Five gifted men make a church in a million
Last updated 05:36, Friday, 04 July 2008
St Martin’s Church in Brampton is probably one of the finest works of art in Cumbria. Five remarkable men were responsible for its creation.
St Martin’s: The Making of a Masterpiece by Arthur Penn. Millyard Studios. £12.50
Henry Whitehead was vicar of Brampton for 14 years from 1874. He, through his parish work and care in London, had been responsible for proving that cholera was spread by micro-organisms in water.
In Brampton he continued his concern for the people of his parish at large and dedicated himself to building a new church to the highest aesthetic standards, carefully supervising and steering a committee of townsmen who were not always in sympathy with his views.
George Howard, later Earl of Carlisle, was an artist and an aesthete married to Rosalind, a combative and dominating social reformer.
He was a Unitarian and not necessarily in sympathy with the Church.
However, he was an enthusiastic associate of the Pre-Raphaelites, and was responsible for engaging the architect Philip Webb and ensuring that his design was carried through.
The third man was Philip Webb himself, the architect among the Pre-Raphaelites.
He was a man of unbending honesty and integrity and it is this integrity that accounts for the purity and quality of his work.
He built little and in later years was very poor and solitary, but he nevertheless insisted on compensating the church out of his own pocket for minor failings in its construction.
John Betjeman, finding St Martin’s not to his high church taste, referred to Webb as an atheist, but Webb, with his determined honesty, saw himself as an agnostic.
Webb’s friend, William Morris, was the fourth man. Poet, artist, designer, philosopher and politician, Morris was one of those remarkable Victorians of seemingly unbounded energy who helped shape, by his opposition, our modern world.
Among all his many activities he was a manufacturer of stained glass and his firm produced all the luminous windows in Brampton church.
The fifth man designed those windows. He was Edward Burne-Jones. Most of the windows were designs that had already been used in other churches, from Glasgow to Calcutta.
The most important window of all, the magnificent east window, was designed especially for St Martin’s as a memorial to George Howard’s father, Charles.
The work is a masterpiece and even though it cost the enormous sum of £667 excluding package and fixing, it has represented remarkable value for Brampton.
However, Burne-Jones does not appear to have been very happy about the arrangement, even though he received £200 for his work.
In his account book he wrote: “To Brampton window – a colossal work of 15 subjects – a masterpiece of style, a chef d’ouvre of conception – 15 compartments –a capo d’opera of invention – 15 compartments – a Herculean labour hastily estimated in a moment of generous friendship for £200, if the firm regards as binding a contract made from a noble impulse, and in a mercenary spirit declines to re-open the question, it must remain – but it will remain equally a monument of art and ingratitude – £200.”
Fortunately, the monument of art remains and the ingratitude and petulance are forgotten.
A sixth man, Arthur Penn, serves as an addendum to this piece. He writes: “As vicar of St Martin’s between 1967 and 1983 I worshipped day by day and week by week in this lovely building.”
He has researched the church’s archives to offer a clear and accurate account of the building of the church and its five key men and provided a description of the windows.
Arthur Penn died in February of this year and his son, David, has been responsible for the production of this beautiful book with its excellent reproductions of all the stained glass windows.
St Martin’s is available from Bookends, 56 Castle Street, Carlisle, and 66 Main Street, Keswick, and from www.bookscumbria.com
