Stained Glass of Percy Bacon; Shere, Surrey

Stained Glass of Percy Bacon

Shere, St James

Surrey

St James, Shere: St George.

St George.

St George; 1921.

Posted 15 September 2023.

The church with its central tower and broach, tiled spire, retains in parts every style of architecture. It was restored in 1895.

Installed in 1921, the one Bacon window in St James, a lancet in the north aisle, is a war memorial dedicated to men of the village who lost their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. The single figure is St George, a common motif in Bacon's war memorial windows. He is dressed as a medieval knight in armour, wearing the laurel crown of victory, his foot firmly on the head of the vanquished the dragon. He holds his symbols of a spear and a shield emblazoned with the eponymous cross. Above the saint on a scroll are the words, "Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori" the line from Horace's Odes which translates as, "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country". A platitude for the relatives of the fallen, perhaps, but something Wilfred Owen rejects in his visceral, no holds barred poem Dulce et Decorum Est, in which he calls the phrase, "The Lie".

The window is unsigned

Location Map:

NGR: TQ 07428 47782
Sat Nav Post Code: GU5 9HG