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1864.

£. S. d.

VOLUNTARY ARCHITECTURAL EXAMINATION

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21

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Half Year's Dividend on £3069. 4s. 7d., £3. per Cent.

Various Expenses

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Balance in the hands of the Treasurer

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The Executors of the late Sir Francis E. Scott (Amount of Prize'). . . .

Rent, Taxes, Salaries, Trade Accounts not yet settled, and other current Expenses.

PROPERTY.

ON SOME EXAMPLES OF MURAL PAINTING.

BY THE REV. EDWARD L. CUTTS.

Read at the Ordinary General Meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects, May 16th, 1864.

TRACES of decorative painting frequently come to light when the whitewash is stripped off the walls of a church in the progress of restoration or repair; but usually they are only fragments; and it is rarely that we are able to discover the whole system of decoration throughout a church. When such a discovery occurs it is worth putting on record; and even when the design and arrangement merely of the decoration of any considerable portion of a church comes to light, it is desirable that it should be recorded. My purpose is to lay before you two or three such discoveries which have come under my own observation, and which, I believe, are hitherto unpublished.

The first of these is the entire decoration of a little Early English church in a very simple style, both of architecture and of coloured decorations, viz., the desecrated church at Little Coggeshall, in Essex. This church is otherwise interesting to architects from the fact that its dressings are of moulded brick of the thirteenth century, the mass of the walls being of flint and rubble. I exhibit a photograph, which will show these peculiarities of its construction. The plan of the church is a simple parallelogram, without any constructive division between the nave and chancel. The elevations are as follow: the east end, three long lancets grouped under a containing arch, with a light (probably circular) over them in the point of the gable; west end, a similar triplet without any light over it; north side, four lancets; south side, three lancets and door, the two westernmost lancets shortened to leave room beneath for a group of three sedilia, a double piscina, and a trefoil-headed credence. There is a semicircular string course running under the windows; the angles of the window-splays have a bold the wall-plate has two rolls with a hollow between.

roll;

The colouring of the interior is as follows. Below the string course the original plaster of the wall is left untouched; above the string it is painted in masonry pattern in double lines, one line dark and the other pale. This pattern runs round the angle moulding of the window-splays, and extends two or three inches on the face of the splays, and then is stopped by a double vertical line, and the rest of the splay has the masonry pattern continued in single lines only. The string is of an emerald green, glazed. The wall-plate has its two rolls also emerald green, with the hollow between them white. The spandrils of the east window are ornamented with a flowing foliage pattern of usual Early English character. At the back of the niche of the middle sedile are traces of a cruciform nimbus, which is enough to prove that it contained a representation of our Lord. Perhaps the two other sedilia had also figures. Fragments of a pavement have been found, sufficient to enable us to restore the whole design, which was a geometrical pattern of buff, green, and dark red, of which I exhibit a drawing.* It is perhaps of later date than the wall decoration. Part of the original roof remains over the east end, and the nave roof is probably made up of the original timbers, but no trace of painting can be detected upon them. If the roof was not originally touched with colour, we have before us the entire plan for the coloured decoration of this little church.

At Little Braxted church, in Essex, a recent restoration brought to light some indications of the

* This, together with a further description of the church is published in the Essex Archæological Transactions vol, iii., part 2, 1864.

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coloured decoration of different periods. It is a little Norman church, with a rounded apse, with five small round-headed lights in the apse, and one in each side of the chancel. The original decoration was of masonry pattern in double lines, which appears to have been confined to the chancel. There are also two dedication crosses remaining, painted on the east wall, under the two windows on each side of the central light. A cross patée within a circular rim, the cross dark chocolate, the rim of a dirty grey colour, which is probably faded blue or green. I have met with other examples of dedication crosses of different dates, and they are all of about the same shape, and seem to have usually the same colours, red and green, introduced, e.g. at Wiston, Suffolk, and at Great Coggeshall, Essex.

This original colouring was washed over probably at the time that the present decorated east window took the place of the original round-headed light, and the walls of the chancel were diapered over with a flower in very dark red, of which I exhibit a drawing. This also seems to have been limited to the chancel walls. This again had been washed over in the sixteenth century, and texts painted in black letter, with red ornamental borders of Elizabethan or Jacobean charaeter.

