South Devon Church Interiors

On holiday in the South Hams district of Devon we visited five churches, chosen just because they were on our route. All are large rural churches with rows of massive pillars down the nave and, a Devon speciality, a fine medieval rood screen separating the nave from the chancel. The photos I took in the five churches looking down the nave to the screen and the east window beyond show the similarities, but each screen is different and each church has its own particular atmosphere.

Church of St Sylvester, Chivelstone: exterior, nave, fragmented screen end.

A series of new panels describes the history of the large church in the tiny village of Chivelstone, formerly the main place of worship for agricultural workers from all the villages to the south, between Chivelstone and the sea. These are part of an on going programme of repair that includes the conservation of the medieval screen and pulpit and later wall paintings (C17th - 18th). The rood screen has fifteenth and sixteenth century sections, with some painted figures, some renaissance arabesque panels and some reassembled fragments (above right). This is a harmonious interior with little touches of colour, like the pink around the borders of windows and the welcome stained glass of the decorative Victorian variety in the chancel (below centre and right).

St Sylvester, Chivelstone: back of screen, pink bordered window, stained glass in chancel.

Church of St Winwaloe, East Portlemouth: nave, screen, detail of medieval painting on screen.

In the church at East Portlemouth, two and a half miles to the west, the only stained glass is in a drawing hanging on the wall (below left) by the architect Sir Charles Nicholson who carried out the 1934 restoration of the church. Here the panels on the rood screen are filled with 26 exceptional early sixteenth century paintings of saints, beautiful and delicate, like the carving that surrounds them (above right). But the large windows with criss crossed lead lines and lime green borders give this church a chilly atmosphere (below right).

St Winwaloe, East Portlemouth: drawing by Charles Nicholson, reredos as seen in drawing, window with teddy.

Church of St Nicholas and St Cyriac, South Pool: nave, screen, detail of painting on screen.

Next was South Pool, a couple of miles north east along the river estuary. The rood screen in this church is covered in the now familiar carvings of vines and scrolls and painted in mainly reds and greens. The lower panels are all painted in the rare renaissance arabesque style (above right), behind them you can see subtle stained glass in the east window. I was looking forward to finding some more modern stained glass in one of these interiors, here we get a cheesy scene of the village by Roy Coomber of Solaglas, Bristol 1988 (below left) and a number of saints from the Exeter firm of David Gubbin and Son. You can always find a nice bit of detail in this type of glass, like the birds flying in front of St Francis (below right), but do they add anything to the quality of the interior space? - particularly when the scenes and figures are laid on those clear backgrounds that do nothing to temper the light.

St Nicholas and St Cyriac, South Pool: stained glass from the 1980s and 1990s.

Church of St Andrew, Harberton: nave, screen, screen pillar.

Simon Jenkins, in England’s Thousand Best Churches, would say no, but then he doesn’t seem to be very keen on stained glass. To me it was wonderful to go into our next church at Harberton and find all the windows filled with colour - and also to find explanatory boards complete with names and dates (all the windows were made between 1854 and 1931) - but to Simon Jenkins the stained glass in this church is ‘ubiquitous and pernicious’. The whole interior shines, the heavily restored rood screen is detailed in gold with figures of saints that were painted on metal panels in 1871 to replace the original wooden ones, now displayed on the wall of the nave in this very informative and rich interior.

St Andrew, Harberton: screen sideview, The Trist window to the four virgin martyrs Saints Catherine, Agnes, Margaret & Barbara by Beer of Exeter, detail from 1931 window by Maile & Sons.

Church of St Mary, Berry Pomeroy: nave, screen sideview, screen detail.

Berry Pomeroy Church, in the north of the district, rounded off our trip with another magnificent rood screen going from wall to wall in the nave. This one has all its original parts and its painted figures, though they were defaced during the Civil War or the Restoration (above right). The side views of the screens in the last two churches show how far the cornice overhangs, and also the clutter of furniture in front of them (above middle) which I only then realised was to protect the paintings from being bashed. High up in the chancel are three windows by the great Christopher Whall, and there is another by his daughter Veronica in the north east chapel (below right). By this stage I had started to make comparisons and couldn’t help thinking that Christopher Whall’s chancel windows are in the wrong place. They are too elevated to have much chance of interacting with the shapes and colours in the screen, although they were the only windows we saw that could stand up to the comparison.

St Mary, Berry Pomeroy: stained glass in the chancel by Christopher Whall 1908 and by Veronica Whall 1926

Along the River Windrush

St Nicholas, Asthall. Tomb of Lady Joan Cornwall with medieval glass above, window in the painted chancel.

We took a route along the river Windrush in Oxfordshire starting at the village of Asthall, then to Swinbrook, past the deserted medieval village of Widford into Burford and back. There are four superb churches within these three miles. St Nicholas, Asthall (above and below) was unexpectedly spectacular, with painted walls, a huge tomb and some subtle stained glass windows that compliment the interior where nothing is out of place.

St Nicholas, Asthall. Chancel and detail of the east window.

