Dark chancels

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I visit a lot of churches and over the years I've come to appreciate dark chancels. You might wonder why since they are clearly harder to photograph than one that is well lit. What I like is the contrast between the better lit nave, and the air of mystery that the subdued lighting gives to the focal point of the church. Fortunately, through most periods of architectural history the builders and furnishers of churches have agreed with me and have generally inserted fewer, smaller windows and have filled them with stained glass. The tendency to insert more memorials, elaborate seating, reredos, organs etc in this, usually, smaller space has deepened the darkness in many buildings. However, broadly speaking, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the eighteenth century, and the twentieth century more light was allowed to enter the chancel.

In the fifteenth century the fashionable architecture of the time was responsible for light chancels, and frequently there was no dividing arch between and the nave. This example at Skirlaugh in East Yorkshire is a good illustration of what I mean. In the eighteenth century more inclusive worship lightened chancels, and the same trend influenced the twentieth century. But the Gothic Revival in the nineteenth century and the original Gothic of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries usually exhibits dark chancels, as does the earlier Romanesque period where large windows were technically unfeasible.

In my recent visit to St Denys in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, I photographed the chancel to capture the jewel-like appearance that low light usually imparts to the stained glass. Here, even the sunlight streaming in from the south facing windows could not overpower the deep reds and blues of the glass, though I did need some negative EV to better capture what the eye saw.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title:Chancel, St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:3200
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

21st century stained glass

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The year 2000 saw a proliferation of "millennium windows" in the UK's churches. The stained glass that they added to chancels and naves was, as might be expected, of varying quality. Moreover, there was no unanimity on whether the compositions should be figurative or abstract. I haven't done any research on this issue, but my feeling, having visited many churches in the past sixteen years, is that figurative work substantially outnumbers the windows that are abstract. I include amongst the figurative those windows that have elements of abstraction but also have recognisable objects - people etc - "semi-abstract" if you like.

Today's main photograph shows a detail from a fully abstract window of 2005 by Glenn Carter in the church of St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire. It is a tribute by Eddy Double to his late wife, Yvonne Double (1938-2003), an active member of the church.St Denys is a church where the majority of windows are filled with stained glass, including, unusually, those in the clerestory. However, quite a few have light coloured glass or areas where darker glass is concentrated, with lighter glass elsewhere. This is presumably deliberate to allow sufficient light into the building. It may be this precedent that prompted the composition of a band of stained glass across the three lights of this window in the south aisle of the nave, with clear glass elsewhere.

I like this stained glass - the colours, drawn lines, the cluster of shapes, and the overall composition. What I can't see - can anyone? - is the way the "design reflects the shape, structure and emotion" of Schumann's "Arabesque" Opus 18, a favourite piece of the deceased, and how this particular group of colours "symbolises various aspects of the Christian faith." Incidentally, the appreciation of this window, like many in churches, suffers from the background of trees and the impinging of the buttresses that flank the window on the exterior. My small photo emphasises this, and the eye is not quite as troubled by it when you actually view the window.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: 2005 Stained Glass, St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm (160mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Nativity and photographing stained glass

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When I first started photographing stained glass a tripod was a necessity. Today, thanks to image stabilisation and improved high ISO capabilities, that's not the case. As a subject stained glass presents quite a few challenges, particularly when it is in a church. Firstly there is the fact that it is usually above head height. This necessitates either raising the camera or correcting converging verticals. Then there's the very wide range of tones in stained glass, usually ranging from white through to black. How to expose them all correctly is the problem: usually some underexposure is necessary followed by selective post processing.

Stained glass is best photographed on bright, overcast days because sunlight on the window usually presents insuperable difficulties if you are seeking true colours. Windows near transepts and porches are a problem because the shadow of the building projection often makes one side of the window much darker than the other. I've never succeeded in satisfactorily overcoming the exposure challenge that this situation presents. The demands of the clergy and congregation often present problems. For example, the east window (often the most elaborate stained glass in the church) often has a sanctuary lamp hanging in front of it, resulting in a silhouette of the metal holder and chain. Other window sills are frequently used for vases of flowers and other objects designed to beautify the building.

