Left: St Winifred’s, Manaton, Devon. Right: Exterior of Brangwyn window, it’s the one on the left in the church photo.
St Winifred’s in the Dartmoor village of Manaton is a beautiful church with an amazing fifteenth century rood screen that stretches right across the church. I was there to see a Frank Brangwyn window that is strange, incongruous and therefore, to me, very interesting. It is in the south aisle, a good position as it is away from the delicate chancel screen and easy to see close up from the inside and the outside. From the outside the glass is an astonishing sight, with layers of streaks and opalescence that masks the faces of the singers (above right).
From the inside, the faces are alarming - partly it’s the open mouths although even the violin player looks sinister. The design of the window, with layers building up from the dedication at the bottom to the flowers, coats of arms, figures, village scenes and apple tree with birds at the top, has no borders or decorative devices to link the stained glass panels or frame them in the tracery. I can’t help thinking it’s this design rather than the pale figures themselves that makes them so unsettling - the way they seem to be cut off at the waist as they emerge from the crowded foreground.
Manaton, south aisle window, 1927.
Frank Brangwyn was an artist with a vast output in many different art forms, his commissioned work encompassed interior design schemes and included murals, mosaics and stained glass. This window was made by James Silvester Sparrow who chose and painted the glass. You can see how extraordinary - thick and layered with a variety of translucent pale pieces - this is when you compare the glass from the inside and the outside (below). The quality of the glass itself gives this window its strange beauty.
Detail from the inside and the outside.
Left: St Mary’s, Bucklebury, Berkshire. Right: North aisle window by Brangwyn 1917.
One of Brangwyn’s most significant church commissions, also executed by Silvester Sparrow, is a series of windows in St Mary’s church in the village of Bucklebury, Berkshire. Entering through the south porch the first one you see is the nativity window (above right). This has many of the same design features as the Manaton window - over sized figures popping out of the frame with distant landscapes in a band behind the heads (below) and a canopy that projects forwards overhead. This low window, which glows brightly and incongruously in the north aisle, is the latest of the set.
Detail from north aisle window.
Bucklebury, east window, 1912.
The other three windows are together in the sanctuary, a large crucifixion scene in the east window (above) flanked by two little beauties on the side walls. The design of the east window is similar again, with its spectacular rich streaky glass at the top, distant landscapes and pale faced figures. The characters that crowd the bottom section are really expressive with sorrowful faces and hands, here you are looking at a top quality passage of stained glass composition and painting in a perfectly sombre colour palette.
The small windows (below) are great, maybe because you are able to take in all the contrasts of scale and subject matter in one glance. I love the landscapes at the back with decorative plants in front of them and the changes in scale where the same figures are seen in the distance and then close up at the bottom. The one that illustrates ‘The lesson of the widow’s mite’ (below left) is my favourite of all the Brangwyn I’ve seen so far, with a lovely row of little painted figures across the middle. On a sunny afternoon the even north light dimmed the contrast between the very dark and very light glass sections making this window easier to read than the ‘Anne teaching Mary to read’ window opposite, where sun blazed through the lilies at the top. What a treat to have these four windows together in such a beautiful location, but beware - there is a really annoying light that comes on automatically as you move around the church, shines on the east window and completely ruins the effect while you wait for it to go off again.
North and south chancel windows, 1912.