Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers
Posted 25 January 2023.
St Andrew's began as a simple mission hall built of iron in 1891. The site had been given by Lady Shelly, wife of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, the son of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The building we see today was built between 1907 and 1908 to a design by John Oldrid Scott who also designed St John's in Boscombe. In the absence of the Bishop of Winchester through illness, the church was consecrated by the Bishop of Osaka, Japan on 13th October 1908.1 An earlier concept of 1895 by architect Henry Wilson, which although highly regarded when he exhibited his designs at the Royal Academy in that year, never progressed beyond his drawing board. Wilson's design, in High Gothic style was significantly more elaborate than the church we see today. Wilson also assisted with the design of the tower at St Clement's in Boscombe, modifying J D Sedding's original..
Percy Bacon & Brothers was commissioned in 1910 to install a number of windows in the church beginning with the chancel east, rose window and in the north chapel, and returning in 1911 and 1912 to glaze the west end of the church. This includes the Great West Window, another of Bacon's "secular" windows, which illustrates the virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and Justice, with portraits of real people, one of who, Florence Nightingale, had only recently died.
Posted 28 January 2023.
The large east window, of five lights and tracery, was installed in 1910, the gift of James Thomas Hathornthwaite, 1st people's Warden of St Andrew's.2 The design is classic Bacon with its trademark figures set within complex architectonic niches. The central light depicts Christ Crucified, with the two flanking representing the Blessed Virgin and St John in their typical positions. All three figures are set before colourful drapes or carpets edged with pearls, held up by angels. In the far left and right lights respectively the standing figures of St Andrew and St Peter each hold their symbols, and below them within their own canopied niches angels hold shields with coats of arms. A description of the window printed coevally with the window's installation suggests these are arms traditionally associated with the saints depicted. However, the colouring suggests these are the arms of the Kingdom of Mercia (azure a saltire cross or), and the Diocese of Gloucester (azure, crossed keys or). Below the cross an Agnus Dei stands upon a chest with seven seals, a reference to Revelation 5-8,t and "The emblematical lamb, standing on the Fountain of Grace". This rather unusual representation of the Lamb of God may have been inspired by Jan Van Eyck's large polyptych altarpiece in St Bravo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium, " The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb ", also known as the Ghent Altarpiece, painted in 1432.3 Unlike the Van Eyck piece where blood issues from a wound in the lamb's breast into a golden chalice (symbolic of the wound in Christ's side), Bacon has chosen to represent the blood of Christ pouring from seven holes in the casket on which the lamb stands, and into a font, representing (as suggested in the 1958 history of the church) the seven sacraments, but more probably the Seven Wounds of Christ. A wound is also visible in side of the lamb standing on the casket. A similar device was used for the east window in St Laurence, Upminster, London.
In the five trefoil tracery lights, surrounded by vine leaves are represented the Arma Christi each placed within a golden crown of thorns; from left to right: The scourge, hammer and pincers, ladder and The Holy Sponge set on a reed, with which gall and vinegar were offered to Jesus, three nails, and the column to which Christ was tied and whipped. The other tracery lights contain vine leaf motifs.
Inscriptions:
At the feet of Christ: Tu devico martis aculeo aperruisti credentius regna coelorum (When thou hast overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the Kingdom Of Heaven to all believers).
Above the Agnus Dei: Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God).
Above the Virgin: Muller ecce filius tuus (Woman, behold thy son).
Below the Virgin: Et tuam ipsius animam petransibit gladius (And, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul).
Above St John: Ecce mater tua (Behold thy mother).
Below St John: Filioli digitite alterutrum (Little children, love one another).
In the open book at John's feet: in principio erat verbum. Et verbum apud deum (In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God - John 1:1).
Above St Andrew: Faciam vos fieri piscatores homimum (I will make you become fishers of men).
Above St Peter: Christ's Charge to St Peter: Pasce oves meas (Feed my sheep).
The dedication which ran through the base of the three central lights is now missing. It is assumed the lower portions of these lights were removed when the original 1914 reredos was replaced by a new one in 1934, and the base of the window blocked up as can be seen in this contemporary image. The original inscription read:4
* This inscription is taken from and similarly formatted in the typed document in the church describing the window's inscriptions. The date as recorded above (MDCCCX) reads 1810 rather than 1910. Whether this was an error on the part of the typist or in the window itself is moot.
The window was dedicated on 6th November 1910 at the morning service. It is signed bottom right "PERCY BACON BROS. 11 NEWMAN ST. LONDON W."
Location Map: