The Holy Box

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‘THE HOLY BOX’ : BUILDING BURGHCLERE

The chapel is a plain rectangular block, with shallow regular panels and a symmetrical front, having a wide window flanked by narrow windows, and a central doorway. The low, hipped tile roof is partially screened behind a parapet, with coping stone and broad stone ‘eaves’ band; a lower band is tied to the head of the stone doorframe; thin stone frames surround the windows, with a stone plinth. The chapel is of cavity brick construction, externally of red brickwork with brindle panels. The elevations incorporate single-glazed metal windows. The pitched roof is covered in plain clay tiles draining into lead parapet gutters, with single dormers to the front and rear hips. The front dormer is almost hidden by the parapet but is surmounted by a small stone cross on a carved plinth which dominates the south elevation of the chapel. There are panelled double oak doors to the south front and further oak double doors to the rear of the chapel. The lintel of the main doorway is carved 19AMDG26.

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THE POWER OF ‘CHAPEL’ AS A SITE OF MEMORY

Chapels had a hold on Stanley Spencer’s imagination from a very young age.2 As a child he had attended the Wesleyan Chapel on the corner of Cookham High Street with his mother and his brothers. Located only yards from the family home it was no ordinary place of worship. Spencer’s uncle had been a preacher there and was remembered in an impressive stained glass window dedicated to his memory set in the west wall behind the altar. Years later Spencer would recall every detail of the simple building’s interior and its ‘gentle and homely’ atmosphere. Gilbert Spencer, his younger brother, noted the sadness with which they saw the chapel close in 1910: ‘Stan and I saw the key turned in the door of the Cookham Chapel for the last time after the evening service. I think an important and significant influence in my brother’s life came to an end.’3 Spencer’s desire to decorate the interior of a chapel may have taken wing soon after the Cookham Chapel closed its doors to prayer. His friend Jacques Raverat had suggested such a scheme in 1911 dreaming of a building that he, Spencer and Eric Gill could fill with their paintings.4 Although that project was never to be realised Spencer thought of it often when on active service in Macedonia, writing to his sister Florence ‘If Jacques Raverat’s project holds good we are going to build a church and the walls will have on them all about Christ.’ 5 After the War Spencer became caught up in a number of short-lived ventures for memorial schemes. Along with a number of young British painters, he was approached in 1921 by Sir Michael Sadler, Vice-Chancellor at Leeds University, to submit studies for murals panels to decorate Leeds Town Hall. Although he visited the city several times he withdrew from the commission as he did not feel that his

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Sarah Rutherford. Conservation Statement, National Trust, November 2013, p.50.

The author is grateful to Ann Danks for allowing the use of significant extracts from an unpublished essay on Stanley Spencer’s understanding of Chapels.

Gilbert Spencer, Stanley Spencer by his brother Gilbert (London, Gollancz, 1961; reprinted, Redcliffe press, 1991), p.82.

Spencer met Jacques and Gwen Raverat at the Slade and their friendship was very influential and of great importance to him during the years in which he matured as both a young man and an artist. The Spencer / Raverat letters in the Tate Archive (TA 8116) testify to this deep and lasting friendship. See also S. Avery-Quash, ‘Valuable assistance’ Stanley Spencer’s friendship with Gwen and Jacques Raverat’, Apollo (Oct, 1999), 3-11.

Frances Spalding, Gwen Raverat: Friends, Family and Affections (2001) discusses the project in more detail.

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designs should be subjected to a selection committee; a stance that scuppered the entire project and infuriated his fellow artists, who included Jacob Kramer, Edward Wadsworth, John Nash and Paul Nash. A year later/In 1922 Spencer was invited by a long-standing supporter Muirhead Bone to consider two further large-scale painting commissions: a series of war memorial pictures in Steep Village Hall and a possible scheme for the end wall of the refectory of the school at Bedales, but as with the Leeds commission, the projects faltered, and the schemes came to nought.

The wall at Bedales, which Spencer estimated to be as large as 40 by 30 feet, must have whetted the painter’s appetite for a large-scale memorial scheme.6 Nearer home in Cookham, Spencer had better fortunes. His memorable canvas ‘The Last Supper’ (1920) was purchased by one of his early patrons Henry Slesser to be hung as an ‘altar piece’ in his boat house, the upstairs of which served (rather curiously) as a private chapel. This was the first real opportunity he had to make paintings for a specific location in a place of worship. Whilst staying with the Slessers, he also painted a triptych from the life of Christ to decorate the walls of this curious/innovative dual-purpose building. However, it is clear that Spencer had greater ambitions.

During 1923 while lodging with his friend and mentor Henry Lamb in his new home in Poole, Dorset. Spencer spent day after day at the large table in the main room making page after page of drawings ‘as unhesitatingly as though he were writing a letter.’7 Visitors recalled the sight of him churning out ‘acres of Salonica and Bristol war compositions’8 Spencer quickly arrived at proposals for a finished design, complete with architectural features, a lighting scheme, and detailed compositions for each part of the chapel’s painted interior. As he explained to his future wife Hilda, in late May 1923: 6.

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Stanley Spencer to John Louis.Behrend, undated, TGA 733.1.86.

Gilbert Spencer, Stanley Spencer by his brother Gilbert (London, Gollancz, 1961; reprinted, Redcliffe press, 1991), p.144.

Henry Lamb to Richard Carline, 10th June 1923. The same circular table is depicted in Lamb’s 1926 oil painting The tea party (private collection) which shows Lamb and others listening to an animated Stanley on the far side.

Stanley Spencer to Hilda Carline, 31st May 1923.

Since I have been here, I have hardly been out at all; I have been so much moved by a scheme of war pictures that I have been making compositions for, that all my time here has been on this. I have drawn a whole architectural scheme of the pictures. The end wall is to be a tall circular topped picture of that idea I told you about – the resurrection of the soldiers in Salonica (sic). This idea, as far as what it appears like, is at present the vaguest, and yet it will, I know, be the best.9 At this stage however Spencer was making a huge leap of faith; he had no support for any such scheme, he lacked a patron who might fund his vision, and yet he knew exactly the scale and manner of building he thought he needed.