However, these difficulties notwithstanding, I enjoy photographing stained glass, as this blog will testify. At the end of each year I search my collection for a nativity scene to use as the illustration on our Christmas card that we make. Above is this year's example, an example of Victorian glass from the parish church of St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 120mm (240mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Destroying the past

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The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Simone Weil (1909-1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic and political activist
Despite having great sympathy with Simone Weil's statement I don't find it difficult to think of a worse crime than destroying the past. However, to remove evidence of mankind's past is, undoubtedly, a particularly destructive thing to do. Our sense of the present is greatly informed by our knowledge of the past, and to lose one is to impair the other. The past - in printed or image form, in memories and in buildings and artefacts -  is all that we have to remember those who came before us. To rub them out is to extinguish people, and that is always wrong, whether they are living or dead.

If we confine ourselves to buildings we find that Isis are not the first group to wilfully and deliberately destroy ancient structures for their own ends. The Taliban did it in Afghanistan and in 1942 the Luftwaffe did it in their so-called Baedecker Raids on Britain, a response they said, to the switch to area bombing by the RAF. However, it is not always warring factions that are most responsible for the destruction of the past. All too frequently it is simple neglect or misplaced planning and "progress". In the 1960s and 1970s many ancient buildings that today would have been preserved, adapted and turned to new uses, were swept away in the name of progress. It took the destruction of the Euston Arch to galvanise people against the vandalism that was taking place and begin to bring to an end the loss that was taking place.

Tattershall Castle (above) was one of the buildings in the forefront of early building preservation legislation. In 1910, in a ruinous state, it was bought by Lord Curzon and sensitively restored. It had been destined to be dismantled and parts sold abroad. His experience with this building prompted Lord Curzon to press for some laws to protect old buildings resulting in the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act of 1913. As a direct consequence of his actions we can still experience something of this ancient building - as the mother and daughter are doing in today's photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Depicting demons

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When it came to depicting the devil and his minions Christianity seems to have drawn on two sources of inspiration - visions and animals. Many religious figures down the ages have claimed to have seen, conversed with and battled the forces of darkness, and their descriptions have been a source of inspiration for the artists and craftsmen who decorated churches. Animals that people often find repugnant or ugly have also been used as a source for the images of demons, the devil and all things evil. Elements of bats, snakes, lizards and goats have been heavily used to described the form of these creatures of the underworld.

A few days ago we were in Peterborough Cathedral where I paused in front of a window in St Benedict's Chapel in the south transept chapel that was a work from 1958 of the stained glass artist, William Thomas Carter Shapland. The whole composition - clearly drawn, colourful figures in settings placed in clear glass - was quite typical of many practitioners of the mid-century. What caught my eye was his scene showing Hell below the main figure. It featured a crow (raven?) with bread in its beak, a snake slithering out of a broken jar, flames and three colourful demons. These were not all alike, varying in colour especially. Their heads were inspired by goats (beards and horns), bats (ears) and reptiles (scales and dragon's tail). What particularly surprised me about these three was the brightness of the colours used for their bodies. It matched the brightness elsewhere in the window, but eschewed the more subdued colours and darker tones frequently reserved for such subjects.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (200mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:500
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Burne Jones and Biblical names

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As a child I attended a Church of England primary school, the only primary school in the place where I grew up. Consequently I came to know more Bible stories than if I had gone to a non-denominational school. Like many children I responded to these stories as a mixture of history and myth because some of the things that happened in them seemed highly unlikely. I also came to know the names of many Biblical characters and was fascinated by some of the more unusual names that I remember to this day.

