Charming and complete glazing of a small chapel. Renaissance glass coloured by the process of enamelling, often unsatisfactory because bits are apt to peel off
GATTON
It is not uncommon in England to find the chapel attached to the manor house of an estate used as a parish church for the neighbourhood. This is true of the family chapel at Gatton Park, Surrey, just north of Redhill, off the road leading to London. This chapel stands close to the mansion, and is connected with it by a passage. Finer carved wood than the wainscotting of this small interior is far to seek. The wooden pulpit, too, is of skilful workmanship, and together with the panelling, is said to have come from Germany, and to be the work of Albrecht Dürer; its beauty is certainly due to some great craftsman, if not to this very man. The principal illumination of the narrow edifice is derived from two large windows, one over the altar at the east end and the other of similar size in the south wall; there is none in the north one. Both these embrasures are glazed with Renaissance work of considerable excellence; the one to the east dates from about 1500, and the southerly one from about eighty years later. This latter, as is to be expected, shows a liberal use of enamel painting, something entirely absent in the earlier one, and each of its three lancets contains a different subject, against elaborate landscape backgrounds. The delicately outlined trees in the extreme distance are drawn upon a white field instead of upon the light blue then used in France. Such architecture as appears in the design is, of course, Renaissance. Across the whole of the easterly window is stretched one large picture, the “Eating of the Passover,” which is pleasantly brightened by the golden staves held by the figures who, with their raiment girded up and their feet shod by sandals, carry out to the full the Mosaic law, “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, with shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover” (Exodus xii. 2).
When about to leave this beautifully panelled charmingly glazed interior, note the small window in the west wall of the entrance vestibule. It is of a domestic type familiar during the Perpendicular epoch. In the centre are the arms of Henry VII. between two supporters. Across the quarry background are bands slanting from the left down to the right bearing the motto, “Honi soit qui mal y pense.” Some of the quarries show small leaves, and others an H surmounted by a crown. This window is similar in style to those already remarked at Salisbury, in John Halle’s hall, and others may be seen in many private houses dating from that time.
Although of modest size and possessing but two windows, Gatton Chapel is as delightful a bit of complete Renaissance glazing as one will see in England.