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Spencer’s proposed building, in addition to housing his painted memories of the war, was in itself intended to be the expression of memory, based upon another very well-known building which had taken hold of his imagination years earlier.

Knowing of his interest in early Italian painting, in 1911 Gwen Raverat had given him Ruskin’s book ‘Giotto and his works in Padua’.10 At the heart of the book was Ruskin’s eloquent peroration on Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel (the Capella degli Scrovegni, known also as the Arena Chapel) which was completed in 1305 and is regarded as one of the most important masterpieces of early Italian art.

It houses a sequence of frescoes relating the life of the Virgin Mary and her role in human salvation, and is considered to be the most complete series of paintings executed by the mature Giotto. The chapel architecture is simple and little ornamented: it is a free- standing rectangular hall with a barrel vault roof, it has a small gothic triple lancet window on the west façade, tall lancet windows on the southern wall, and a polygonal apse, later raised to contain the belfry.

Stripped back to the bare essentials the economic architectural design allows the narrative and emotional intensity of the frescoes to dominate.

10. Available as a free book http://www. gutenberg.org/ebooks/18371 11. Richard Krautheimer, 1942. See also Medieval Architecture and Meaning: The Limits of Iconography, Paul Crossley, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 130, No. 1019, Special Issue on English Gothic Art (Feb., 1988), pp. 116-121.

12. As Andrew Daniels points out, Spencer’s use of memory, ‘wholly instinctive, echoed with some precision the fundamentally memorial culture of the Middle Ages.

Andrew Daniels, ‘This is life, this is’, from Stanley Spencer: the making of a singular man, unpublished manuscript, 2002, p.109.

Inside, each wall is arranged in three tiers of narrative frescoes, each with four scenes that follow three main themes: episodes in the lives of Joachim and Anna (panels 1-6), episodes in the Virgin Mary’s life (panels 7-13), and episodes recounting Christ’s life and death. A lower set of panels, a tier of predella scenes, contain a series of frescoes illustrating Vices and Virtues in allegory. A Last Judgement covers the entire wall above the entrance and includes a devotional portrait of the patron Enrico Scrovegni. Facing this extraordinary vision of judgment, on the chancel arch above the altar, is an unusual scene of God in Heaven dispatching an angel to Earth.

Ruskin’s book, augmented by the half-tone reproductions in the Gowans and Gray art books which he so assiduously studied during the war, provided Spencer with much of the practical information needed to fire his imagination. It is also possible that he knew of the medieval practice of ‘copying’ a holy building in order to convey sacredness upon a new building. The Sistine Chapel, for example, was designed with exactly the same proportions as The Temple of Jerusalem.11 More often than not medieval designers and builders would never have seen the original building, but set out to replicate it through transferring certain elements – shape, volumes, dimensions - the significance of which was understood at the time.12

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To what extent did Spencer really plan the building and its interior at Burghclere in the likeness of the Scrovegni Chapel?

It must be remembered that he had not visited Padua and never did. However, his future brother-in-law and friend, the painter Richard (‘Dick’) Carline had done so, and was able to recount his memories of the building. Spencer’s feeling, based on this important information, was that his chapel should allude to the exterior appearance of the Scrovegni Chapel as much as possible; ‘Dick’s contentions, are that my own ideas about the building are best, that it ought to be plain outside, just like a box and that there ought to be no sort of attempt at any kind of architectural features outside whatever’.13 Other buildings, not least his beloved Wesleyan Chapel at Cookham may also have influenced his thinking14 Dick’s compelling memories of his visit would have been confirmed by Spencer’s reading of Ruskin; ‘The architecture of Italy in the beginning of the fourteenth century is always pure, and often severe; but this chapel is remarkable, even amongst the severest forms, for the absence of decoration’.15

13. Letter to Henry Lamb, undated. TAM 15 15/52 14. Sue Malvern, ‘Memorizing the Great War: Stanley Spencer at Burghclere,’ Art History, 23, 2, 2000, pp. 182-204.

15. John Ruskin, Giotto and his works in Padua, 1905, p. 49.

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Spencer’s preliminary sketches for a hypothetical building share this unadorned aesthetic. They accentuate the strong vertical lines of the Paduan Chapel, its simple cuboid bulk appeased only by a solitary arched window and a simple dressed doorcase in the entrance façade.16 16. See Tom Bromwell, ‘The “God-Box’ of Burghclere’, National Trust Historic Houses and Collections Annual 2014, Apollo, 2014, pp.54-59 17. Thought lost, this drawing has previously only been known from an unfinished version illustrated in Wilenski R.H. 1924.

As Ann Danks has revealed recent research has found it to be in the archives of the National Trust at Hughenden.

Although its condition has deteriorated Spencer’s first composition for ‘The Resurrection of the Soldiers’ can be clearly discerned.

18. Letter to Hilda Carline (31st May 1923) in Richard Carline, Stanley Spencer at War, 1978 p.145-6.

19. Ann Danks has observed that Spencer’s limited reading of the Scrovegni Chapel was largely because his visualization was derived from Ruskin’s text than from any appreciation of the depth and space of the chancel arch and apse. See Ann Danks, ‘Buildings and Memory in the work of Stanley Spencer, unpublished dissertation, University of Reading, 2012, p.29.

20. John Ruskin, 1905 p. 2-3. For more information about this celebration and subsequent Annunciation ceremonies associated with the chancel arch in the Scrovegni chapel see Laura Jacobus, ‘Giotto’s Annunciation in the Arena Chapel, Padua’, The Art Bulletin, 81.1 (March 1999), pp. 93-107.

