It seems to be Church Window week on here because six still going mad in Dorset and it was off to the village of Moreton where we hoped to find a nice tea room (we did, a splendid one in the old school) and knew we would find the glass engravings by Laurence Whistler in the church.
But, and here was the first surprise, the church hadn't always been dedicated to St Nicholas...
Who could have guessed that word of this Orkney saint would travel as far south as deepest Dorset.
It is thought the church was rebuilt and rededicated to St Nicholas in 1410, with several further rebuilds after the tower fell down in 1603 though the details are vague. But, like St Andrew's in Plymouth, it would be the Second World War that caused even greater damage, a single bomb falling on October 8th 1940 and destroying both walls and stained glass.
I'm now thinking about novels where the church tower collapses, The Spire by William Golding and The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner come to mind.... any others?
It might not be the right thing to say, but perhaps, just occasionally, such events do us a great favour because the windows in Moreton church were replaced with something entirely unique and quite stunning. To enter an ancient English church is to twist the door latch and walk into what initially can feel like a dark and gloomy space...walk into Moreton church and feel something entirely different, light and plenty of it.
With expectations thus subverted it took my eyes a while to adjust to the brightness.
You know me and stained glass...it moves me beyond words (and many of you too I know) so how surprised I was that these windows by Laurence Whistler somehow affected me even more.
I had heard of but not really taken much note of Laurence Whistler, brother of perhaps the more famous Rex, father of Caroline (known as Robin) who married James Ravilious, photographer son of Eric (are you keeping up) artistic connections aplenty. This on Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) from the Oxford DNB...
'Encouraged by Rex, Whistler had discovered his own medium—point-engraving on glass—and in so doing pioneered the revival of an art that had languished for 200 years. Starting with verses scratched on a window pane he rapidly taught himself the delicate techniques of stipple and line, developed the tools, and embarked on a stream of commemorative pieces, usually on blown glassware, featuring house portraits, personal emblems, and occasional verse, all embellished with the rococo decoration and lavish eighteenth-century-style lettering beloved by both brothers.'
I have now reserved a few books from the library by and about Laurence Whistler because I am intrigued and want to know more.
The windows at Moreton Church designed and installed over a period of thirty years (1955 onwards) are quietly but powerfully uplifting, words can't really describe the effect nor photos do justice to the sight of the clear engravings with the colour provided by the backdrop of the Dorset countryside beyond...
It is a concept that must have required real creative vision and courage on the part of both the artist and the Parochial Church Council who would have approved them. Light, both physical and spiritual were the artist's theme, the windows reflecting images of candlelight, starlight, sunlight-light, jewel-light, lightning...light in all its forms and also revealing a gradual change in style as one of the later windows, the swirling spiral galaxy above, clearly demonstrates.
'At his most original, however, he used the qualities of his medium—light drawn on darkness (unengraved glass)—to explore a sense of mysterious symbolism in the visual world. Darkness here becomes as potent as light—to intense poetic effect. Symbols of joy, death, and the journeying soul, in powerful juxtaposition, reveal his deep (though not narrowly orthodox) Christian belief.'
(Oxford DNB entry)
I think this might have been my favourite had it not been for the rather incongruous car (not ours)...
The engravings of houses and farm buildings (apparently the home of Noel Findlay) super-imposed on the woodland opposite look for all the world as if you could go and knock on the door, likewise this snow covered depiction of Moreton House in winter. The house visible across the way from the church.
Many of the windows were made by Laurence Whistler himself using a scribe and a drill, those in the apse were created using a combination of deep-cutting, etching and sandblast...imagine the stress of those final details and then transporting and fitting the glass in one piece.
And then imagine being inside this church on a winter's evening, or perhaps when it is lit by candles.There is something powerful to be felt here, especially if it is a tenet that you hold to as I do, about the journeying soul traveling on its way, in this case beyond the confines of the building, through the transparency of the glass. Something about the thinness of the veil between light and dark and life and death perhaps.
Lest we forget to look down, in every church there is always an interesting floor beneath the feet and Moreton Church no exception...
The hassocks were of the miniature variety to spare the knees on the unusual narrow little kneeling shelf in every pew. I didn't try it out, maybe I should have done, I'm now trying to decide how comfortable or not it might have been...
So what a complete treasure of a visit on a lovely day. This is a church I will go back to because I want Bookhound to see it, besides which having repaired to the Moreton Tearooms I can highly recommend the variation on Eggs Benedict and could certainly manage that again.
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