The three men depicted in this stained glass by the Arts and Crafts artist, Edward Burne-Jones, have names that were odder than most. They are Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, characters in a story about the prophet Daniel, who were thrown into a fiery furnace on the orders of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon and were saved by God, an act that much impressed the king. This glass, in the west window of the church at Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, is the best of a particularly fine suite of glass made by William Morris' firm for the building between 1864 and 1870. The contraposto stance of the figures, the faces, the deep, rich colours and the semi-abstract depiction of the flames are all characteristic of Burne Jones, and the quality of the glass is typical of the Morris firm at its best.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.4
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:1250
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Harry Harvey stained glass

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When I lived in East Yorkshire it was my delight, when visiting churches, to come upon stained glass by one or other of the two Harrys - Harry Stammers and Harry Harvey. The former was twenty years the senior, and had worked for Powell & Sons, then Wippells in Exeter, before establishing his own studio in York where he did many windows for the churches of the diocese. The styles of the two artists had certain similarities but they were quite unlike most of their contemporaries, producing work that was modern in appearance (and often subject) but still deeply grounded in the traditions of English glass making.

Harry Harvey was born in 1922 and began his career in stained glass with the Birmingham firm of Pearce & Cutler. After serving in the navy during the Second World War he worked for Wippells. Then, in 1947, at the invitation of Harry Stammers, he moved to York to become his assistant, a position he held for nine years. In 1957 he opened his own studio in York and worked in the county until his retirement in 1987. Harry Harvey he designed stained glass for about seventy Yorkshire churches, medieval and modern, including those of the architect G. G. Pace. He also did work for about sixty other churches throughout England. The church of St Mary and St Nicolas at Spalding has two of his stained glass windows, both dating from 1966.

I like the example above, one of the Spalding windows, for its characteristic clear, angular drawing, mixture of modern and traditional subjects and fine use of colour. The locality's secular side is represented by workers picking tulips and gathering potatoes. The communion scene at the bottom is all the better for showing the fashions of the day, and the religious subjects are handled in a typically direct and bold manner.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: 5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on church brass

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It's customary for Anglican churches to have a raised pulpit and a separate reading lectern from which sermons and readings take place. Pulpits have an inclined shelf that traditionally holds The Bible, a prayer book or any other document that the officiating clergy wishes to use. The reading lectern is a humbler (and usually lower) affair, often a simple wooden post with feet surmounted by the inclined shelf. However, in many churches the material is brass rather than wood, and the piece often dates from the Victorian or the Edwardian period. In these cases the shelf is frequently decorated with foliate or cross patterns, and many are pierced. I've photographed such lecterns before because the reflective glow of the brass in the darkness of the church makes an attractive subject for the camera.

The other day we visited a Lincolnshire church, one very near the border with Leicestershire, a building that we'd not been in before. It had a rich and fertile interior for a passing photographer. But, despite the fine tombs, interesting woodwork, unusual font and column capitals and much else, my eye was once again drawn to a brass reading lectern. What caught my attention on this occasion was the reflection of a south aisle stained glass window in the polished surface of the brass. The shelf had a quatrefoil design, each leaf filled with a flower stem with two leaves, and in the centre, a cross. These raised brass shapes were emphasised by black paint or lacquer and the out of focus colours of the window gave the yellow brass a jewel-like glow, inviting the close-up shot that I post today.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 52mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:250
Exposure Compensation: 0. EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tattershall church, Lincolnshire

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Stand at the top of the keep of Tattershall Castle, look east-north-east, and you will see below you, a couple of hundred yards away, standing stately beyond the moat, the medieval Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity. This 186 feet long building, made of Ancaster stone, was begun twenty or so years after the keep of the castle and must have been completed before 1500. It is a fine example of the style of medieval English Gothic architecture known as Perpendicular, a form that, after the austere elegance of Early English and the exuberance of Decorated, even at the distance at which I've photographed it, comes across as rigid, repetitive and mechanical.

Today this church stands out among Lincolnshire churches of this area in being very light inside. Perpendicular churches often are because of their large, panelled windows, but here the absence of stained glass increases the brightness. It wasn't always so. Every window once shone with their jewel-like colours.However, in the mid-eighteenth century much of it was taken to the church of St Martin, in Stamford, to Burghley House (also near Stamford) and to Warwick castle. It can still be seen in each of those locations. At Tattershall there are re-assembled medieval fragments in the east window, including many full scenes. I may show some of these in a future post because some are extraordinarily interesting.