Inside his proposed building, Giotto’s influence was intended to be equally pronounced. Spencer knew intimately the woodcut illustrations in Ruskin’s ‘Giotto and his Works in Padua’, and the predellas, lunettes and higher wall pictures that he envisaged for his building’s interior closely follow the triple layer of paintings depicted. Ruskin’s illustration also shows the chancel arch with painted vignettes on either side of the interior, and Spencer’s original 1923 plans clearly show how his initial design for the end wall mimicked this arrangement.17 In his many letters to Hilda and Lamb Spencer described his intended layout in terms that Giotto might have recognised, he imagined the exact placing of each painting his narrative sequence, how the frames around the key paintings were to be ‘broad’ and he envisioned the entire idea as something that was ‘…full of possibilities and it has an architectural meaning also...’18 This phrase may be a reference to the depiction of the open tents in one of the narrative scenes he intended to paint, which obviously reflects that of the buildings flanked by figures in the scenes at Padua, or it may allude to compositional echoes between the architecture of the chancel arch in the Scrovegni Chapel and Spencer’s ambitions for his desired scheme. In his many preparatory drawings Spencer adapted Giotto’s three-tier arrangement to create an episodic cycle, each panel dedicated to a specific event but part of an unfolding narrative, each element evincing larger values of reconciliation and redemption, its entirety aided by the strict symmetry of the facing side walls.19 Parallels between the two buildings and their painted interiors extend to more than just the obvious however. Ruskin states that the chapel in Padua was ‘dedicated to the Annunciate Virgin’ in 1303, and explains that an annual festival was held ‘on Lady-day, in which the Annunciation was represented in the manner of our English mysteries.’20 It can then be no coincidence that the 1927 consecration of the Burghclere Chapel by the Bishop Suffragan of Guildford took place on the 25th March - the Feast of the Annunciation, the very same day

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21. Derived from fourteenth-century AngloNorman architecture, an ‘oratory’ is usually understood as a small room or secluded place set aside for private prayer. Exacting as always, Spencer preferred a different term, one that identified his chapel as a public, accessible and inclusive space, not a closed and private place. He explained to Richard Carline that ‘as Ms Behrend did not insist on the Chapel being called “Oratory of All Souls” please call it Chapel of All Souls’. (Letter to Richard Carline, July/August 1929). The dedication of a building in the middle ages was often one way in which a replica of a holy building could be acknowledged and recognized.

See Richard Krautheimer, 1942 p.1.

that the Scrovegni Chapel had been dedicated some 600 years earlier. Through his reading of Ruskin, Spencer must have been aware of the importance of this date for the Paduan chapel and have purposely chosen to link it with his own chapel even though he did not care for the title of ‘Oratory’ and did not attend the ceremony in 1927. 21 By emulating the design and concept of the Scrovegni Chapel from the outset Spencer conferred a heightened status upon his own proposed chapel. As he sketched out his plans on Henry Lamb’s dining room table Spencer intended that his design should to be seen not just be regarded as another war memorial but as a continuation of the age-old tradition of Christian art. He would have also known that Giotto was an architect and a painter, and although Spencer had absolutely no training in designing buildings or planning their interiors he took courage and guidance from the Italian master and embarked on his ‘architectural scheme’ without a moment’s hesitation or self-doubt.

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THE CHOSEN SITE : A NECESSARY COMPROMISE

In September 1923, several months after they first saw Spencer’s drawings spread across Lamb’s dining table in Poole, John ‘Louis’ and Mary Behrend decided to commit themselves to building the chapel and commission Spencer to paint its interior walls. He was exultant: ‘What ho, Giotto’, he is said to have exclaimed in excitement.22 However, it would be four, at times frustrating, years before Spencer was able to open the doors of the new building and start painting its blank walls.

Never one to sit idle, Spencer promptly assumed control of the design and planning for the project:

22. Cited in many places, including George Behrend, Stanley Spencer at Burghclere (London, 1965) p.6., and Duncan Robinson, Stanley Spencer (Oxford, 1990) p.33.

23. TGA 825.14.

24. Hoping to find sponsorship or assistance with the financing of the project, but finding none, the Behrends initially proposed a temporary housing for the works possibly in London but Spencer refused a temporary solution insisting that his paintings should be housed in a purpose-built permanent functioning chapel. Quoted in George Behrend, An Unexpected Life, (Jersey Artists Ltd, 2007), p.21.

I would like to design an altar myself, & I believe in time, I should be able to get what I wanted. I should like [it] to be bas reliefed. I have decided the proportions of everything; length of building, height of roof, kind of roof, kind of tiles, height of dado & cornice, projection of moulding of arches, size and place of windows, and door, etc. So that the architect only has to make a builders (sic) drawing from my measurements.23 He also tried to influence Behrends’ choice of location and spent time trying to convince them that the building should be situated not at Burghclere, but in his beloved home village of Cookham, or if not there then at nearby Cookham Dean or Hedsor. However, on this the Behrends would not compromise.24 They could not justify a private family chapel some forty miles from their family home in Burghclere.

They were sensitive about building a private chapel in a village which already had two churches, and they were anxious not to appear lavish at a time when local people were homeless. Having impressed on Spencer the need to build nearer their home, they eventually appeased some of their anxieties by adding two cottages (later

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described as almshouses) either side of the chapel, space enough to offer sheltered accommodation to war veterans and their families, but also providing homes for future generations of chapel-keepers.

