Left, East Hagbourne, Oxfordshire. Right, Urchfont, Wiltshire.
To see the medieval glass patchworked into a window at St Andrew’s Church, East Hagbourne (above left) I had to poke my head through a screen of heavy curtains that hide the vicar’s desk. To get up close to Rosalind Grimshaw’s window in Urchfont church I had to move piles of chairs and toys (above right). I’ve now started looking out for the children’s corners which, like kitchens in churches, give an indication of how the church is being used.
Left, inviting at North Moreton, Oxfordshire. Right, austere at Potterne, Wiltshire.
Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire.
In the huge church of St Peter and St Paul, Steeple Ashton, everything is clean and neat with fragments of medieval glass in almost all of the windows. The door to the vestry, not a separate room but just a space sectioned off, was open and everything inside was in order (above left). The children’s corner (above right) actually looked like you might want to spend time there, it seemed to have been arranged by someone who actually cares what the place looks like.
My best behind the scenes photo, above left, is from the corner of another huge church, this one at Madley in Herefordshire. The scene is simply furnished, the atmosphere is timeless. In the east window of the church is a wealth of medieval stained glass (below), but even more unusually there are twenty first century paintings by Edward Kelly installed in the nave and the crypt (above right). The triptych in the crypt is a particularly wonderful sight because paintings, particularly modern ones, are rarely found in English churches.
This from The Rev Simon Lockett, who I like to imagine sitting on that pink cushion. ‘It is a great joy to have the triptych “The Lillies of the Field” here in Madley Crypt. I have lived with these paintings for a long time now and they have helped to bring this beautiful space alive giving the crypt depth as well as a flourish of colour and bold form. They have helped with a contemplative practice as well as a daily reminder not only of the beauty of creation but of the natural cycle of abundance, death and new life’.
Medieval glass in the east window of The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Madley.