The other feature that the church is known for is bats. The flying mammals have a particular liking for the building and the congregation do their best to worship alongside the diminutive residents. There are over 500 soprano pipistrelle bats, about 120 Daubenton's bats, and sundry brown long-eared bats, Natterer's bats, common pipistrelles and Nathusius' pipistrelles. Such a large number of bats (that by law cannot be removed) produce quite a mess and one consequence is that the excellent commemorative brasses have to remain covered to prevent damage.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 26mm (39mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Motion blur and stained glass

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On a recent visit to Gloucester Cathedral I felt motivated to try a motion blur photograph. My recent post where I'd inadvertently done such a shot and liked the result was still fresh in my mind, and I had been looking for an opportunity to try for another, more considered, example. As I photographed monuments, architecture and windows the possibility of rendering some figurative stained glass in a non-figurative manner came to me.

My usual method when trying to achieve motion blur is to either set the aperture very small (say f11 or f22) so that a slow shutter speed results or use a speed priority mode or set the camera completely to manual and dial in numbers that I think will work. However, in those instances I've usually been trying to blur something that is moving. Here I was trying to make something that was static blurred by moving the camera. In theory there's little difference, but when I came to take my shots I was dissatisfied with the outcomes. So, I put the camera on auto and had a look at what that produced. Counter-intuitively, it produced much better results. I think this was due to a large amount of chance and the way I moved the camera. Nonetheless it resulted in today's photograph. I was pleased to transform this rather dark, poorly lit (it was early evening on a dull, wet day) window into something bright and colourful that looked like it had the summer sun streaming through it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Auto
Focal Length: 36.8mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Tiffany window at Kimbolton

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The stained glass windows and lamps of the U.S. designer, Louis Comforty Tiffany (1848-1933) are internationally renowned. The colours, style, drawing, shapes and lines that he used show him to be allied to the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. His work was popular at the time of its creation and remains so today. There are examples in the British Isles - the Haworth Art Gallery at Accrington has Europe's largest collection of pieces - and windows can be found in private houses, and a few public buildings. However, unsurprisingly, most of his work is in the United States.

Bearing that in mind, imagine my surprise when walking around the church at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire (formerly in Huntingdonshire) and coming upon one of Tiffany's stained glass windows. All the more remarkable because it isn't mentioned at all in the relevant county edition of Pevsner. Had it been taken away for repair when he visited? Who knows? The window is at the east end of the south aisle where it adds an unearthly glow to that corner of the church. It was commissioned by the widow of the Duke of Manchester as a memorial to her two daughters who both died young. The Countess was an American of Cuban extraction so that may account for the choice of stained glass artist. Unfortunately the tops of two eighteenth century memorials impinge on the bottom corners of the window, so a full view (or photograph) of the stained glass is impossible to achieve. The composition shows Christ with two girls, surrounded by children and angels, all set in traditional architectural canopies with putti gazing down from the tracery above. One of the most interesting features of the window is that none of the clothing is represented by a single colour: rather, multiple colours are softly blend together. This gives an overall iridescence to the piece that put me in mind of some Symbolist work by the likes of Gustave Moreau.

When I first saw the window I was captivated because, compared with most English stained glass it is unusual. Moreover, it has a rich, jewel-like quality. However, I was also unsettled by it because, for me, the richness of the effects that Tiffany deploys evoke something akin to decadence rather than reverence. The quality of the figure drawing doesn't help in that respect: the flanking children look odd, gaunt, emaciated even. I've read somewhere that Tiffany wasn't especially keen to tackle religious subjects in stained glass, and after viewing this window I can see something of why that might be. His techniques seem more suited to secular and non-figurative subjects. Looking at the approach of the Kimbolton window again I can see it being more successfully applied to, say, an Arthurian illustration or something from the Norse sagas.

