East window
A. W. N. Pugin (1812-1852), most likely executed by William Wailes
c.1843
St Peter the Apostle, Woolwich New Road, London SE18
The main lights here show the Agony in the Garden, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, Christ Arisen and the Ascension. Different sources give different information about this window. Please see full commentary below.
[Click on this image and those below to enlarge them, and mouse over the text for links.]
Related Material
Photographs and text 2012 by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Contemporary accounts of the opening of this church, designed by Pugin, do not mention the stained glass (see Shepherd 264), and there is no written contemporary record of Pugin's having designed the east window here. Nor is it attributed to Pugin in Stanley Shepherd's authoritative and definitive guide to Pugin's stained glass. Moreover, Robert Eberhard's usually very dependable web survey of church stained glass attributes the east window not to Pugin but to Nathaniel Westlake instead, dating it to 1909. However, Eberhard cites Denis Evinson as his source. Evinson does discuss a Westlake window in this church, but in front of the one he discusses "stands the font" (107). This can hardly be the east window, which overlooks the high altar. On the other hand, Evinson does say that "Pugin's original altar and window were transposed to the new chancel" (107), and Andrew Saint's more recent article on the church reiterates this. On the authority of the Building News of 16 August 1889 (when the new chancel was added), Saint says that "the present five-light east window was ... executed as part of the [original] contract, inserted in temporary brickwork with in the chancel arch" (114). That would mean that it was designed by Pugin for later relocation when the church was completed. In that case, it was almost certainly made up by William Wailes, who was executing windows for Pugin at this time.
Left: Closer view of the tracery of the east window Note the kneeling angels around the central "DEUS," and St Peter's keys in the lower lights. Right: Closer view of the main lights.
The Last Supper is particularly impressive, and it is worth noting that among the several "Last Suppers" in stained glass windows known to have been designed by Pugin is a light on this theme, executed for him by Hardman, for St Bede, Appleton (1851). This has a similar yellow arch or gable above it (see Shepherd, Plate 10.3, following p. 255).
The Lady Chapel Window
The Lady Chapel window, with detail of the central light.
This three-light window is well documented: it cost £50 in 1850, and the delay in its arrival from Birmingham occasioned aggrieved letters to John Hardman (see Shepherd 264). Among the less easily seen or appreciated details that Shepherd picks out are the red serpent being trodden under the Virgin's feet — the standard allusion to Genesis 3:15 (discussion) — the red gothic windows beneath the yellow-crocketed gables in the superstructure, and the depiction of the angels in the side lights as swinging censers. As the listing text points out, there is no clerestory. The church was built, as so often in Pugin's case, on a budget. Thus the use of white grisaille backgrounds in these side lights would have been helpful for admitting more light.
Many thanks to Simon Heywood, Chair of St Peter's Heritage Group, for noting an inconsistency in my original discussion of the contentious east window, in which I had credited its execution to Hardman. As he rightly points out, if the window was (as he too believes) made up earlier, it could not have been executed by Hardman. At this time Pugin was still using William Wailes of Newcastle. Indeed, Simon Heywood reminds us that the architect employed Wailes for the windows of St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark, just at the time when St Peter’s was being developed.
References
Evinson, Denis. Catholic Churches of London. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Print.
Eberhard, Robert. "Stained Glass Windows at St Peter the Apostle (RC)." Church Stained Glass Windows. Web. 18 June 2012.
"Roman Catholic Church of St Peter, Woolwich." British Listed Buildings. Web. 18 June 2012.
Saint, Andrew. "The Pugins in Woolwich." True Principles: The Voice of the Pugin Society. Volume 4, No. 2 (Winter 2010-11): 111-121. Print.
Shepherd, Stanley A. The Stained Glass of A. W. N. Pugin. Reading: Spire Books, 2009. Print.
Last modified 20 June 2012