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.

Finding Details

People are always telling me that their favourite church windows are the simple leaded lights in pale coloured glass that allow you to see the world outside. In St Mary, Warwick, most of the aisle windows are of this type (above) showing off some great shapes in the tracery. However there is one window in the regimental chapel that is filled with light fresh colours in the upper part and delicate local details in the lower (below) where rows of soldiers march across the panes. As a lover of skilled glass painting, I always look out for a good bit of detail, then get drawn into an appreciation of the whole window in terms of colour and composition, and after that I think about the subject matter and what it means.

Regimental chapel windows, St Mary, Warwick by Philip Chatwin 1952.

The main visit of the day was to the beautiful church at Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, which has a superb collection of windows by Morris & Co from different periods and with panels by most of the artists associated with the firm. By all accounts the best is the west window (below), although it’s difficult to get close enough and to see past a huge sign partly covering the bottom of the three princes in the fiery furnace. The fiery flames around the Burne-Jones figures are what drew me in here, then I appreciated the overall glow of the predominantly brown painting (so difficult to persuade clients they want a brown window but so good to see!) and only then did I think about the subject matter.

West window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Edward Burne-Jones 1870.

In fact the best subject matter was only revealed by the camera’s zoom lens, where I saw that the shadowy angels are sharp and delicate figures holding globes showing the first days of the creation, a classic Burne-Jones device. The backgrounds to the figures, which are painted on large pieces of glass in brown iron oxide and silver stain, are not clear but covered in a scaley pattern that modulates the incoming light.

Row of creation windows from the centre of the west window, Middleton Cheney.

The east window (below) includes details designed by William Morris, Philip Webb, Ford Madox Brown, Simeon Soloman and Edward Burne-Jones. The overall design of this window is striking and subtle in a different way, with the usual gorgeous backgrounds, familiar figures (such as WM posing as St Peter) and angels in the tracery. The detail I picked out is at the top where Burne-Jones’ brown and yellow crowned heads make a wonderful patterned ring around a piece of rich dark red glass with the adored lamb on top.

East window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. 1865.

There are a pair of windows in the chancel (below) where you can get close and really appreciate the quality of Burne-Jones’ stained glass figures . These are from a later period and show scenes from the life of Christ. The one that caught my eye again uses the most sombre colour scheme, with the white robes of Lazarus standing out from a rocky background, all beautifully painted with contour lines and shading.

North chancel window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney, with details by Burne-Jones 1892.

East window, St Peters, Barford by Holland of Warwick 1845.

Last stop of the day and another example of rows of figures in the church in the Warwickshire village of Barford. The east window (above) is in a colour scheme typical of its period and overwhelming as a whole. But when you break down the colour combination, and repeat it in different variations along the row of angels at the bottom of the window it begins to work, with the patterns and symbols linking the glass pieces together and with a slightly different expression on the face of each angel.

Angels from the bottom of the Barford window