I occasionally come across stained glass windows where the style of the artist seems at odds with the subject. Last year I wrote about Walter Crane's "psychedelic" window in Holy Trinity Hull, and several years ago I was taken to task by someone over what I think is a downright weird, "storybook" window by the wife of Whistler in Orton church, Cumbria. On the whole I'd put Tiffany's window at Kimbolton alongside those two: interesting, not without some appeal and certainly bravely different in approach, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Browne's Hospital, Stamford

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The first hospitals in England were built and run by monks and priests and were more like dwellings erected and reserved for the poor - almshouses - than the places of healing that we think of today. St Cross in Winchester, Hampshire, founded c.1136, is a good example of this type.What Nikolaus Pevsner describes as "one of the best medieval hospitals in England" can be found in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Browne's Hospital was founded and built in 1475-6 by the wealthy wool merchant, William Browne (d.1489) to provide accommodation for ten poor men and two poor women. It consisted of four ranges erected around a courtyard. The hospital (also sometimes known as the Bedehouse) was managed by a warden and confrater*, both of whom were secular (i.e. not monastic) priests. Remarkably, the building continues to be the home of 12 residents, though now there are more women than men, and it is managed not by priests but by a board of governors and the trustees of a charity associated with the foundation.

Today the south range and part of the west cloister range remain from the medieval building. In 1870 the architect, James Fowler, restored the original work and built new and larger ranges to replace those on the north and east sides that were lost. These are very picturesque and include a south-west turret. The original porch was rebuilt in 1808 (see photograph) in a slightly different position to allow a passage to connect the outside with the cloister. The south range is built on a terrace above the street (and market) and contains a full height chapel, audit room, anteroom, conftraters' room and a dormitory. This old part of the building is noted for its stained glass, chapel stalls, misericords, almsbox etc. The stained glass in the entrance passage window (main photograph) is restored from small fragments and complete shields, the latter displaying the arms of the Browne family.

My photographs are drawn from a collection taken on several of my visits to Stamford. The south range is quite a difficult subject to present well because of the way it is above and parallel to the street. For different reasons the quadrangle is also a tricky photographic subject, especially in winter. Here it is the deep shadows that present the challenge. However, the building has several fine details - including the porch and windows - that lend themselves rather better to photography. For more of my photographs of almshouses see this overshadowed example in Bermondsey, London and this miniature, but magnificent, example in Ribchester, Lancashire.

* "a member of a brotherhood" (OED)

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Walter Crane, Art Nouveau and psychedelia

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In the south aisle of the church of Holy Trinity in Hull there is a stained glass window designed by Walter Crane (1845-1915). Crane is best known as a very original and accomplished book illustrator though he also painted and designed pottery, textiles and wallpaper. He was the second son of a portrait and miniature painter, and grew up influenced by not only his family, but also Japanese prints, the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the writings and philosophy of John Ruskin. In time he associated himself with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, and became one of their chief propagandists.

It is this background that helped turn Walter Crane into one of the seminal influences in the development of Art Nouveau, a movement that flowered in continental Europe and the United States but which had its origins in Britain. It sprang from a group of Arts and Crafts designers, illustrators, painters and architects who stepped beyond the medievalising advocated by Morris and injected notes of willfulness, decadence, and extreme curvilinearity into their work. The man responsible for what has been called the first manifestation of Art Nouveau, Arthur Mackmurdo, is not well known today. But, to those interested in the history of art at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth the other pioneers are better remembered - C.R. Ashbee, Arthur Liberty, Aubrey Beardsley - and in the case of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, widely recognised.

I cannot claim to like Crane's work in stained glass at Holy Trinity but I do find it remarkable. Why is this? Well, I find the composition too "busy" with figures that feel artificially "forced" into the restrictions imposed by the tracery. The colours are, to me, kaleidoscopic, but not in a good way, seeming too uncontrolled. The overall "feel" of the window is sensual, voluptuous even: quite out of keeping with most Church of England stained glass, something that makes it appear a bit of an oddity among the more formal pieces. Moreover, the label that always comes to my mind when I see this window is not Art Nouveau but "psychedelic." That's perhaps not surprising. When psychedelia was at its height in the late1960s and early 1970s Art Nouveau (and the Arts and Craft Movement) made a comeback. So, in those years, as well as seeing the psychedelic art on album covers by the likes of The Incredible String Band and Cream, we could also pop along to the Athena poster store and buy Alphonse Mucha prints, or call in at the local shops and buy a range of fabrics and wallpapers newly printed with original Willam Morris prints, such as "Strawberry Thief" or "Chrysanthemum Major". Perhaps it's my age, but it's a memory of those times rather than the origins of Art Nouveau that the heady, swirling lines and dazzling colours of Crane's Hull stained glass sparks in me.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -1.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shattered beauty

