Saturday, 2 November 2013

Great Warley

Built in 1904 to replace Teulon's 1855 church, which had fallen into disrepair - it was demolished in 1923 except for the tower, which collapsed prior to 1975 - St Mary the Virgin, locked no keyholder, is, to my mind, externally dull. The interest here is in the inaccessible Arts & Crafts interior.

NEW PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN. 1904 by Harrison Townsend, the architect of the Whitechapel Gallery and the Horniman Museum in London. Modestly pretty exterior embedded in trees, roughcast a la Voysey with buttresses a la Voysey and a bell-turret. But the inside is an orgy of the English Arts-and-Crafts variety of the international Art Nouveau. Tunnel-vaulted with broad decorated silver bands across, apse with silver decoration. Panelled walls with lilies in the design. The FONT with two standing bronze angels, the  SCREEN with a wild growth of flowering fruit trees, etc. All by Sir William Reynolds Stephens. - STALLS AND PEWS: designed less excessively by Townsend himself. - PLATE. Set of 1700.

St Mary the Virgin (3)

GREAT WARLEY. Nature has been lavish in her gifts to this place and man has added to them in full measure down the ages, and still is adding to them. The heart of the village is on a hill-top from which we look down on woodlands rich in pines and oaks and silver birches, with avenues of chestnuts meeting. Round the green on this hilltop stand ancient dwellings, the 15th century post office, with two gabled dormers in its roof, and Wallets, a lovely medieval house much added to in succeeding centuries. It has two wings with overhanging storeys, an Elizabethan chimney, and a panelled room of about 1600.

The modern church of St Mary lies halfway down the hill in a churchyard like a garden, with neat lawns, grassy banks, rose-decked pergolas, and a sundial. The dove on the spire looks out on a scene of perfect peace. This church was the lord of the manor’s memorial to his brother, and on a tablet over the door we read:

So might I toiling morn till eve
Some purpose in my life fulfil,
And ere I pass some work achieve
To live and move when I am still.
I ask not with that work combined
My name shall down the ages move,
But that my toil some end shall find
That man may bless and God approve.


A tablet to the lord of the manor himself (Mr Evelyn Heseltine) has this brief but fine eulogy:

His Life an Inspiration - His Memory a Benediction.
The building, the pews, and the choir-stalls were designed by Mr Harrison Townsend, while Sir William Reynolds-Stephens designed and made the objects which make the interior unique. He is famous, of course, for the sculpture at the Tate Gallery of Elizabeth playing chess against Philip of Spain, and his work here is as symbolical and as pleasing as that famous piece. Marbles, metals, and coloured woods are all used by the sculptor to express the symbolism of the life of faith. The three-stemmed font supports two bronze angels. Six ribs encircle the nave roof, lilies decorate walnut panels on the walls, while the rose of sharon on a green ground fills the springing arches; both lilies and roses are in aluminium. The front of the pulpit is in the shape of a cross; trees support its arms, and the whole is of oxidised bronze and copper. Of copper also is the lectern, flowering branches upholding a brass book-rest. Behind the pulpit and the lectern is the screen, the most interesting thing in the church. Expressing the idea of the text “the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance,” the screen is formed of flowering fruit-trees in brass, which spring from a marble base, each bearing an angel representing one of these virtues. In front of the organ is a little angel, and on its case are metal reliefs illustrating Benedicite.

Crowns of thorns encircling rose of sharon form part of the altar-rail, where we stand in admiration of the decoration of the apse. A great vine springs up behind the altar, tendrils and grapes showing in relief against aluminium. In the centre of the reredos Christ stands with hand upraised in blessing, trampling a serpent under foot, while panels on each side show the Nativity and the Entombment, and on the wall round is carved a choir of angels. It is all very beautiful, and everything in the church leads up to the simple figure of Jesus. Every window, too, has its place in the Christian message expressed so reverently in every detail.

Most beautiful of all is the memorial to the men of Great Warley who gave their lives in the Great War. Sir William Reynolds-Stephens has carved, as the reredos, two angels looking on at Our Lord after Calvary, a snow-white marble relief called the Gateway to Life.

Simon K -

And so, I came to the end of the 2013 Essex Historic Churches Bike Ride, quaintly rebadged in this particular county as 'Ride and Stride'. It had rained pretty much all day, and a number of the churches I'd visited had not been participating. I resolved that next year I'd be back in Norfolk or Suffolk, and I was somewhat surprised to discover afterwards that five of the churches I had seen inside, on what I thought had been a thin day for good churches, were featured in the Simon Jenkins book England's Thousand Best Churches. The only one of them that would make my personal Essex Top 30 was the last one of the day, Great Warley.

Here we are in the suburbs of Brentwood. In 1902, the local millionaire and philanthropist Evelyn Heseltine paid for a spectacular rebuilding of the parish church in the Art Nouveau style. No expense was spared, and everything is of the highest quality. Internally, the walls and furnishings are marble, aluminium, copper and brass, the glass all good, although unfortunately the original Art Nouveau windows on the north side were blown out and destroyed in the Second World War. All the lights were on, hundreds of tungsten bulbs flaring, which made photography of the inside very difficult, although this must be a very dark church inside indeed if they are all off, especially on such a gloomy day. Everything is of a piece, and really rather wonderful.

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