The site itself was a compromise. A flat expanse of land was sought in the village of Burghclere but nothing was large enough and available for purchase. The Behrend’s son, George, recalled that the only pieces of land for sale were the chicken field across the lane and the paddock below the family home – neither of which were considered suitable.25 Eventually the purchase of a compact piece of land was negotiated with the Carnarvon Estate, which owned sizeable properties throughout the county, including, of course, the family home at Highclere Castle. The 5th Earl – of Tutankhamen fame - had died in 1923, and his successor, the 6th Earl had proved more amenable to selling off pockets of land. The site purchased by the Behrends lay at the western, more remote end of the village.26 It was a long, narrow plot hemmed in by a deep railway cutting to the east and a public road to the south. The early history of the chapel plot is obscure.27 By the mid-18th century it had been part of the Commons of Burghclere for several centuries, used largely as grazed pasture. It was probably enclosed as part of the 1783 Inclosure of the Commons, bounded to the south by Pound Lane and to the east by Harts Lane. Both roads had come under the jurisdiction of the Turnpike Act of 1761-2, and this may explain the large oak trees which stand at the north-east and south-east corners of the chapel plot. These would once have marked the boundaries with public roads. As ‘garden ground’ its state of cultivation was termed arable, and the 1873 Ordnance Survey shows it continued to be labelled as a market garden. Until the construction of the chapel in the 1920s, the most radical transformation of the site was bought about by the siting of the new railway line from Winchester to Newbury in the 1880s, which took the eastern half of the cultivated parcel for a deep cutting, with the new Highclere Station built nearby to the south-east.

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25. Quoted in George Behrend, An Unexpected Life, (Jersey Artists Ltd, 2007), p.21.

26. The surviving documentation so far identified for the Chapel site does not include a ground plan of the whole plot as bought from Lord Carnarvon, although as Rutherford notes such a plan may indeed be included with the deeds held by the National Trust but have yet to be located.

27. Sarah Rutherford. Conservation Statement, National Trust, November 2013, p.70

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THE PAINTER AND THE TWO ARCHITECTS

What purpose will it serve, and where is to be built?’ Well, I have come to the conclusion that it is obviously intended for a memorial hall or chapel to be attached to some hospital; it need not necessarily be a military one….It would help to ennoble and reveal the sublimity of medical services.28 Habitually assertive, on occasion imperious, Spencer was determined that the chapel would be built exactly to his specification and, despite having never designed a building before, he intended to decide the ‘proportions of everything; length of building, height of roof, kind of roof, kind of tiles, height of dado and cornice, projection of moulding of arches, size and place of windows and door, etc. So that the architect only has to make a builders drawing from my measurements’.29 Spencer’s self-projection / unrelenting self-confidence led eventually to his domination / hijacking of the entire project, which the Behrends bore with good grace and much forbearance, if at times it was highly fraught. Spencer felt strongly that the architecture and the landscape design would need to be subordinate to his paintings. This demanded a flexible and co-operative architect willing to subordinate his own artistic ideas to those of Spencer something that most architects would find a difficult, if not impossible commission. That much Spencer had made very clear within months of the Behrends agreeing to fund the project.

Louis and Mary Behrend had wanted to engage George Kennedy as their first choice architect. He was a close friend of painter Henry Lamb who was a confidant of the Behrends and was showing a keen interest in the unfolding chapel project.

Kennedy and his wife were also good friends of the Behrends and a large portrait of the architect and his family, painted by Lamb, hung in the Smoking Room of Grey House. It seemed a perfect, if slightly cosy, arrangement.

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28. Stanley Spencer to Henry Lamb, October 1923.

29. TGA 825.14.

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Spencer, however, did not care at all for Kennedy’s approach or his aesthetic/ design style, which he thought too ornate and too fussy. Before long there were frequent and profound differences of opinion. Kennedy proposed small windows high in the chapel bays and suggested a ‘narthex’, an outer porch seen in many Byzantine Churches. Spencer fundamentally disagreed, forcibly asserting ‘that my own ideas about the building are the best; that it ought to be plain outside, just like a box, and that there ought to be no… architectural ornament or features outside whatever.’30 At a number of turbulent meetings between Kennedy, Lamb, and the Behrends, Spencer re-iterated his conviction that the chapel should be architecturally simple and uncluttered, with minimal decoration and plain elevations constructed in slim red bricks. Like the Scrovegni, he believed the building at Burghclere need be little more than a plain block sticking straight out of the ground, unadorned, unfussy, even unremarkable until one stepped inside and experienced his magnificently painted walls murals. Spencer dictated further specifications: the walls should be sufficiently deep ‘as it is always more restful to look out of [a] window through a thick wall’, and he insisted that the entrance – ‘a secret unobtrusive door’ – should be set to one side and not centrally positioned.

Kennedy, however, refused to modify his own designs / ideas. The tensions between artist and architect proved intolerable. There was a terrible row, which the young George Behrend remembered hearing from his bedroom.31 As usual Spencer had his way. Kennedy was replaced by a more compliant architect, Lionel Pearson. After the debacle, the Behrends apparently never spoke to Kennedy again. Thereafter, most of Stanley’s original and exacting requirements – the width of the bays, the height of the dado rail, the exact shapes of the corbels and mouldings – would be followed to the utmost degree, even though Spencer’s artistic visualisation of space did not always translate architecturally, resulting in many uneasy compromises.

Two years older than Louis Behrend, and twelve years senior to Spencer, Lionel Godfrey Pearson FRIBA (1879 – 1953) had trained in Liverpool and then practised in London. He worked in partnership with Harry Percy Adams and Charles Henry Holden from 1913, as the practice of Adams, Holden and Pearson, located at 9 Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner. His most notable work apart from the chapel in Burghclere is perhaps the Royal Regiment of Artillery Memorial for which he designed the stone structure for Charles Jagger’s memorable sculptures in 1921.

Otherwise, as one commentator notes, his career has a certain obscurity.32 This is

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30. Stanley Spencer to Henry Lamb, October 1923.