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Medieval stained glass is quite commonly found in English churches. However, it is often miscellaneous, jumbled fragments, complete sections of larger works, or reconstructions. The latter, often by Victorian restorers, usually have many pieces of the older glass missing and sometimes incorporate new glass in the form of decorative frames. Complete windows can be found, undamaged, just as they were conceived centuries ago, and a few complete church schemes have survived. However, the mutilation of the fabric of our churches that the Reformation set in train mean that very often we have to envisage the beauty that was by mental extrapolation from the little that now remains.

The following passage from Article 28 of the 1547 Injunctions of Edward VI makes it very clear that the destruction of stained glass was authorised to be prosecuted with severe vigour:
"Also, that they shall take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles or rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition; so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere within their churches or houses. And they shall exhort all their parishioners to do the like within their several houses." With this kind of official consent stone, wood and metal sculpture was vandalised or melted down, wall paintings were covered over with limewash and stained glass was smashed, some to be replaced with clear glass, but many destroyed windows were left empty. The danger with the latter course was that the weather would enter the building causing damaging and dangerous decay to the building's fabric, and so a further decree of 1559 ordered the repairing of such windows. Many church priests and congregations hid their stained glass, others collected and saved the shattered remnants, but elsewhere it was left broken on the ground and in time covered in earth. Interestingly we can see windows today that have been replaced or reconstructed from all of these circumstances.

Today's photograph (another from the vaults - see yesterday), is a re-assembly of fragments that can be seen in the church of St Agnes at Cawston in Norfolk. It looks like the beautiful work of the Norwich school of glass making that, along with York, flourished in the 1400s. The small photograph gives the context for the main image and shows how the restorers tried to make something of the figures and decorative fragments, musician angels, biblical figures and architectural canopies, all that remained after the iconoclasts had put down their hammers.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 200mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Stained glass knights

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There is not as much medieval stained glass in England as might be expected. Many continental European countries that saw land warfare in WW1 and WW2 suffered great losses. Similarly, those that were the subject of heavy and systematic aerial bombing lost much in the major cities. England experienced no ground warfare, but was heavily bombed. However, though these major wars did destroy some of our remaining old stained glass they were not the main cause of its disappearance. That had happened much earlier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Protestant Reformation produced national protestant churches that either replaced or complemented the existing Roman Catholic religion. Its clergy and congregations often saw stained glass as idolatrous. It did not fit with the new churches' ideas of what should be found in a building dedicated to worship. Consequently much was broken and disposed of, and much was sold. In England the Dissolution of the Monasteries following Henry VIII's assumption of the role of head of the church of England saw the deliberate destruction of monastic abbeys, priories, convents, friaries etc, with their wealth being seized by the crown and their property sold. In the following years zealots and iconoclasts before and during the English Civil War smashed yet more ancient glass in cathedrals and parish churches. But, this wanton destruction notwithstanding, today it is not unusual to come across re-assembled fragments, some whole windows and a few quite complete schemes.

