Seminar: 5th February 2001

One in a series of Sarum Research Group meetings: part of the Sarum study group on gothic cathedrals and related topics.

Life, death and art: the medieval stained glass of Fairford Parish Church

Ann Jones presented a tour of the CD associated with the following book:

Life, death and art: the medieval stained glass of Fairford Parish Church. Edited by Sarah Brown and Lindsay MacDonald. Sutton Publishing (Phoenix Mill, Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 2BU) in association with Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education, 1997, ISBN 0-7509-1523-4. (Circa £40; $81 at Amazon.com on 2/15/2001.)

Fairford is in the Cotswolds, England, a few miles north east of Cirencester. The foundation stone of the church was laid in 1491; bgun by John Tame, a local clothier (d. 1500), and finished by his son, Edward. (Both are buried in the Lady chapel.) The tower dates from an earlier 13-14C church on the same site, heightened and strengthened in the late 15C.

A major feature is a series of 28 late-medieval stained glass windows, installed from circa 1500-1515. Their placement is described in the floor plan.

CD-ROM components related to a tour of the church

• Aerial views
• Walkthrough, with 360 degree views every few feet.
• A guided tour of the windows: this displays each of the windows while a voiceover describes their contents, and a cursor points out details such as the attributes of the saints.
• General exterior views, including some old photographs.
• Details of the masonry

Other components on the CD-ROM

• Medieval england
• Religious themes, using the church's windows as a guide
• Artistic developments, including some of the techniques used in the stained glass - including, in some cases, incredible detail in the images.
• Restoration techniques, including the use of a separate, modern 1mm thick backing onto which missing details could be restored, without risk of later mis-interpretation.
• "Facts and fables", including a modern reading (in dialect) of a guide to the windows recorded from the church clerk in the middle of the 19th century.

Other items at the meeting

• Linda Jack's talk on Ela of Salisbury - delivered yesterday in Salisbury itself - went extremely well.
• Julia recently found www.shopnonprofit.org, which allows you to nominate a charity of your choice - such as the American Friends of Sarum College.
• Trinity Church, Menlo Park is the new venue for the Sarum Seminar (it's on Ravenswood Avenue).
• New officers are being assembled for the group; volunteers are very welcome.
• Steve Murray, Bob and Julia are interested in doing a virtual tour of Salisbury Cathedral, and applying for a planning grant to get this started.
• Bob Scott had looked at a couple of books ...
  • Dunbar Ogden, The staging of drama in the medieval church (ISBN 0-87413-709-8, 250pp), Associated University Presses, 440 Forsgate Drive, Cranbury, NJ 08512 (fax: 609-655-8366, tel 609-655-4770). $39.50, including US shipping. Based on the flyer describing it, sounds good.
  • George Hersey, The monumental impulse - architecture's biological roots. MIT Press. Not recommended.