St. Michael and all angels, Waterford.
Singing colours, silent music.
This church on the road north from Hertford is comparatively modern, being built in 1871 by Henry Woodyer. He was an architect who worked in a spiky muscular gothic style, but here finances provided by a single family only ran to a simple nave and chancel. The church would be easy to miss and drive by, were it not for the ornate lych gate advertising its presence. There is no tower, only one of his favourite broach spires over the timber bellcot which rises from the roof. Woodyer liked early Decorated tracery in his churches, often with attenuated proportions and elongated trefoil heads to each light, and where there was enough money added colour both inside and out in unusual details: inlaid mastic, roof tiles, and especially mural work. A trainee of William Butterfield, he couldn’t have been more different a man; against Butterfield’s piety Woodyer was a classic Bohemian artist, good looking and thin, with broad brimmed hat and long black cloak over an open necked shirt with a crimson silk tie, often with a fragrant cigar trailing clouds behind him as he strode along. Here the building is but a framework for the fittings; the pulpit is by Woodyer, the font looks a bit later and has a heavy spire like cover, but it’s the tiles and glass that have the real wow factor here. Although trained in the 1840s, Woodyer decorated his churches in the turquoise and azure depths beloved of the pre-Raphaelites, and here the glass is a catalogue of the style. Saints, angels and prophets by William Morris, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones stand, sing, or dance against rich brocades and swirling foliage in the richest of colours, with every tree in fruit, every bush in flower. The glass dates from the building of the church until the end of the century, and was added to in the next thirty years by the best designers of the time, with windows by Douglas Strachan, Selwyn Image and Carl Parsons. It’s as if each was trying to outdo the last in colour and texture, in depth and in line.
Singing colours, silent music.
This church on the road north from Hertford is comparatively modern, being built in 1871 by Henry Woodyer. He was an architect who worked in a spiky muscular gothic style, but here finances provided by a single family only ran to a simple nave and chancel. The church would be easy to miss and drive by, were it not for the ornate lych gate advertising its presence. There is no tower, only one of his favourite broach spires over the timber bellcot which rises from the roof. Woodyer liked early Decorated tracery in his churches, often with attenuated proportions and elongated trefoil heads to each light, and where there was enough money added colour both inside and out in unusual details: inlaid mastic, roof tiles, and especially mural work. A trainee of William Butterfield, he couldn’t have been more different a man; against Butterfield’s piety Woodyer was a classic Bohemian artist, good looking and thin, with broad brimmed hat and long black cloak over an open necked shirt with a crimson silk tie, often with a fragrant cigar trailing clouds behind him as he strode along. Here the building is but a framework for the fittings; the pulpit is by Woodyer, the font looks a bit later and has a heavy spire like cover, but it’s the tiles and glass that have the real wow factor here. Although trained in the 1840s, Woodyer decorated his churches in the turquoise and azure depths beloved of the pre-Raphaelites, and here the glass is a catalogue of the style. Saints, angels and prophets by William Morris, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones stand, sing, or dance against rich brocades and swirling foliage in the richest of colours, with every tree in fruit, every bush in flower. The glass dates from the building of the church until the end of the century, and was added to in the next thirty years by the best designers of the time, with windows by Douglas Strachan, Selwyn Image and Carl Parsons. It’s as if each was trying to outdo the last in colour and texture, in depth and in line.
William Morris provided an Annunciation and plenty of angels, but his foliate backgrounds of pattern and line are his strength. Edward Burne-Jones work moves from the small scale nativity to the characterful Baptist and St. Peter – based it is said on his friend William Morris. His designs generally became more calmly classical as the century went on, but his David is colourful and his Miriam truly wild. This window has been described as the best Victorian glass anywhere by Lucinda Lambton, whom it rather resembles. By 1896 his glass is much lighter, and white robed figures people his large window in the south wall that is in memory of the founder. Ford Madox Brown designed Noah in De Morgan blues and greens and St. Philip with something of El Greco in his gait. Selwyn Image gives us a gold clothed bridegroom and virgins from the proverb. Strachan’s Supper at Emmaus is done in Veronese green and ultramarine, and is the only one to hint at the twentieth century with its cubist influences. This last one I find the least convincing, with weak drawing to the small scenes, a mediocre Christ, and the two doves overhead plummeting as if shot. His disciple in blue has real presence, but there’s strong competition here he really can’t match. First amongst these must surely be Karl Parsons, who excels with an acidic St. Cecilia in greens, purples and scarlets against a symphony of blues. This is the first window seen on entrance, and is a tour de force of stained glass technique, with plating and acid etching increasing both texture and richness.
The climax of the decoration here is of course in the chancel, with Minton floor tiles in strong patterns. The richest work dates from the early years of the twentieth century, and is by Powells’ of Whitefriars who specialised in such work at that time. The reredos has saints and angels in opus sectile set behind a marble arcade. The walls glow with mosaics: angels spread their scarlet golden wings amidst spiralling vines set on an azure ground, and below fine gilded networks flow over the malachite green dado. Many of the designers and craftsmen were from Italy, some of the long line of immigrants that have enriched our culture, from the seventeenth century Flemish designers of monuments, through the eighteenth century Piedmontese plasterers, from Pugin and Tijou right back to James of St. George and William of Sens. We may have formed our own culture from them, but most styles here came from abroad, from Norman and Gothic to Baroque and Palladian the roots of our arts stretch far from our shores. Much of our heritage was financed by foreign trade, from wool to slaves; beauty sometimes can have the ugliest of roots.
The church hopes to be open daily 10.00 - 18.00 between 1st April - 30th September and 10.00 - 16.00 at other times; as this is a new departure anyone travelling any distance may wish to check first with this helpful warden, [email protected].
All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.
The church hopes to be open daily 10.00 - 18.00 between 1st April - 30th September and 10.00 - 16.00 at other times; as this is a new departure anyone travelling any distance may wish to check first with this helpful warden, [email protected].
All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.