Today's photograph shows part of a window, one of seven of the fourteenth century, in the chancel clerestory at Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire. The heraldry of the knights' surcoats suggests a date of around 1340. The families represented are, from left to right, Fitzroy, de Clare, le Despenser and Fitzhamon. It is thought that the donor was Eleanor de Clare (d.1337) and the scheme was supervised by her son, Hugh le Despenser. Most of this glass is original. Some re-assembled fragments can be seen in the shields of the four shapes across the bottom of the image. The windows were restored to their present beauty by Kempe & Co. in 1923-4.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 161mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing stained glass windows

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The very best photographs of church stained glass come about when the exposure is carefully planned. What is it most important to get right? Well, you have to ensure that the camera is steady using a tripod if necessary, that colour balance is accurate and that your exposure (or stacked multiple exposures) capture the full range of tones from the lightest to the darkest. But in general it's not camera settings that are the most critical factor - any reasonably competent photographer can bracket a few shots and get a decent exposure. No, what usually separates the satisfactory shot from the first class one is the quality of light and the background of the window outside the church. I always find that a shot taken on an overcast but bright day produces the greatest fidelity. Sun and gloom are both difficult to work with, the former being slightly harder than the latter. And, the presence of trees, nearby houses or a part of the church itself as the backdrop to the window is usually intrusive because of the way these elements selectively change the colour and brightness of the glass.

However, if your aim is to take an interesting photograph (as opposed to an accurate one), or if outside conditions cannot be changed, it's perfectly possible to work with the restrictions I note above and achieve an acceptable image. Today's pair of photographs do, I hope, illustrate this. The first shows the triple east windows of Essendine church in Rutand and were taken early on a day in February when the morning sun was streaming through the brightly coloured glass.The reversed image that each window has projected onto the nearby wall is not the sort of effect that you'd want to have in a good stained glass window photograph, but it does make for an interesting shot, the indistinct quality making a nice contrast with the sharpness of the actual glass and lead. The second image was marred by the projecting building behind the leftmost figure - you can see some above and to the left of the head, and this had to be compensated for in post processing. It resulted in the colour of the white draperies of this figure being a different colour from the others; something that I didn't quite manage to correct. Moreover, a single exposure could not capture all the tones and colours because the left side of the window was so much darker than the right. Notice, for example, that some of the small red, blue and green pieces of glass in the border that frames each figure are recorded as black. Despite these shortcomings I think the shot has enough to offer in the form that I present it - though its more subtle colours do look dull by my juxtaposing them with the brighter hues of the more modern glass above!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Psychedelic tulips

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On my frequent visits to churches to look at the architecture and history I often come across flowers.When a church is prepared for a wedding the nave aisle and various other places are decorated with floral arrangements. Harvest festival, Christmas and Easter are other times when the building is beautified with flowers. Then there are the church flower festivals that feature inventive displays, often on a theme, over a period of a week or so. But, these special occasions apart, flowers are invariably present in a church in smaller quantities every week of the year. These are usually supplied by parishioners, and arranged by volunteers on a "flower rota". The font cover or base, niches, the pulpit, tombs, and especially the sanctuary are the common places for such arrangements, but window sills are also places where they are frequently found.

Today's photograph shows a bunch of tulips in an earthenware jar on a church window sill. My attention was drawn to it because February sunlight was streaming through the stained glass, colouring the ancient stone and transforming the colours of the flowers and leaves. Red blooms were tinged with blue and green, and the yellow/green of the flower stalks took on a darker hue bathed in the strongly coloured light . The word that came to my mind was "psychedelic", and I thought of the album covers, posters and graphic design of the late 1960s as I looked through the viewfnder and took my photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Captain Matthew Flinders RN

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It's not unusual to find a town or a city honouring its sons and daughters with a memorial stone or a statue in a prominent place. It is said that London has more statues than any other city, and when I visit the capital I always come across a new one that I've never seen before.Given the size of London it's not surprising that there are so many. You would think it more unusual to come across such a thing in a rural village or town in an agricultural county such as Lincolnshire. And yet quite a few small settlements have statues to prominent people, often explorers. One such is Donington in the district of Holland.