31. TGA 825.14.

32. Sarah Rutherford. Conservation Statement, National Trust, November 2013, p.41.

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rather surprising given the prolific design work by his partners in the practice, most notably Charles Holden whose Modern Movement style created some of the most memorable inter-war London Underground station designs in the capital and many fine buildings in the regions, most significantly the Central Library in Bristol, as well a number of memorial structures on the former Western Front. The form of his work for London Transport was often predicated on a double height ticket hall with single storey wings, for example at Sudbury Town Station in Harrow which bears a similar composition of volumes to the Sandham Memorial Chapel.33 It is unfortunate that Pearson, despite his many attempts, felt so constrained when designing the Chapel in Burghclere. After all, the Royal Artillery Memorial had achieved a memorable fusion of static pyramidal stone with the monumental bronze figures created by Charles Sargent Jagger, like Spencer another veteran of the war’s Mediterranean campaign. The evocative relationship between his broad-featured, massive figures and the mass of the stone howitzer is simultaneously moving and epic; the dialogue between architect and artist works to mutual – and powerful advantage. By contrast, the architect appears not to have fully enjoyed the same respectful / creative dialogue with Spencer, although he was able to modify some of Spencer’s more exacting demands. Nevertheless, it was a very unusual manner of collaboration with Spencer exerting a greater influence on the architecture than he ought by rights to have had, and the architect seeming to be so firmly – even willingly - directed by the artist. As Andrew Daniels has so astutely observed: ‘The architecture had become the handmaiden of [the] painting’.34

33. See Sarah Rutherford. Conservation Statement, National Trust, November 2013, p.41; Holden’s preference for massing of vast blocks of Portland stone is exemplified in his designs for Senate House, University of London and the UERL headquarters in Broadway.

34. Andrew Daniels, ‘This is life, this is’, from Stanley Spencer: the making of a singular man, unpublished manuscript, 2002, p.84.

35. Collection of Hove Museum and Art Gallery, Sussex.

Thwarted in his plans to direct the chapel’s design, Lamb was very upset by the departure of Kennedy, whom he had long championed. He/Lamb withdrew from future involvement in the chapel. Ever sensitive to their artist-friends, and as some compensation for hurting his feelings, the Behrends commissioned a family portrait from Lamb. Painted in 1926 (though dated 1927) George Behrend later described the prolonged sittings as an ordeal, producing an awkward unsmiling and glum family in tortuous postures. ‘Banished’ to the London home in Wigmore Street, and then tucked away in a back bedroom at Burghclere, the canvas – which despite George’s disparaging remarks and his ‘hideous bright yellow jersey’, allegedly only worn to add a much-needed splash of colour – now hangs in Hove Museum and Art Gallery.35 Pearson was a responsive and assiduous co-worker - ‘amenable and efficient’ writes George Behrend - an architect willing to be directed by Spencer and to discuss his designs openly with his client, but not always as compliant as might appear from

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the considerable correspondence. It is clear that he worked patiently behind the scenes to mediate the strong views of both painter and patron. George recalled the times when he and his sister leaned over the banisters outside their bedroom at Grey House to listen to the rising volume of the regular meetings between architect, painter and client. ‘Mr Pearson’s coming to lunch’ became a byword for heated discussion ‘particularly when Spencer was present.’36 Not only did Spencer take the creative – and at times moral – high ground when dictating the shape and form of the chapel his attention to detail was incorrigible. Years after the fabric of the building was in place, Spencer fussed over the tiniest detail. The dado became a notable source of contention, resulting in scores of illustrated letters demanding that his exact requirements be met. Out of necessity the Behrends adopted a pragmatic, at times rather resigned, philosophy to meet the painter’s requirements. ‘I suppose however that we had better give way to Stanley’, wrote a wearied Mary Behrend on one such occasion as late as 1930, ‘though it pulls both ways to do so’.37

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36. George Behrend, An Unexpected Life, (Jersey Artists Ltd, 2007), p.22.

37. Mary Behrend to Richard Carline (check), 25th November 1930, Tate archive, 825/2.

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HONING THE DESIGN : THE PAINTER AND THE ARCHITECT

In mid-November 1925, two years since the Behrends had committed themselves to building the Chapel, the new architect and the painter met to discuss the inside of the building – the ‘interior arrangement’ as Pearson called it. Despite his strong feeling that it was in the ‘wrong’ village Spencer had been thrilled by the purchase of the plot : The other day I went & inspected the ‘site’ & I was by myself (it is in a little plot of ground near Highclere station, near Newbury) & I loved measuring the ground; I felt this is life this is, & I have fallen into the habit of measuring everything & every building I enter I want to know the height of the ceiling.38 He was beside himself with excitement at the prospect of deciding how the interior walls should he laid out in readiness for his rich narrative paintings. He had also specific ideas about the design, which he shared enthusiastically with Pearson. The morning after one such meeting, on 17th November 1925, the architect appraised/informed his patron that some of the painters’ ideas, though novel, might not be feasible, either because they were architecturally challenging or materially too expensive: He [Spencer] quite realises the difficult of the arches being carried out in stone. At the same time he would prefer them to have a constructional meaning.

We finally came to the conclusion that a vaulted ceiling with which the small arches will intersect would probably be the best solution, but Spencer is going to think the matter over carefully and let me know further.39

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38. TGA 825.14 George Behrend recalled that the house next door to the chosen plot was called The Homestead, owned by A Mr Talmage, who had helped build the railway in 1885 and whose daughter was the Behrend’s ‘marvellous cook’. (p.22) 39. Lionel Pearson to Louis Behrend, 17th November 1925

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Greatly animated by his own ideas for the interior and sensing that the architect was biddable, Spencer wrote enthusiastically to Mary Behrend: Pearson’s suggestions led me to desire many things such as recesses, made me think of little cubicles like this [indicated in a small sketch] for the arched & predella pictures but this seemed too architectural & then Pearson thought of barrel vaulting.

This last as you can see much the best & most possible but all the same I have a craving for the flat wall.40 As Spencer played around with his ideas for the interior, the site was being readied.

