tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post2350599848673999588..comments2023-08-14T16:25:12.421+01:00Comments on Medieval Church Art: North Cerney, Gloucestershire - part 1Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-28420460662816869342009-03-14T15:47:20.480+00:002009-03-14T15:47:20.480+00:00It's not quite true to say that W. I. Croome (...It's not quite true to say that W. I. Croome (whom I knew and with whom I corresponded and stayed when he lived in Cirencester) was a protege of F. C. Eeles. As a young man he worshipped in London at St Barnabas', Pimlico, and it was there that his Sarum enthusiasm was ignited. He attended the consecration of St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, in 1903 and in that setting he met Eeles. By then his ecclesiastical taste was formed. When Eeles was working voluntarily at the Victoria & Albert Museum after the Great War in a small department controlling the design of war memorials he co-opted Croome in an attempt to found an early Diocesan Advisory Committee in Gloucestershire, Croom's native county. This was done as much for his wealth and local influence as his medievalist sympathies. But, if anything, Croome had, because of his patrician manner and background, the advatage over Eeles.<BR/><BR/>Croome formed a friendship with F. C. Eden and Sir Walter Tapper and together they travelled every spring for some years in Italy. It was in Florence that he, with their advice, bought the continental furniture and statuary (notably the corpus on the rood) for the church. Comper was brought in to design the stone altar in order to get the medieval proportions right, but otherwise had nothing more to do with the church. But the Sisters of Bethany executed the needlework and H. A. Bernard Smith and his assistants the painted decoration, while the mason's yard of W. D. Gough (also trained by Comper) did much of the carving. All of this I was told by Croome when he showed me the church.<BR/><BR/>It was Croome's eclectic taste that broadened Eeles's narrow English preferences and opened the way to moderate Renaisssance influence in schemes of decoration approved later by the Council for the Care of Churches. This was not achieved without a sruggle with Eeles's reluctance to follow that path. Eden most fully represented Croome's architectural preferences, reinforced by Tapper's equally eclectic taste. There was no influence or participation in the work of the Warham Guild which, Croome believed, represented the best that could be done on a commercial basis within the means of the average parish, but little more.<BR/><BR/>The entire context and social interaction of that period and school of church furnishing was far subtler and complex than it seems on the suface. North Cerney is less doctrinaire than the Dearmer-Eeles line of succession, and is the better for being so. As for Dearmer, Croome believed he had 'gone off rhe rails' (his words) in his later life and he had no sypathy for his socialist politics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-92042875309716276652009-01-25T08:34:00.000+00:002009-01-25T08:34:00.000+00:00What a wonderful church!What a wonderful church!Lawrence Lew OPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04600912414364976709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-59142424587519014912009-01-23T16:04:00.000+00:002009-01-23T16:04:00.000+00:00The altarpiece is masterful and new to me.The altarpiece is masterful and new to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-47461381402706514772009-01-23T11:25:00.000+00:002009-01-23T11:25:00.000+00:00That's not only a very beautiful church, but a lov...That's not only a very beautiful church, but a lovely and painstaking effort of restoration and maintenance. I've seen museum pieces in worse shape than that reredos, it's marvellous. Your photography does it credit, too! Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com