St Mary’s at Fairford is justly popular, not only as a most lovely making architecturally but for the survival of its complete set of late medieval stained glass, a unique survival in an English parish church. No other church has resisted the waves of iconoclasm unleashed by the Reformation and the English Civil War like Fairford has, and as a consequence we can experience a pre-Reformation iconographic plan in glass in its entirety. At most church buildings just one is fortunate to come across mere fragments of the original glazing and even 1 comprehensive window is an remarkable survival, hence a whole established of 28 of them here in a additional or considerably less intact state would make Fairford church uniquely valuable.
The exterior currently promises wonderful points, this is a handsome late 15th century creating completely rebuilt in Perpendicular type and focused in 1497. The benefactor was lord of the manor John Tame, a wealthy wool merchant whose son Edmund later on continued the family’s legacy in donating the glass. The central tower is adorned with considerably carving such as weird figures guarding the corners and a instead archaic wanting relief of Christ on the western side. The nave is crowned by a high-quality clerestorey while the aisles down below sort a gallery of huge home windows that seem to embrace the overall setting up with out structural interruption apart from the south porch and the chancel projecting at the east end. All close to are pinnacles, battlements and gargoyles, the impact is really abundant and imposing for a village church.
One enters by means of the enthusiast-vaulted porch and is at first satisfied by subdued lighting in that will take a second to modify to but can promptly recognize the elegant arcades and the prosperous glowing colors of the windows. The interior is spacious but the check out east is interrupted by the tower whose panelled walls and arches frame only a glimpse of the chancel beyond. The glass was inserted concerning 1500-1517 and reveals marked Renaissance influence, getting the do the job of Flemish glaziers (based in Southwark) less than the route of the King’s glazier Barnard Flower. The quality is as a result of the best obtainable and suggests the Tame spouse and children experienced connections at court docket to safe this sort of glaziers.
Entering the nave just one is immediately confronted with the most significant and most well-known window in the church, the west window with its superb Very last Judgement, greatest identified for its lurid depiction of the horrors of Hell with exotic demons dragging the damned to their doom. Unfortunately the 3 home windows in the west wall suffered major storm damage in 1703 and the Past Judgement endured further more for the duration of an 1860 restoration that copied somewhat than restored the glass in its higher fifty percent. The nave clerestories contain an intriguing scheme even further emphasising the struggle of Great as opposed to Evil with a gallery of saintly figures on the south side balanced by a ‘rogue’s gallery’ of persecutors of the faith on the darker north side, over which are magnificent demonic figures leering from the traceries.
The aisle home windows sort further arrays of figures in canopies with the Evangelists and prophets on the north side and the Apostles and Medical doctors of the Church on the south. The much more narrative windows are predominantly positioned in the japanese fifty percent of the church, starting up in the north chapel with an Aged Testament themed window adopted by a lot more on the life of Mary and infancy of Christ. The matter subject is normally confined to 1 light-weight or a pair of them, so multiple scenes can be portrayed in a single window. The plan proceeds in the east window of the chancel with its scenes of the Enthusiasm of Christ in the reduce sign up culminating in his crucifixion higher than, even though a lesser window to the south displays his entombment and the harrowing of Hell. The cycle carries on in the south chapel where the east window shows scenes of Christ’s resurrection and transfiguration although two further more windows relate further incidents culminating in Pentecost. The closing window in the sequence however is of training course the Last Judgement at the west conclude.
The glass has been greatly valued and guarded in excess of the hundreds of years from the ravages of heritage, becoming eradicated for safety all through the Civil War and Planet War II. The windows underwent a finish conservation concerning 1988-2010 by the Barley Studio of York which bravely restored legibility to the home windows by sensitive releading and recreating lacking pieces with new function (previously these experienced been stuffed with simple glass which drew the eye and disturbed the balance of light-weight). The most remarkable intervention was the re-purchasing of the westernmost home windows of the nave aisles which experienced been partially loaded with jumbled fragments following the storm hurt of 1703 but have now been returned to some thing closer to their original state.
It is significant below not to neglect the church’s other options since the glass dominates its status so much. The chancel also retains its original late medieval woodwork with a high-quality established of delicate screens dividing it from the chapels possibly aspect alongside with a lovely established of stalls with carved misericords. The tomb of the founder John Tame and his spouse can be viewed on the north side of the sanctuary with their brasses atop a tomb chest. All over the church a wonderful sequence of carved angel corbels supports the aged oak roofs.
Fairford church is a countrywide treasure and shouldn’t be missed by anybody with a love of stained glass and medieval artwork. It is ordinarily retained open for guests and warrants additional of them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Fairford
Posted by Aidan McRae Thomson on 2021-04-15 20:16:12
Tagged: , Fairford , church , Gloucestershire , stained glass , window , medieval
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