Church of All Saints, Brockhampton, Herefordshire
Address
Church of All Saints, 3 The Parks, Brockhampton, Herefordshire HR1 4SDRecommended by
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East windowArtist, maker and date
Designed by Christopher Whall and made at Lowndes & Drury, 1902Reason for highlighting
This window by Christopher Whall was intended to be the only stained glass in the church, part of architect W. R. Lethaby’s scheme to focus most of the decorative impact of the church in the sanctuary. It was completed while Whall was working on the stained glass for the Lady Chapel in Gloucester Cathedral and clearly shows as its inspiration the Great East Window of about 1350, in its alternating blue, red and white figures of saints. Although it is one of the most sumptuous touches in Lethaby’s comparatively austere church, its simple splendour is in its limited colour scheme, allowing it not to be overwhelmed by or to overwhelm the Morris and Co. tapestries that flank it. It echoes the Gloucester windows in other ways, too – many of the figures are mini-copies of the vast saints Whall was installing in the Lady Chapel, for example St. Chad holding Lichfield Cathedral, and St. Agatha, a portrait of his daughter Veronica – Peter Cormack describes this window as the ‘most modern-looking of all his works’.*
* p168, Arts and Crafts Stained Glass by Peter Cormack (Yale University Press, 2015)
Artist/maker notes
Christopher Whitworth Whall (1849-1924) was one of the most prominent artists in the Arts & Crafts Movement, not only through his own work, but also through the influence he had on other artists as a teacher and writer. He taught at both the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Arts, and his 1905 book ‘Stained Glass Work’ is still widely regarded as the most inspirational work of its type.
Sources:
Arts & Crafts Stained Glass by Peter Cormack (Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2015)
The Stained Glass Work of Christopher Whall by Peter Cormack (The Charles J Connick Stained Glass Foundation, 1999)
Other comments
All Saints, Brockhampton is one of the finest churches of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Designed by W. R. Lethaby in 1901, and built by his Clerk of Works, Randall Wells. It is a showcase for craftspeople involved in the Movement. In addition to Christopher Whall’s stained glass you can find woodcarving by George Jack, textiles by Morris & Co., relief carving possibly by Laurence Turner, and craftwork designed by Lethaby and made by local makers, such as the lighting, the pews, and the font carved by Randall Wells.
Christopher Whall made two further stained glass windows for the church, in addition to the east window. A west window in 1909, and a south transept south window in 1916. These two windows were not part of Lethaby’s vision, being memorials added at a later date by the family who commissioned the church, the Fosters of Brockhampton Court next door.
Like many Arts and Crafts architectural schemes, Brockhampton is full of the work of the architect’s friends. Christopher Whall would have known Lethaby for many years through groups such as the Art Workers’ Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, and, from the late 1890s, he was working as a teacher at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, hired by Lethaby. They were close enough to have dinner at each other’s houses. He had already produced small windows for Lethaby’s other church, the chapel of St. Colm and St. Margaret at Melsetter House, Hoy, Orkney in 1899, as well as glass at Dorchester Cemetery Chapel and All Saints, Bothenhampton, Dorset in the 1890s for E. S. Prior, Lethaby’s erstwhile colleague in Richard Norman Shaw’s office.
Sources and further reading:
All Saints’ Church, Brockhampton, Herefordshire by Hugo Mason (Brockhampton Parochial Church Council, n.d.)
Arts and Crafts Churches by Alec Hamilton (Lund Humphries, 2020)
Arts and Crafts Churches of Great Britain by Roger Button (2QT, 2020)