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Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

Long Melford, Holy Trinity
Suffolk
Btm row: St Felix, St Alban, St Erkonwald.
Top row: St Osyth, St Ambrose, St Ethedreda.
Top row: St Osyth.
Top row: St Ambrose.
Top row: St Etheldreda.
Bottom row: St Felix.
Bottom row: St Alban.
Bottom row: St Erkonwald.
St Felix - detail.
St Alban - detail.
St Erkonwald - detail.

St Ambrose of Milan & East Anglian Saints.



Posted 28 June 2023. Updated 28 October 2024.

So much has been written about this splendid church with its medieval stained glass treasures, it is not necessary to add anything to what has gone before. Here we shall keep with the programme, and describe only the two Percy Bacon windows in Holy Trinity.

SA3: East Anglian Saints, and St Ambrose of Milan; 1900

 

The large transomed windows of Holy Trinity lent themselves to Percy Bacon's classic 15th century style, depicting standing saints within elaborate architectonic niches of predominantly white glass. This window represents five East Anglian Saints, and St Ambrose of Milan.:

Top: St Osyth, St Ambrose, St Etheldreda

Bottom: St Felix of Burgundy, St Alban, St Erkonwald.

Osyth is dressed in nuns habit and holds a crozier in the right hand and a basket of fruit in her left. A bunch of keys hangs from her girdle symbolic of her having established a convent at Chich near Colchester. Ambrose is dressed as Bishop of Milan and holds a knotted flail in his right hand, a symbol often used in Christian art as an attribute of his. Often these were depicted with three strands to symbolize the Trinity and Ambrose's fight against the Arians in fourth century Italy. Etheldreda is crowned as a princess, daughter of King Anna.She holds a crozier and a model of the abbey she founded at Ely which was later destroyed by Danes. St Felix is dressed as First Bishop of the Kingdom of the East Angles. He is credited as having introduced Christianity to the kingdom in the 7th century. St Alban, the first English martyr is dressed as a Christian knight and carries, sword, shield and cross. The rather more obscure St Erkonwald (Erkenwald) was Bishop of London between 675 and 693. In the seventh century, London was coterminous with Essex and therefore the Bishop of London was also the Bishop of the East Saxons.

The dedication reads:

"This window was bequeathed by Ambrose De Ath in memory of his parents. He was a native of this parish and for many years lived in Japan. A benefactor of this church and parish".

The window is unsigned.

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NA2: St Edmund, St Martin of Tours, St George. Donated by the Freemasons, 1912.
St Edmund.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.
St Martin of Tours.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.
St George.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.
St Martin's Act of Mercy.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.
Predella left light.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.
Predella right light.
Image © Kognos
CC BY-SA-4.0 License.

St Edmund, St Martin of Tours and St George..
© Kognos. CC BY-SA 4.0 License.


This window again follows Percy Bacon's classic 15th century style with three standing figures of saints in elaborate niches, two of which are surmounted by angels. In the tracery are symbols of Freemasonry. The three saints represented are St Edmund, King and Martyr who holds a sceptre and the arrows of his martyrdom by the Danes. Beneath him a pair of kneeling angels hold a shield in garter depicting a crown impaled by arrows, arms commonly used by councils in East Anglia. In the centre light St Martin of tours, dressed as Bishop of Tours holds a sword and crozier, and beneath him is depicted his act of mercy in giving half his cloak to a naked man. In the right light St George in classic pose with the dragon at his feet. Beneath George another pair of kneeling angels hold the shield of De Quincy in garter, though the connection to that name is uncertain.

The dedication with peculiar random capitalisation, and which appears to be incomplete reads:

"To the honour and Glory of God and in Loving Memory of the Rev. Charles John Martyn M.A. Rural Dean; Chaplain in Ordinary to H. M. Queen Victoria [for] Provincial Grand Master and Grand Superintendent of the Freemasons of the Province of Suffolk who died 9th [?]. Members of the Stour Valley Lodge and the Martyn Chapter aided by the balance of a Fund collected from the Freemasons [ ] Pinnacle of the Tower of this Church dedicated in his memory in 1903".

In 2015 the window was removed, cleaned and re-leaded by Craftman Glass Ltd. of Tolleshunt Major, Essex.1

The dedicatee, the Rev. Charles John Martyn, a Freemason, was incumbent at Holy Trinity until his death in 1903, and Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria, Grand Chaplain of England, Deputy Provincial Grand Master of Suffolk, and Grand Superintendent of Norfolk. It was under the auspices of the Stour Valley Lodge, No. 1224, of Sudbury and the Martyn Chapter that in 1910 it was decided to erect a suitable memorial to the Rev. Martyn. The window was unveiled at a ceremony attended by a great many fellow Freemasons on 7th October 1912.2 The Suffolk and Essex Press provides a glimpse of how the design was developed:3

The window being a memorial to a Freemason, the problem presented to the artists for solutions, was to find a subject at once suitable to form a part of the decoration of a Christian Church, embodying masonic characteristics, and suggesting in some way the particular locality in which Mr Martyn had worked. The Bacon brothers, who were chosen to execute this work, were particularly able to solve these difficulties, for they are all three good Churchmen, Freemasons, and are natives of Suffolk, having a long and varied experience in such maters behind them. The Christian character of the figures chosen for illustration is obvious; they are all saints of the Church, Ss Martin, Edmund and George. They symbolise masonry in many ways - Brotherhood, Patriotism, and the combat against the "world, the flesh, and the devil."

The window is unsigned.

When I visited Long Melford in October 2024, the low autumn sun was flooding through the large south aisle and clearstory windows, making photographing this one in the north aisle somewhat problematic. I am therefore indebted to Julian Guffogg and "Kognos" who have made their photographs available on Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Licenses (CC BY-2.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0). These are credited individually within the body of the page and in the slide show captions.

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References: Use your browser's Back button to return to text.

  1. https://www.craftsman-glass.co.uk/church-gallery/
  2. Report in the Suffolk and Essex Press, 02 October 1912, p8.
  3. Ibid.

Location Map:

NGR: TL 86512 46760
Sat Nav Post Code: CO10 9DL

All text and photos © Alan Spencer, except where otherwise stated; All Rights Reserved