Two of the tracery lights of one particular of the home windows of the north aisle.
St Mary’s at Fairford is justly famed, not only as a most lovely constructing architecturally but for the survival of its full set of late medieval stained glass windows, a exclusive 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 result we can practical experience a pre-Reformation iconographic scheme in glass in its entirety. At most churches a person is blessed to obtain mere fragments of the original glazing and even a person total window is an fantastic survival, hence a total established of 28 of them below in a additional or much less intact state makes Fairford church uniquely precious.
The exterior already promises good matters, this is a handsome late 15th century creating totally rebuilt in Perpendicular style and devoted in 1497. The benefactor was lord of the manor John Tame, a rich wool merchant whose son Edmund afterwards continued the family’s legacy in donating the glass. The central tower is adorned with a lot carving together with unusual figures guarding the corners and a relatively archaic wanting relief of Christ on the western aspect. The nave is topped by a wonderful clerestorey even though the aisles down below kind a gallery of big home windows that look to embrace the whole building without the need of structural interruption aside from the south porch and the chancel projecting at the east stop. All all around are pinnacles, battlements and gargoyles, the effect is incredibly prosperous and imposing for a village church.
1 enters through the lover-vaulted porch and is in the beginning satisfied by subdued lights inside that requires a moment to adjust to but can immediately take pleasure in the stylish arcades and the rich glowing colours of the home windows. The inside is roomy but the watch east is interrupted by the tower whose panelled walls and arches frame only a glimpse of the chancel past. The glass was inserted between 1500-1517 and demonstrates marked Renaissance affect, staying the work of Flemish glaziers (dependent in Southwark) below the route of the King’s glazier Barnard Flower. The excellent is so of the maximum accessible and indicates the Tame family experienced connections at courtroom to protected these glaziers.
Coming into the nave one is instantly confronted with the most significant and most famed window in the church, the west window with its wonderful Very last Judgement, very best acknowledged for its lurid depiction of the horrors of Hell with exotic demons dragging the damned to their doom. Regrettably the 3 home windows in the west wall endured severe storm destruction in 1703 and the Very last Judgement endured more through an 1860 restoration that copied instead than restored the glass in its higher half. The nave clerestories contain an intriguing scheme even further emphasising the struggle of Excellent vs . Evil with a gallery of saintly figures on the south side well balanced by a ‘rogue’s gallery’ of persecutors of the faith on the darker north side, earlier mentioned which are wonderful demonic figures leering from the traceries.
The aisle home windows variety further 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 much more narrative windows are predominantly located in the eastern half of the church, starting in the north chapel with an Old Testament themed window adopted by additional on the existence of Mary and infancy of Christ. The subject matter is ordinarily confined to one gentle or a pair of them, so various scenes can be portrayed inside of a one window. The scheme continues in the east window of the chancel with its scenes of the Enthusiasm of Christ in the reduce sign up culminating in his crucifixion earlier mentioned, though a more compact window to the south reveals his entombment and the harrowing of Hell. The cycle proceeds in the south chapel where by the east window reveals scenes of Christ’s resurrection and transfiguration whilst two even further windows relate more incidents culminating in Pentecost. The last window in the sequence however is of study course the Very last Judgement at the west conclude.
The glass has been considerably valued and shielded above the centuries from the ravages of history, getting taken off for defense through the Civil War and World War II. The windows underwent a finish conservation among 1988-2010 by the Barley Studio of York which bravely restored legibility to the home windows by sensitive releading and recreating lacking items with new function (previously these experienced been stuffed with simple glass which drew the eye and disturbed the balance of gentle). The most extraordinary intervention was the re-buying of the westernmost windows of the nave aisles which experienced been partly crammed with jumbled fragments subsequent the storm damage of 1703 but have now been returned to anything closer to their first state.
It is vital listed here not to neglect the church’s other characteristics considering the fact that the glass dominates its standing so significantly. The chancel also retains its primary late medieval woodwork with a wonderful set of fragile screens dividing it from the chapels both aspect alongside with a charming set of stalls with carved misericords. The tomb of the founder John Tame and his wife can be witnessed on the north aspect of the sanctuary with their brasses atop a tomb chest. During the church a good collection of carved angel corbels supports the old oak roofs.
Fairford church is a nationwide treasure and shouldn’t be skipped by any person with a really like of stained glass and medieval art. It is generally saved open for people and warrants a lot more of them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Fairford
Posted by Aidan McRae Thomson on 2021-04-19 20:22:35
Tagged: , Fairford , church , Gloucestershire , stained glass , window , medieval , tracery , tracery light
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