The market place of this village has a slightly smaller than life size metal statue of Captain Matthew Flinders RN (1774-1814), the explorer who discovered and mapped parts of Australia. Alongside him is his cat, Trim. The house where he was born and raised (his father was the local doctor) was demolished in 1908. However, in the later twentieth century the village decided to commemorate its most famous son, and village signs were erected noting that Donington was his birthplace. The chancel of the church had long held memorial tablets to Flinders and his family, but in 1979 a memorial window was installed in a north east window of the north aisle. The design is by John Hayward, and it depicts Flinders in naval uniform. It also shows his friend (and fellow explorer) George Bass from Aswarby, his patron, Sir Joseph Banks, coats of arms, a map of part of the Australian coast, his sloop, "Investigator", various navigational instruments, and a picture of the house in which he was born. There is also a panel noting that the window was paid for by funds from Australia and the UK. Flinders' writings suggest that he had no doubt about the significance of himself and his discoveries, and he would no doubt have been pleased to see public acknowledgement of this in his home town as well as in several places in Australia.

I used the LX3, hand-held, for this shot. Fairly heavy negative EV was required to keep the colour of the lightest sections, and post processing was necessary to correct verticals as well as bring back the colour of the areas that became too dark in the original image. The duller colours of the lower third are the result of the background of bushes and trees outside in the churchyard - a common problem when photographing stained glass.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.4mm (35mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing in dark churches

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This is the third of my shots taken on a recent visit to the church of St Wulfram, Grantham, in Lincolnshire. The interior of this particular building is a challenge to the photographer who wants to capture images without the use of a tripod because of the large number of windows that are filled with stained glass. They have the effect of making the inside quite dark.

In the past in these circumstances I've been happy enough to use a tripod to achieve the images I require. But, since the advent of image stabilisation technology, I've found it liberating and less tiring to dispense with a tripod and to hand-hold my shots. However, the particular camera I use, though it is small and portable, and therefore gets more use than I would give to the bigger, heavier models of other manufacturers, doesn't have the best high ISO performance, and I'm reluctant to shoot above 800. Consequently the darker churches and the dim corners of those that are more brightly lit are still off-limits to hand-held shots. You might wonder why I don't use flash. Well, in churches with lots of visitors, or those that have a service in progress, flash is very intrusive. And in empty churches it too often seems to detract from the atmosphere of the place: those attractive dark corners, when filled with light, lose the air of mystery that the builders sought.

Fortunately, on the early September morning of this shot, sun was streaming through the south-facing fourteenth century windows of the Lady Chapel, and not even the dense Victorian glass (and certainly not the lighter twentieth century examples) could dim it to a level that prevented me shooting. Furthermore, when I saw my wife looking up at a piece of architecture, and providing not only a foreground subject, but a silhouette with slight haloes, I knew an image was required. Perhaps it's a family album snapshot as much as anything, but I think the light and shade, and the glow from the glass give it a little more than that.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Illuminated altar

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The oldest stained glass that we can still see in our churches is about 900 years old, though stained glass has been made in these islands for at least 1,300 years. Go into the average church and the glass that you will see is likely to be Victorian or from the early twentieth century. There is still much medieval glass to be found, though a lot of it is re-assembled from fragments left over after sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritan iconoclasts had finished smashing it for the idolatry that they felt it represented. A few churches, such as Fairford in Gloucestershire, have their complete, original schemes still in place. Glass also exists from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often heraldic in design, though sometimes showing figures painted in the manner of a work in oils. Then there is the glass from the twentieth century and the turn of the millennium.

It's true to say that all periods have produced good glass, but all have also turned out work that can only be called bad. To my eye, the periods responsible for most of the latter are the Victorian age and later twentieth century. I have a particular dislike for what I call the "cartoon style" that appeared in the 1970s and continued into the following decades. This comprises large, bold, simplified figures, usually one to each light of the window, in strong colours that go together poorly. The drawing often has a stylised angularity, and the faces are peculiarly expressionless. Such glass has neither subtlety, gravitas or beauty - three requisites for a church window.

A while ago I came across one of these windows in the church at Burgh le Marsh, Lincolnshire. I didn't bother to look to see if there was a maker's mark, but I did feel motivated to take a photograph of it. It certainly wasn't the quality of the glass that prompted me: rather it was the way the sun was throwing the colours from the window so that they illuminated the white cloth of the altar below. On that day, at that time, this not very good window was producing a little magic in the way that only stained glass can. I framed my shot from the side to include the cross and one of the flanking candlesticks.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On