We were really here because Asthall Manor was the favourite childhood home of the Mitfords and most of them are buried at the next church along the river, St Mary, Swinbrook. In her letters Jessica writes about walking across the fields to Burford to try and get the school there to take her on, so I knew it couldn’t be far. Nancy and Jessica were the only ones of the six sisters to complain about their lack of schooling, unfortunately we were not able to pay our respects to Jessica as she chose to be scattered at sea but Nancy is here along with Pamela, Unity, Diana and other Mosleys (below left).

Left: Mitford graves at St Mary, Swinbrook. Right: Frozen flooded fields beside the river Windrush.

St Mary, Swinbrook. The Fettiplace monuments in the chancel.

Inside the church are two sets of monuments (above) which put those poor little gravestones in the shade. The first set was ordered by Sir Edmund Fettiplace who died in 1613 for himself, his father and his grandfather: Sir Edmund Fettiplace II (who died in 1680) ordered the second set for himself, his uncle and his father. Again there is nothing ugly or unconsidered in this church, even the bibles are stylishly arranged on the chairs (below left). Next to them is a window made from fragments of ‘old glass’ that tell an interesting story - not least of the vicar who inexpertly arranged this glass with the text split by the stone mullion making it hard to follow.

St Mary, Swinbrook: window with an interesting story.

Interior details from St Oswald, Widford.

Next to St Oswald, a tiny church in the fields a bit further along the river that was built on the base of a Roman house or temple. Here there are plain windows, more of those simple chairs, pink plastered walls and the remnants of fourteenth century wall paintings, including a St Christopher opposite the south entrance door (above left).

St John the Baptist, Burford, south window of south transept by Christopher Whall, 1907.

After these three beautiful interiors, entering the much larger church in Burford with its inevitable clutter of merchandise, furniture and audio visual equipment is a bit of a shock. However the Christopher Whall window in the south transept is one of his masterpieces, I kept going back for another look as I caught glimpses of it from different angles that showed how subtle both the colours of the glass and the arrangement of the design are, even with a bright winter sun shining through. I am always keen on paintings of the heavenly city, shown in the top section here and providing an interesting comparison to the city depicted in the earlier east window at Asthall. The bits of restrained patterning that link the top and bottom sections of the window are particularly satisfying (below left), as is the pair of little quatrefoil windows that just contain non symmetrical arrangements of beams of light behind the buildings which Whall drew from places he knew and loved.

Details from the Chrustopher Whall window in Burford.

Stained Glass Figures

East Window by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. 1870, St. Martin's on Brabyn's Brow, Low Marple 

The Church of St. Martin's, Low Marple, near Stockport, was designed and built in 1869 -70 by the Arts and Crafts architect, John Dando Sedding. 'The Firm'  (Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.) made three windows for the church; the east window (above), includes figures designed by Burne-Jones, William Morris, Ford Madox Brown and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Visitors come specially to look at this example of a faulty and unrestored window by the firm. As with many windows from this period by a number of stained glass companies, the paintwork quickly deteriorated - came off, not faded as the guidebooks incorrectly say. This defect, caused by using borax in the paint, was something that William Morris corrected by repainting and firing much of the glass in the firm's early windows, but not this one. Here, the appearance of the mostly unpainted glass, with details and patterns removed, reveals the overall design of the window in quite an appealing way. 

St. Peter from St. Nicholas Beaudesert (left), from St. Martin's Low Marple (right) 

You can learn a lot about stained glass techniques from this window. As you can see in the detail (above right), the silverstain (transparent gold colour) is still there in WM's familiar self portrait as St. Peter although most of the opaque black lines have gone. The comparison with the same figure from Beaudesert also helps.

Since I've started looking at stained glass by Morris & Co. I've had a lot of fun spotting the reappearance of figures throughout their works in tapestry and embroidery as well as stained glass. In this church I found a fourth version of Burne-Jone's Mary, with its paintwork almost intact. 

Marys left to right: St. Martin's Low Marple 1873, St. Nicholas Beaudesert 1865, St. Mary's Sopworth 1873, St. Martin-on-the-Hill Scarborough 1868. 

Christopher Whall at Low Marple: The Lady Chapel added in 1895, South West Window 1899, West Window 1892.

The church is also notable for slightly later works by Christopher Whall. The Lady Chapel, with an eccentric 3D ceiling and an altar painting of The Annunciation, is worth going to see. And in his beautiful West Window is a character I had seen and admired recently in Leicester Cathedral (below). It is interesting to compare the differences in colour, background pattern and detail in the two versions of essentially the same figure. 

St. Martin from Low Marple (left), from Leicester Cathedral 1907 (right)

I generally identify the stained glass of Christopher Whall by the way he paints people's facial features. The faces of the angels in the great East Window in Leicester Cathedral are typical. When you zoom in on the little people in the boat in the otherwise untypical Whall South West window at Low Marple (below) you can tell that this window is one of his.

Details from Christopher Whall windows, Leicester Cathedral 1920 (left), Low Marple (right)