William of Occam, a Franciscan monk.
Pippa accompanied us on our final day and we went first to Ockham. We had come across the village ‘by accident’ on our last trip to Surrey in September, but the church had been closed. This time we had arranged for the vicar to open it for us and we met him there just after 10am. Pippa had worked on this window with Lawrence Lee so was very pleased to see it again. Unfortunately we didn’t have a great deal of time as the vicar had another appointment, but I was able to get all the photos I wanted.
We moved on to Cranleigh, this time to see one of Pippa’s own windows – a large piece installed for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. We had already seen a detailed photograph of the window the night before so it was lovely to see the real thing. The trees outside meant that some areas were not as bright as they might have been – I have noticed that trees and bushes cause a lot of variations in how well a window looks – but it was still a magnificent piece. It was also interesting to hear Pippa talk about all its elements and about the depth of research that went into each detail.
The only window I was able to photograph properly at Milford
We called into the nearby church cafe for a cuppa and some cake but by now Stephen was quite hungry so we popped over the road to a pub that said “Food Served”. Sadly they didn’t serve food after all and we were on the road again. We didn’t see another pub along the route I’d programmed in towards the next port of call – Milford – so we viewed that church too before eating. Sadly, even though the vicar had responded to my email enquiry to say that the church would be open, and even though my email had explained what we wanted to view, the ‘church room’ which contained the main window by LSL was locked. We did see two small lights in the ‘church passage’ although one had something propped up against it on the other side (in a locked room) so I only got good photographs of one small window. We will have to visit there again.
Knowing that Guildford Cathedral (our final destination) had a restaurant, we decided to drive straight there and eat before viewing the windows. A rather unusual combination of mushroom stroganoff with rice AND vegetables (including cauliflower cheese) was a little too much for me – and the mushrooms were too chewy – but the cup of tea was most welcome. Inside the cathedral on one side were seven very tall windows each with between four and six ‘badges’. Apart from the first of these, each contained at least one (and often more) badges completed by LSL.
Soroptimist International is a worldwide organization for women in management and professions, working through service projects to advance human rights and the status of women.
One or two Pippa recognised, and one was her own work. LSL often ‘gave’ windows to his assistants to do on their own. This experience must have been invaluable. Having seen one of Pippa’s big windows only an hour or so before, it was hard to imagine her as the student, but she is full of praise for her teacher and feels he is somewhat overlooked.
These small panels raised some conundrums too. Not all were signed – though it was easy to spot where LSL had signed only one of a pair – and we weren’t sure about a few of them. The notes Stephen had helped quite a bit, but still some uncertainties remained. Some of the queries were ironed out once the images were later studied, but we still have a few outstanding queries. This is, of course, all part of the fun.
It looked as though the bars were part of the window but lightening the area shows the painting detail. The bars are external.
After viewing and photographing the nave windows we moved on to LSL’s large window over the gallery. The guides who had been so pleased to greet us had arranged for us to be able to go up onto the gallery to view the window at close quarters. Pippa noticed that heavy bars had been added (we learned later that these were external and had been added for reinforcement) which left ugly vertical lines through most of the faces on the six designs either side of the main image. She said that Lawrence would never have allowed this and it was clear that the bars spoiled the window. Is it worth doing this to ‘preserve’ a window? Does it actually prevent damage anyway?
After taking a few shots of a smaller window over the crypt stairs, and viewing an extremely colourful and to my eyes incongruous window by Mark Angus, we headed off into the cold damp air. We said our goodbyes to Pippa in the car park and rushed headlong into Guildford’s rush-hour. Only went round the traffic system once too often – not bad for me! Another successful journey – 12 churches and one school visited, and almost 20 windows (I think – counting each nave collection at Guildford as one). Add that to the 17 we’d already done and the project is really taking shape. Onwards and upwards.
Most of the images link to larger versions of themselves, but some will take you to other views of the same window or to sources of more information. Always worth clicking through.
The large window over the gallery at Guildford Cathedral.
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