Church windows
St
Ethelbert's, Herringswell is memorable for its outstanding series of stained glass windows designed by artists of the arts and crafts
movement
The east
window(1)
of 1902, on the theme of the good shepherd, is by Christopher
Whall. The figure of Christ, in a rich red robe lined with fur, was adapted from a design first used by him in the chapel of Faltes college in Edinburgh in 1899. The black-faced sheep were drawn by his sister in law, Alice Chaplin, better known as a distinguished sculptress patronised by Queen Victoria. The bottom of the left hand light portrays
the ram caught in a thicket, and the right hand light includes a distant vignette of a shepherd tending his flock.
The 1904 south west chancel window(2)
is a memorial to the uncle of Whall's friend Selwyn Image and is a good example of the artist's ability to combine contemporary detail with traditional religious themes. Texts on the virtue of charity are interwoven and Christ stands as a robed king in the left hand light with angel heads above and below. The other light is divided by a transom and the figures praying in the scene have portrait heads while a sickbed group is shown below. Also by Whall is the resurrection window(3) in the south wall of the nave and it repeats a design he used in 1908 in the chancel of the church of the holy cross at Avening Gloucester. As the sun rises Christ stands within a pointed oriole, his hand raised to show the wound, while an angel with multicoloured wings raises the stone. Below a soldier in armour sleeps prone across the two lights.
The glass in the north chancel window(4) of 1902 was designed by Paul
Woodroffe, another member of the arts and crafts movement. Mothers and children gather on the left and Christ gathers more children to him on the right, one with a doll flung across her shoulder. Both lights are framed in a deep band of Celtic foliage scrolls and the general treatment is softer and more indefinite than
Whall's.
The window(5)
on the south side of the sanctuary is by Jasper Brett a pupil of
Whall on the theme "Come unto me all those who are weary and heavy
laden". Three of the loveliest windows(6,7&9) were designed by James
Clark and made by A. Dix of Gower Street, London, memorials to Leopold Frederick
Davies. The first(6) in the centre of the nave north wall takes the text
"All thy works praise thee O Lord". The design spreads over both
lights, there is a central clump of Scots pine and silver birch rise up on
either side. A brilliant cock pheasant struts in the heather and swallows wheel
across the sky, it is an enchanting scene.
The transept window(7) illustrates "O Lord how manifest thy works" a brilliant landscape across the whole of the three lights. Slender boles of laburnum and Scots pine strike upwards and in the upper branches there are pigeons and squirrels, one seeming to rest on a ledge of the tracery. Rabbits sit by their burrows at the bottom and in the centre vivid flowering cherry and lilac overhang a river where stands a heron. This is an intensely romantic concept that skilfully avoids sentimentality.
Next to the pulpit in the nave is a 1950's window(8) to Llewelyn Davies whose enthusiasm for field sports prompted a St Hubert theme. Designed by
H.W. Luxford the Saint stands in the right hand light with a spear, horse and a gospel book while a springer spaniel in the likeness of one of the Davies dogs sits at his feet. The other light has a stag at bay with a crucifix within it's antlers, there are hills and woods in the middle distance and the foreground is richly carpeted in spring flowers.
A window(9) at the west end of the nave, also designed by James Clark, shows St. Francis scattering seed whilst holding a hare in the crook of his arm. A dog sits before him and flocks of birds swoop down to feed. Thin tree trunks rise through the composition to foliage at the top, in the background is a rocky hermits cell.
The latest window(10) to be installed in the church is in the west wall of the south west chapel. This window was installed in 1992 by Ivona Mayes-Smith and illustrates the theme "Herringswell in Spring" depicting snowdrops and daffodils with spring lambs around the church. The dog in the scene is Ivona Mayes-Smith's spaniel Tiffany. The window was designed by Mr Dean Cullum and installed by Cambridge stained glass of Willingham.