At the end of November 1925 Behrend ordered core materials which included 5 rolls of netting, 3lbs of staples, 6 yards of cable, 2 batten holders - a total sum £6 13 6 – from N.M.Toomer, Wholesale Farriers, Builders & Estate Ironmongers in Newbury.41 Pearson was busy attending to the design detail of the two cottages – not yet termed ‘almshouses’ – either side of the chapel. During late November he shared a number of ideas with Behrend about the possible location of the living rooms, suggesting each one be placed adjacent the chapel so as to help keep it warm, adding that ‘the range should be in the living room…otherwise [the occupants] would spend their lives in the scullery which I am sure you do not wish’.42 Pearson also suggested that the dresser was best placed in the scullery, closer to the sink so that it would be used for crockery and not for books.43 The price of all these subtle modifications and the costs of raw materials were never far from their conversation. It became a constant refrain in the correspondence towards the close of 1925. Pearson’s occasional meetings with Spencer raised a number of ideas (and expectations) about the materials that might be procured for the interior. On 4th December, for example, the architect proposed marble columns, at a cost of £200, plus £100 for a marble base and seat, suggesting a few days later they use Hopton Wood Stone ‘an English marble of a very pleasant fawn colour’.

The floor, he added, would also be ‘very nice in black and white marble’ but could be done in stone paving if cost is a consideration.44 Mindful that Behrend might baulk at the extravagance of certain materials Pearson reassured his patron on 11th December that he could obtain excellent bricks and tiles locally, and use Bath stone instead of Portland, at least for the interior stonework. In the same letter he estimates the building might eventually cost £4000 to build, though advises that ‘we must be rather careful not to be extravagant in the way of marble, etc.’ 45

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40. Stanley Spencer to Mary Behrend, 23rd November 1925, letter in Sandham Memorial Chapel files.

41. Invoice dated 30th November 1925, PG IMG 8440.

42. Pearson to JLB 4 Dec 1925, PG IMG 8441 43. Pearson to JLB 8 Dec 1925, PG IMG 8441. Pearson uses the phrase ‘your people’ to describe the future occupants.

44. Pearson to Behrend 4th December 1925 and 8th December 1925 PG IMG 8441.

45. Pearson to Behrend, 11th December 1925, PG IMG 8442.

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46. Lupton had been employed as an apprentice craftsman-builder by the designer-architect Ernst Grimson in 1905, and had then gone on to fund and build the assembly hall at Bedales, and later to realise Grimson’s inspired design for the Memorial Library. Pearson’s desire that Behrend meet Lupton was not to be, the latter emigrating to South Africa soon after.

Knowing that there were contemporary buildings in the vicinity, which might serve as useful comparators in design and material construction, Pearson strongly advised Behrend to visit Bedales School, at Steep near Petersfield, Hampshire where a Memorial Library in the Arts and Crafts style had recently been built. Designed by Ernest Gimson in 1911, revised in 1918, but only realised by Sidney Barnsley and Geoffrey Lupton in 1920-21, the library was built from locally sourced and hand made materials. In tune with Arts and Crafts precepts it combined the traditional with the ‘modern’, but with a typically strong focus on craftsmanship, honesty in construction and truth to materials. The combination of pitched and flat roof suggested to Pearson how he might resolve the roofline at Burghclere. At Bedales he would have been especially impressed by the clever integration of dormer windows, large chimney stacks and nibbed plain clay tiles.46 It is not known, however, whether Behrend was able to visit the school and before long Lupton had emigrated to South Africa.

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STARTING TO FINALISE THE DESIGN FOR THE EXTERIOR

For painter, patron and architect the year 1925 had appeared to end on a positive note: Spencer’s ambitions for the ‘interior arrangement’ were still on the drawing board, Behrend had his eye on every detail of the plan, and the architect was doing his level best to meet the idiosyncratic demands of both men. Pragmatic steps were being taken too: by 31st December D.M.Brain, Coal, Coke and Salt merchant had delivered the first consignment of gravel and hard core.47 However, tensions clearly ran under the surface of this three-way relationship. On Christmas Eve Pearson wrote to his patron defending some rather minor details about which Behrend clearly had strong views. ‘…I really think the proportions of the panes and the construction of the arch’, he wrote, ‘might best be left to the poor old architect – after all it is supposed to be his job don’t you agree? But we will settle all this next Tuesday.48 It is important to appreciate that the relationship between Behrend and Pearson was invariably polite, productive and good-natured. The architect’s letters are addressed to ‘My dear Behrend’, or at least ‘Dear Behrend’. Their frequent correspondence was augmented and enriched by site visits and other meetings. Pearson also spent time with the painter and would have accommodated / acknowledged / recognised, if not always appreciated, his attention to detail. On occasion, however, Behrend found himself caught between the two men – Pearson, with his professional obligation to create a well-designed and fully functioning contemporary building; Spencer, with his fastidious attention to detail and, at times, almost unreasonable demands. His brother, Gilbert knew this side of his character well: I expect that Pearson found, as I did when Stan used to lecture me about the

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47. Invoice for £12 3 6, dated 31st December 1925 to cover hard core and gravel delivered to the site during the previous six weeks. IMG 8444 48. Pearson to JLB 24 Dec 1925, handwritten letter, PG IMG 8443

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exactitude necessary when measuring up from the scale drawings, that the scale was very precise. Stan would order canvases to 3/16 of an inch sometimes.49 But neither architect or patron would have underestimated Spencer’s visionary passion for his chapel. His unerring devotion to the project is perhaps neatly summarised in a small oil painting which shows Hilda lying on the floor encased by a small cardboard model of the chapel, a favourite place for Spencer and his wife in which they would lie and ruminate its every angle.50

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49. Quoted in Gilbert Spencer, , Stanley Spencer by his brother Gilbert (London, Gollancz, 1961; reprinted, Redcliffe press, 1991) p. 145. So exacting was Stanley about the architectural detail, that as late as 1933 he was still fussing about small aspects of the design. He described to Mary Behrend in January 1933 how he still wanted a painted line to be added to the surface of the dado rail in lieu of a groove that could not now be cut into the plaster. ‘The grooves or lines divide the six feet widths of the predella picture into seven spaces.’ (Stanley to Mary Behrend 16th January 1933, TGA 882.8) Stanley did return to Burghclere in February 1933 to finish a number of details in the Chapel.

