Thursday 26 May 2011

Collecting windows (3)

A Hampshire day and back to the car. First stop Odiham, All Saints, for 2 Reyntiens windows, Adoration of the Lamb in the east window and Tree of Jesse in the Lady chapel (detail of Lady chapel window below). Followed by Hinton Ampner which I really liked, two tall but narrow single lancets representing the Pillar of Cloud and the Pillar of Fire, again almost abstract. Especially liked the right hand Fire window, in reds and blacks (detail below). The background to each window made up of small pieces of glass joined with dots giving the impression of a chemical formula!


Next stop the Wessex Hotel, Winchester for 12 foliate panels designed by Piper (one below). Quite fun and I had a mooch round town afterwards since I lived there for a few years back in the late 1970s. Memory lane!And then the one I'd really been looking forward to seeing, St Mary's at Hound near Southampton, which Pevsner rates highly and Patrick himself considers the best design he's ever made (detail below). And it did not disappoint, although the church itself is in a pretty dire strait and kept alive by a local charitable group. More power to their joint elbows say I.
One thing that has forcibly struck me in the past few weeks is how generous the churches are, allowing me to use images for my catalogue, especially since many of the churches, Hound in particular, are struggling to keep going. I'm used to dealing with art galleries and museums who are notoriously grasping, even when all I want is images for research purposes and I always send my findings back to the archivists for their records. So 3 cheers for the religious establishments!
Stayed the night with Dominic and Gilly (oh, haven't you been introduced, my elder son and his wife who live in Bursledon and own a barge and a yacht and sail and mess around in boats and design boats and race boats ... and sail!)

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