St Mary’s at Fairford is justly well-known, not only as a most beautiful constructing architecturally but for the survival of its total established of late medieval stained glass, a one of a kind 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 end result we can experience a pre-Reformation iconographic scheme in glass in its entirety. At most church buildings one is fortunate to discover mere fragments of the initial glazing and even a single entire window is an excellent survival, as a result a total established of 28 of them listed here in a additional or fewer intact state tends to make Fairford church uniquely important.
The exterior already promises good points, this is a handsome late 15th century constructing totally rebuilt in Perpendicular fashion and dedicated in 1497. The benefactor was lord of the manor John Tame, a rich wool service provider whose son Edmund afterwards ongoing the family’s legacy in donating the glass. The central tower is adorned with significantly carving which includes bizarre figures guarding the corners and a instead archaic searching aid of Christ on the western side. The nave is crowned by a high-quality clerestorey whilst the aisles beneath kind a gallery of big windows that appear to be to embrace the full developing with no structural interruption apart from the south porch and the chancel projecting at the east finish. All about are pinnacles, battlements and gargoyles, the influence is very rich and imposing for a village church.
Just one enters by way of the admirer-vaulted porch and is in the beginning satisfied by subdued lighting in that usually takes a instant to regulate to but can straight away recognize the exquisite arcades and the loaded glowing colors of the windows. The inside is roomy but the watch east is interrupted by the tower whose panelled walls and arches body only a glimpse of the chancel outside of. The glass was inserted between 1500-1517 and reveals marked Renaissance influence, getting the operate of Flemish glaziers (based in Southwark) underneath the way of the King’s glazier Barnard Flower. The good quality is therefore of the maximum out there and indicates the Tame family had connections at courtroom to secure this sort of glaziers.
Moving into the nave one particular is instantly confronted with the largest and most popular window in the church, the west window with its glorious Last Judgement, finest acknowledged for its lurid depiction of the horrors of Hell with unique demons dragging the damned to their doom. Sadly the 3 windows in the west wall experienced really serious storm problems in 1703 and the Past Judgement endured further more for the duration of an 1860 restoration that copied relatively than restored the glass in its higher half. The nave clerestories incorporate an intriguing plan further more emphasising the fight of Superior vs . Evil with a gallery of saintly figures on the south aspect balanced by a ‘rogue’s gallery’ of persecutors of the faith on the darker north facet, higher than which are incredible demonic figures leering from the traceries.
The aisle home windows sort further more arrays of figures in canopies with the Evangelists and prophets on the north facet and the Apostles and Physicians of the Church on the south. The far more narrative windows are primarily located in the eastern fifty percent of the church, beginning in the north chapel with an Previous Testament themed window adopted by additional on the lifetime of Mary and infancy of Christ. The matter matter is commonly confined to a person light or a pair of them, so many 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 over, when a scaled-down window to the south exhibits his entombment and the harrowing of Hell. The cycle carries on in the south chapel wherever the east window shows scenes of Christ’s resurrection and transfiguration although two additional windows relate further more incidents culminating in Pentecost. The last window in the sequence having said that is of course the Previous Judgement at the west finish.
The glass has been enormously valued and shielded over the centuries from the ravages of record, getting taken off for protection throughout the Civil War and Environment War II. The home windows underwent a complete conservation between 1988-2010 by the Barley Studio of York which bravely restored legibility to the home windows by delicate releading and recreating lacking items with new operate (beforehand these had been stuffed with basic glass which drew the eye and disturbed the balance of gentle). The most dramatic intervention was the re-ordering of the westernmost home windows of the nave aisles which had been partly filled with jumbled fragments pursuing the storm destruction of 1703 but have now been returned to some thing closer to their initial point out.
It is significant here not to neglect the church’s other characteristics considering that the glass dominates its status so significantly. The chancel also retains its initial late medieval woodwork with a wonderful set of delicate screens dividing it from the chapels both side along with a pretty set of stalls with carved misericords. The tomb of the founder John Tame and his wife can be viewed on the north side of the sanctuary with their brasses atop a tomb chest. All through the church a great sequence of carved angel corbels supports the old oak roofs.
Fairford church is a nationwide treasure and shouldn’t be skipped by anyone with a adore of stained glass and medieval artwork. It is ordinarily retained open for guests and justifies much more of them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Fairford
Posted by Aidan McRae Thomson on 2021-04-10 09:40:34
Tagged: , Fairford , church , Gloucestershire , medieval , inside , architecture , Perpendicular
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