50. The scale model of the Chapel is depicted in a small canvas ‘Hilda studying a model for Burghclere’, c.1930 (Bell, 133). Stanley intended, but never fulfilled, a plan for a series of paintings in which the Behrends were honoured as principal donors.

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MEASURING THE SITE: FITTING THE DESIGN TO THE PLOT As the design ideas were developed and modified Pearson remained concerned that the building would actually fit on to the site. In addition to matters of style about which Spencer clearly had strong views, one of the challenges facing the architect was to create sufficient width for the end wall of the chapel, Spencer’s ‘Resurrection of the Soldiers’. It had to be precisely 28 feet 8 inches wide because this was the scale that Spencer had been keeping to in his working drawings. One inch on the very first batch of drawings (those made as early as mid-1923 in Lamb’s living room in Poole) is represented exactly by one foot on the walls.51 On New Year’s Day 1926 Pearson sent a hand-written note to Louis Behrend confessing to becoming concerned about the proportions of the proposed building and sending a revised design which reversed the arms of the cottages to give the ‘squareness which is characteristic’. The letter is illustrated by a simple plan which Pearson thought ‘looks well in perspective as the returns help to support the lines of the ‘GOD-BOX’ as you call it – the plan is better also.’52 In addition to the configuration of the buildings and the challenges of fitting it on the land available, Pearson was considering incorporating a pair of shallow shelters, as recessed integral loggias, either side of the chapel door. He wrote to Behrend four days later seeking his assurance: I hope you do will not think the scheme for the shelters and garden is too ambitious.

It seems to me to set off the entrance to the chapel better than any other scheme.53 The size of the site, however, remained a nagging worry. On 15th January 1926 Pearson referred to it specifically: ‘The dimensions you give is ‘95ft across the field at its narrowest part. That allows one ft. from the newly planted hedge and about three ft. from the row of limes’, This seems to give us the space required for the plan we agreed on.54

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51. This fine and exacting attention to detail shows how closely Spencer insisted that the building, which in mid-1923 existed only in his imagination, adhered to these original plans when it was eventually built. See Ann Danks ‘Overview of the Drawings’, p.1.

52. Pearson to Behrend, 1st January 1926, PG IMG 8444 53. Lionel Pearson to Louis Behrend, 5th January 1926, NT archive IMG_8445.

The shallow recesses were not eventually realized in the final scheme.

54. Lionel Pearson to Louis Behrend, 15th January 1926, NT archive, IMG_8438. Pearson is referring here to correspondence about the original measurements sent by Behrend on 3rd December 1925. The hedge was most likely along the east boundary; the limes to the west of the building along the line of the drive. Behrend had recently purchased a selection of trees and shrubs from the Carnarvon Estates Company.

Amongst a long list of purchases invoiced on 21st January 1926 are 20 limes at one shilling and sixpence each, four hollies at four shillings each, and five loads of soli at five shillings per load. (IMG 8439) Many years after the chapel had been completed Behrend was still negotiating on occasion with the Estate. On 1st February 1930 he agreed the purchase of an oak tree in field no.242, standing on the bank next to the railway embankment between the two meadows, for the sum of £10. It concluded six years of transactions between the chapel’s patron and the largest landholder in the immediate environs. (IMG 8536)

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To finally resolve the issue Pearson took the pragmatic step of a site visit to verify for himself its dimensions: As the question of the width of the site seems to be the deciding point in the working out of the design, I can come down and settle this on site. I would suggest if it suited you, coming down by an evening train and spending the morning on the site. Would Saturday morning next suit you by any chance?55 Evidently it did. Pearson travelled from Paddington on the 10.45 train that Saturday returning on the 16.09 that same day. Met by the Behrends he examined the site in detail and was assured that ‘the width [of the plot] will allow our plan’.56 Pearson would clearly have liked a few extra feet so as to obtain connecting walls around the site but he appreciated that the dimensions of the purchased land would not permit it.

His plans and elevation drawings for the building (dated 5th, 8th and 10th February) survive and give clear evidence of the developments in his design thinking. The drawing dated 8th February 1926, for example indicates provision for seating in recesses either side of the chapel door, as well as living room windows in the side buildings, facing into the forecourt (or ‘quad’) which would be created by the ‘wings’ of the cottages. Although not all the correspondence appears to have survived, it is apparent that Pearson and Behrend were in touch every few days, the latter giving strong direction to the architect.

55. Pearson to Behrend, 25th January 1926.

NT archive, IMG 8446 56. Pearson to Behrend, 27th January 1926.

NT archive, IMG 8446 57. Pearson to Behrend, 8th February 1926.

NT archive, IMG 8447 58. Pearson to Behrend, 10th February 1926.

NT archive, IMG 8447

In the extensive correspondence Pearson appears highly sensitised to his patron’s views, perhaps even wary of his ire. In early February he confesses to Behrend that ‘I am afraid you think I have developed my plan rather too much but I think I shall be able to meet most of your criticisms and still keep to the outline which I think is the right one for our scheme.’57 Although costs would rule out some of these niceties, by 10th February the architect responded with some relief that he was ‘very glad that you approve of the plan as I am sure the outline is much the best we have had.’58 It was still very much ‘our plan’. However, not all was as it seemed. A simmering issue about the design was about to boil over.

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FINALISING THE ‘WEST END’

Although Pearson may have been genuinely exercised by the width of the site and the arrangement of a possible ‘quad’ created by the wings of the cottages, these were peripheral to his fundamental aesthetic concern, namely the actual appearance of the ‘west face’ of the chapel. Any architect would have recognised that this represented the best opportunity to stamp their unique credentials on the full scheme. Getting its proportions in balance was critical to the harmony of the arrangement of central block and the adjoining cottages.

