East window (early sixteenth century), Church of St Anthony, Cartmel Fell, Cumbria.

Photo: Penny Hebgin-Barnes

Detail of east window (early sixteenth century), Church of St Anthony, Cartmel Fell, Cumbria.

Photo: Penny Hebgin-Barnes

Church of St Anthony, Cartmel Fell, Cumbria

Address

Church of St Anthony, Cartmel Fell, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, LA11 6NH

Recommended by

Penny Hebgin-Barnes (10)

Highlight

East window of chancel

Artist, maker and date

York workshop, early sixteenth century

Reason for highlighting

The three central lights of the east window depict the crucified Christ surrounded by small scenes depicting the Seven Sacraments, each one linked to his wounds by a diagonal red stream of blood. Eucharist, Marriage and Ordination are fairly complete, Extreme Unction and Penance are more fragmentary, one incomplete figure survives from Confirmation, and Baptism has vanished to be replaced by the heads of the Virgin, Christ and a female saint. The outer lights contain large figures of the church’s patron St Anthony and St Leonard and the remains of two kneeling donors, probably members of the local Brigg family who are named in fragmentary inscriptions.

Other comments

A north window contains a figure of Christ of Pity, the remains of another crucifixion and the heads of two saints. All the surviving glass was probably donated in or after 1521, apart from a few fifteenth century fragments including angels and canopy work in the east window that originated at Cartmel Priory. It was restored and rearranged in 1911 by J.W. Knowles of York.

Well-hidden in the fells, the modest chapel-of-ease was built in 1504 to spare parishioners the 7-mile journey to Cartmel Priory church. Its inaccessibility doubtless protected it from the attentions of iconoclasts and Victorian restorers alike. Its furnishings include two evocatively-named wooden box pews, the early sixteenth century Cowmire Pew and the seveneenth century Burblethwaite Pew. The church formerly contained one of only four figures of Christ in England to have survived from a pre-Reformation rood loft; now on display in Kendal Museum, it was rescued in 1875 from its ignominious second career as a poker for the vestry fire.

Several fifteenth century Seven Sacraments windows have survived, most of them in the south of England, and two panels from another can be seen at the Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity, Tattershall. Whether intentionally or not, the Cartmel Fell window was topical as Henry VIII’s book attacking Luther, entitled The Defence of the Seven Sacraments, was published in 1521.

Sources:
P. Hebgin-Barnes, The Medieval Stained Glass of Lancashire, Oxford, 2009, pp. 77-88.
E. Townsend, ‘“For the Loving of Almighty God”: The Pre-Reformation Furnishings of St Anthony’s Church, Cartmel Fell’, in R. Marks (ed.), Late Gothic England: Art and Display, Donington, 2007 pp. 104–14.
J.T. Fowler, ‘On Painted Glass at St Anthony’s Chapel, Cartmel Fell’, Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, New series xii (1912) pp.297-311 ( https://doi.org/10.5284/1063937 )
T. Lees and R. S. Ferguson, ‘On the remains of ancient Glass and Woodwork, at St. Anthony’s Chapel, Cartmel Fell’, Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society ii, 1876, pp. 389–99 ( https://doi.org/10.5284/1064886 )

Artist/maker notes

The workshop was also active at St Andrew’s, Greystoke and elsewhere in the region

Highlighted dates at this location

Early 16th century (Go to date search)

All artists mentioned at this location

Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque glaziers