Christ Church, Chalford, Gloucestershire
Address
Christ Church, 7 Wickham Grange Mews, Chalford, Stroud GL6 8PPRecommended by
Highlight
Four south nave windowsArtist, maker and date
Edward Payne, 1951-54Reason for highlighting
A series of four windows in the south aisle showing small scenes and figures from the Old Testament, the life of Christ and early British saints. The church dates from the eighteenth century, so Payne was working with the round-headed aisle windows. As the church is set into the hill, he has chosen to allow as much light as possible into the church by devising the windows as largely ‘clear’ glass – if you look, it’s not clear, but rather streaky, and in varied colours and textures with irregular leading. The borders in his typical richly coloured and thickly outlined foliage contain figures, and there are scenes at top and bottom, full of rapidly drawn lively detail, including the baptism of Jesus, Jesus quelling the storm, the Venerable Bede and the Ascension. The windows, drawing on Arts and Crafts tradition, fit perfectly with the rest of the Arts and Crafts work in the church.
Artist/maker notes
Edward Raymond Payne (1906-1991) was a painter, teacher and stained glass artist. He grew up in a Cotswolds Arts and Crafts milieu, his father being Henry Payne, who moved to Gloucestershire when Edward was three. He left Gloucestershire to study at the Royal College of Art in 1923, and spent some months working at Morris & Co. in 1929. He was based in London during the early 30s, but returned to Gloucestershire to assist his father in 1936. He married and moved to Box, where he would live most of the rest of his life – save for service during World War Two. He worked almost up to his death in 1991, a late window being at Randwick, near Stroud, in 1988. He drew on traditional ways of working and said he read Christopher Whall’s Stained Glass Work every day.
Payne’s daughter is the artist Caroline Swash.
Sources:
Edward Payne on boxvillage.com
Edward Payne 1906-1991, edited by Rachel Payne (Moss & Glass, 1995)
Edward Raymond Payne 1906-1991 by Malcolm Martin (Edward Payne Centenary Committee, 2006)
Other comments
This series of windows follows on from a major refit in the late 1920s and 30s of the east end of the church by Arts and Crafts designers Norman Jewson and Peter Waals, whose furniture workshop was just across the road. The font by William Simmonds was carved at this time, too. Also in 1951 a new reredos was commissioned from Nan Reid and Alan Durst, showing a more contemporary style of art. In the east end you can find a slightly earlier small panel by Edward Woore, 1928. All of this work was done at the instigation of the vicar from 1924 to 1952, Revd Walter Carder, who recognised the wealth of craftspeople living and working in the Stroud and Cirencester area of the Cotswolds.
Just up the hill from Christ Church at Brownshill is the late Arts and Crafts church of St. Michael and All Angels by W. D. Caröe, with four windows by Douglas Strachan, three apsidal windows from 1930, when the church was completed, and the west window about 1943.