Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

St John the Apostle, Marchwood, Hampshire.

St John the Apostle, Marchwood, Hampshire.

Posted 17 February 2023.

One who likes to visit churches for their architectural beauty will most likely be underwhelmed with St John the Apostle. Described as, "Costly and disappointing"¹, the church is rather ill-proportioned and unnecessarily grandiose in its loftiness. Apart from it's elegant broach spire, the rest is plain, unornamented Early English, with tall lancet windows throughout. This simplicity may have pleased some members of the Ecclesiological Society of the day (though the offset tower would not), but one can still not avoid the fact that this building is not particularly pleasing to the eye. The church was built in 1847 to a design by John McDuff Derick (1805-1859) who worked during the early years of the gothic revival and was one of the original proposers of the Architectural Society of Oxford. His work did not always meet with universal approval, and he seems to often have had run-ins with the Ecclesiological Society, whose reviewers of Derick's later works were particularly scathing.²

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St John the Apostle, Marchwood, Hampshire.

This window is on the wrong side of the chancel! Those on the south side are of plain glass allowing light to flood in, making the stained glass in the north wall appear dull, and for much of the day dramatically subduing and washing-out its colour. In bright sunlight especially it is almost as if one is viewing the window from the outside. Except perhaps on a very overcast day, this makes photographing the window exceptionally difficult.

This is very definitely not one of the Bacon Studio's finest, but then dealing with a very narrow, tall lancet would not have been without its difficulties. Given such slender geometry, the design by necessity must be vertical, and lend itself to a single standing figure, or multiple ones arranged one above the other, rather than small narrative scenes. Being a single, isolated lancet compounds the difficulty, as no neighbouring lights can be utilised to spread a narrative scene across the whole, as can be seen in the three east lancets, which although equally narrow, lend themselves to a wider crucifixion scene. One wonders if Derick had any conception that the windows might be filled with stained glass at a later date.

In the case of the north chancel lancet, the single figure of Christ the Consoler is represented. Above him a scroll with the words from Matthew 11:28; "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden", [and I will give you rest]. At the top a golden winged angel holds a scroll with the words from Revelation 21:4; "God shall wipe away all tears", [from their eyes].

The window is dedicated to the Rev Charles Lambert Coghlan, late vicar of Marchwood. It is signed rather clumsily in the bottom right corner, "PERCY BACON BROS. 11 NEWMAN ST. LONDON".

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1. john Murray (firm); A handbook for travellers in Surrey, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; 1876. p343.
2. Mottram, P. John Macduff Derick (c.1805/6–59): A Biographical Sketch: Ecclesiology Today Issue 32: January 2004. pp40-52.