All Saints, Shrewsbury                                                                 Holy Cross, Ramsbury, Wiltshire

On the last four trips to look at stained glass windows, I've found myself looking at the same shaped rose in the centre of a design. These all have at leat one ring of five petals with a symmetrically folded edge and a spotty centre. They range from the most realistic at All Saints Shrewsbury (above left) to the most modern and heraldic one from the 1950s at Eltham Palace (below right).  The effect of three of them is rather ruined by one or two bars running right through the centre, but I like the combination of this basic 3D modelling surrounded by geometric patterns - as ever I'm focusing on the look of the design rather than its meaning. 

Moravian Church, Malmesbury                                            Great Hall, Eltham Palace

The Vyne, Hampshire                             St. Mary, South Hayling             St. Mary, Cheltenham

Unsurprisingly, I found more examples of the same in my files of recent stained glass photographs including the two above - the most lovely red on blue rose in a tudor window at The Vyne (NT, near Basingstoke) and one at the bottom of a Kempe window on Hayling Island. As this slightly blurry image shows, I wasn't concentrating on the bottom, or predella, of a window at this point even though this is where you can get an excellent close up shot. 

It's great to see more realistic roses too, like the ones in the triangular tracery from St. Mary, Cheltenham (above right). My all time favourites are in St. Johannes, also known as The Church of the Roses, built in Malmo in 1906. The rose is everywhere inside and is the subject matter of most of the windows, including a number of rose "rose" windows. Since my first visit to this church in 2012 I have been very influenced by its colour scheme in my work for interiors. The combination of every hue but in a pastel tone gives you a really peaceful, happy feeling.

St. Johannes, Malmo

St John The Baptist, Kingston Lisle

Area of painted wall and brightly coloured glass, dated 1859

I found this one by chance when church crawling in the Vale of The White Horse, near Uffington, the territory of William Morris, John Betjeman and John Piper. St John the Baptist is a small 12th century church, allegedly founded in response to pagan worship on nearby White Horse Hill. The interior was largely untouched by the Victorians and it has recently had a thorough restoration. There are relatively large areas of 14th century wall paintings, 15th - 17th century woodwork and an interesting selection of stained glass windows.

Detail of wall painting, lovely colours from the stained glass on the edge of right hand photo.

I'm getting better at guessing the makers of 19th century stained glass, but there is no need in this church. The obviously interesting window with the arts & crafts style red sky (below left) and foliage has a very legible makers' name handwritten in a way you don't often see (below right) under the title, as if it's a line in an exercise book. 

'Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life' by Heaton, Butler & Bayne, London

Left: great painting in detail from HBB window.  Right: St Raphael from the Kempe window

Next, at the belfry end of the church, there appeared to be a smallish Kempe window (below left). There is the general greeny yellowness of the glass and the peacock feather wings, but I mostly identify Charles Eamer Kempe windows by the facial features of, in this case, the three saints. I was very pleased to see his identifying maker's symbol in the bottom left of the window - a castle in a wheat sheaf (below right).

C.E. Kempe window and detail from bottom left panel with the identifying mark.

There are two fragmentary windows to the right of the altar, shown up beautifully on a dull day with soft light and trees as a backdrop. I would say the green man in silverstain is medieval glass. The other is a piece of painted and etched glass patched together, showing a crest with a fabulously easy latin motto: VIRTUS IN ACTIONE CONSISTIT. The date of this one is, for me, hard to guess.

Patchwork Windows

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Cirencester Parish Church

I think I've found my favourite patchwork window ever, particularly the top left hand face that I spotted across the complicated interior of Cirencester Parish Church. It made me realise that it's the juxtaposition of images as much as the pattern making that is so appealing about these windows. My previous favourite was the one in Hereford Cathedral (below), where a hand skilled in design put together the section about Joseph's dream.

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Pages from the Hereford Cathedral stained glass brochure (click to enlarge)

I've also admired windows put together by artists, like the one at Ripon Cathedral (below), featuring Kempe figures surrounded by beautiful Bridget Jones patterns in blue and sharp yellow. It has a huge impact from a distance and the modern glass is just as lovely as the old.

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Pages from the Ripon Cathedral stained glass brochure (click to enlarge)

Although I occasionally make sheets of patterned glass to cut up for patchwork windows as if it were fabric, I really consider this to be cheating. My glass scrap boxes are full of pieces made as samples or ones that broke during manufacture. The birds below were fired in my first ever kiln for my first public commission. I don't know why they kept breaking - the result was a whole extra window.

My bird window, 1986