The next example is the large fine perpendicular church of Great Coggeshall, in Essex. During the restoration of this church, I looked carefully for all indications of its original coloured decoration, and think that its entire plan could be made out. The plan of the church is chancel and nave, and aisles running through from east to west, with tower and porch. Colour seems to have been very sparingly applied to the architecture. The walls generally seem to have been left unpainted, with only a line of red in the moulding round the edge of the window splays. The bell of the capitals of the pillars was red. The arches across the chancel and its aisles had a few stripes of plain colour in the mouldings-chocolate, bright red, and yellow. The east walls of the chancel aisles had been painted over with a tapestry pattern, common in the time of Henry VII., which pattern returned a short distance along the adjoining walls to form an enrichment about the chantry altars. There was, moreover, a whole series of dedication crosses upon the walls of the chancel aisles, like those already mentioned; the cross dark red, and the rim of dirty grey (probably faded green). There were two under the windows of the north wall of the north chancel aisle, and one beside the east window of that aisle, one under the east window of the south chancel aisle, and four others under windows in its south wall; and in the absence of other painting this series of crosses must have been conspicuous. It will be seen that there was very little painting indeed, and for that very reason I think it is worth noting, as a proof that in a fine large handsome church the system of decorative colour was sometimes of a very simple character. I presume the painted glass in the numerous and large windows afforded abundance of colour of the most brilliant kind, and it was desirable that the wall spaces between should be left plain, as a foil to the glass paintings, with only a line of colour here and there to give emphasis to the chief architectural features, and to carry the colour into the body of the building.

I should mention that there are traces of colour on the external mouldings of the south doorway and chancel doorway of this church, which indicate that the entrances to the church were then enriched. I have met with other evidences that colouring was applied to interior decoration.

These are examples of mere decorative painting of the simplest possible kind. I have now to submit to you some more elaborate examples. It is common enough to find remains of paintings of scriptural and legendary subjects on church walls, but most commonly they are isolated subjects, which give no clue to any general series or plan of arrangement; indeed, in many cases, unconnected pictures seem to have been painted on the walls, here and there, at the caprice of the painter, without any general plan or arrangement at all. I submit the following examples, because they do indicate a plan for the symmetrical arrangement of a series of pictures for the decoration of a church interior.

In the churchyard of St. Brelade, Jersey, there is a chapel of no architectural character but interesting as an example of the detached chapels which used sometimes to exist in our churchyards, and interesting for some remains of painting in the interior. The interior is a perfect plain unadorned parallelogram, roofed in with a perfectly plain pointed vault. On this vault are the traces of painting. Along the top is a line of foliage pattern. Each side of the vault is divided into three. long lines of painting, the subjects following one another consecutively, as in the Bayeux tapestry. They are painted on the ground of white plaster, which is diapered with a pattern. On the north side, beginning at the west end, the subjects are Herod sitting in judgment on our Lord; on a scroll out of his mouth herodes roy. His soldiers and men-at-arms indicate the date of the painting to be early in the fourteenth century. The next subject is the Binding of our Lord. The second row begins with the Scourging of our Lord; next, Bearing the Cross. The lower line of painting is now obliterated. On the south side, beginning at the west end, the subjects are as follows:-in the first portion is seen a kingly figure, but the rest of the subject is obliterated; the second picture is clearly an Annunciation. So it would seem as if the history of our Lord's Nativity formed the subject of the series on the south side, and his Passion the subject on the north. At the west end of the building is the subject of St. Michael weighing Souls. The painting is in red outlines, and of good execution.

This, then, suggests one mode of arranging a series of mural paintings in a church, especially when the paintings are consecutive scenes in the same history, viz., to put them in two or more lines along the upper or middle part of the wall, with borders between the lines; the wall-space above the paintings, if any is left, being diapered with some simple pattern, and finished with another border under the wallplate.

In the restoration of Headington Church, Oxfordshire, no less than twenty-four coats of whitewash were counted on the wall, and if these could have been peeled off entire, they would have given us no less than six different series of wall paintings of different dates. The latest were of Tudor date, and nearly the whole scheme of decoration could be made out. There were bright red and white lines up the pillars; the nave arches had red chamfers; and an engrailed border, each point of the engrailing ending in rudely drawn trefoils, ran round the labels of the nave arches and round the margins of the window and door arches; all splays were crossed with diagonal stripes, with semi-circles and trefoils budding out at about every foot. There were some traces of red tapestry pattern on the south wall to the left of the door, and on other walls texts in black letter, with broad borders of red or of red stems with green leaves. On four other coats of whitewash were powderings of crosses, roses and knots. The original painting of thirteenth century date was the most elaborate and interesting, and again a great part of the entire scheme of colour could be made out. The nave arches were coloured red on the exterior chamfers and yellow on the interior, with a scroll pattern, like that on south wall, on the soffit; the angles of window splays and doors had a running pattern of yellow divided by pink mortar lines, with a centre line of white on the pink. The east end of the nave was entirely covered with painting: below was a pattern of hangings, like that on the north wall; above that the wall was powdered with red cinquefoils on the buff plaster, and divided by stripes of red. Immediately over the round Norman chancel arch was a painted arch of scroll pattern, upon the upper part of which was a picture of the Majesty, viz. a figure of our Lord under a canopy, with kneeling figures on each side. Part of the south wall is represented in the accompanying drawing. The lower part of the wall beneath the windows is covered with a pattern of hangings; the lower part of these hangings is destroyed, and the fringe which is added in the drawing is only conjectural, and is very possibly incorrect. The special feature for which I exhibit the drawing is the arrangement of the pictures. A masonry pattern is carried