59. Although it was highly desired to orientate Christian religious buildings in northern Europe on a west to east alignment this was not always possible. In many cases, liturgical directions and terms rarely coincide with geographical alignment.

Whatever its true orientation, ‘West End’ is used when describing the layout of cathedrals and churches. The ‘West End’ usually contains the front doors, and there are often towers on that end of the building, while the liturgical East End of the church has the altar. The ‘West End’ of Burghclere actually points to the south.

The altar wall of the interior actually faces north-west; true north lies in the corner of the building at the junction of the end- and the right-hand walls. Pearson to Behrend,

Pearson’s concerns about the ‘proportions’ of the chapel block were antagonised by two significant issues: firstly, how to bring sufficient light to the chapel’s interior, and secondly, how to resolve the question over the roof line about which the painter and the patron had such fixed views. While these matters remained unresolved Pearson knew that he could not finalise the overall design of the West End – the main frontage – of the chapel.59 The architect discussed the dilemma with one of his business partners, most probably Charles Holden. Pearson desired a more pronounced, sharply pitched roof, which would be more in keeping with the overall architectural schema.

It would provide better weather-proofing and would also allow for a strip of windows that would illuminate the interior. Spencer, though, had always insisted on an unadorned ‘box’ and was firmly set against a pitched roof. However, Pearson was also concerned that the highest reaches of the paintings – the ‘decoration’ as he terms it - would be inadequately lit unless more natural light were allowed to penetrate the furthest reaches of the chapel. One answer was to substantially increase the size of the window running vertically down the front wall of the chapel: another – more radical design solution - was to create light higher up inside the building. He described his options to Behrend on 10th February 1926:

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I will work out the elevation of the West End in the course of the next two or three days. One way of solving the difficulty would be to have a small clerestorey behind the parapet which would have the effect of raising the roof and giving more light on the decoration and we should not then need such an ungainly window to the West End.60 Historically, [in architectural design terms?] a clerestorey is an upper level of a church or basilica building, whose walls rise above the roofline of the lower aisle and are dotted with apertures or windows that allow in light or fresh air into a building’s inner space. In addition to improving illumination, clerestories provide light without the distractions of a view or compromising privacy. Pearson clearly had in mind a girdle of narrow windows that would be hidden from view by a low parapet that encircled the top of the chapel. The parapet would also conceal the guttering, which was essential to the future maintenance of the building.

A small line drawing made on 10th February 1926 shows Pearson’s proposed design: it describes a sharply pitched roof, a single large window in the frontage, a clerestory and a dotted line indicating the windows immediately behind the parapet.

However Pearson’s mind was not set. Two days later he responded to Behrend about the need for ‘rather more emphasis on the design’ of the West End, although he noted (with possible dismay) that ‘… you don’t approve the ‘clerestorey’’. His letter continued: It seems to me that the parapet, although it is very nice in many ways has certain disadvantages in this case. If a heavy snowstorm should occur and the gutters become choked there might be some serious damage to the Mural decorations. I think this is a point which we should consider very carefully as recent snowstorms brought many instances to my notice of damage done owing to parapets walls and gutters. 61

60. 10th February 1926, PG IMG 8447 61. LGP to JLB 12 2 26, IMG 8448 62. LGP to JLB 17 2 26 IMG 8449

The issue of damp and light continued to exercise him. Recognising that the clerestory found no favour with patron or painter he tried another approach: ‘One cannot be too careful about damp when it is a question of mural decorations. Under these circumstances is it not asking for trouble to go in for a parapet type of Gutter?’62 Two days later, on Friday 19th February 1926, both men had arranged to meet and may well have discussed the drainage of the roof as well as the illumination of the interior.

Frustrated by the failure of the celerestory proposal, Pearson began toying with an idea for a dormer window that might allow more light to the upper portions of the interior. He rehearsed the idea in a hand-written note to Behrend on 26th February,

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conceding that ‘the parapet shall be solid as you wish’ while also suggesting that he could put an ‘unobtrusive’ dormer which ‘would not worry you I am sure’.63 A series of drawings lend further authority to the challenges that Pearson faced as he tried to re-imagine the south front elevation of the chapel. In a large and highly finished drawing of 5th February 1926 the roof is sharply pitched and lacks a parapet. (In addition, the shelter recesses flanking the chapel are clearly evident though these would not eventually be executed). A smaller, less polished drawing (10th February 1926) describes the roof-line now embellished with the clerestory proposal and a single central window on the chapel’s south front. An ensuing sketch, probably drawn before Pearson’s meeting with Behrend on 19th February, features the full panoply of features to illuminate the interior, namely four small clerestory windows, a single dormer window, and three full-length windows on the front elevation. These three vertical windows would be executed, pretty much in line with Pearson’s drawing of 5th February, and the dormer would be considerably diminished in scale and hidden behind a rather obtrusive stone cross.64 While Pearson tried to convince his client about the need for better light in the interior, Spencer was still experimenting with ideas about the location of certain smaller paintings inside the chapel. Although the imagery for the side walls of the chapel was to remain relatively unchanged from the original drawings made in Poole in 1923, the concept of the vast end wall remained vague for some time and underwent constant change. Spencer’s architectural ideas included an arched roofline, a vast central square panel flanked by eight smaller panels, and even a suggestion for a cross in each of the spandrels.65 However, it was the location of the smaller paintings that was to cause such concern to Pearson. Spencer described them in a letter to his sister, Florence, as early as 1923: They don’t look like war pictures, they rather look like heaven; a place I am becoming very familiar with. There are to be two pictures about 28 feet long and 10 feet high, then there is one about 14 feet square and 8 pictures with arched tops, each of these will be about 7 feet high. Then there are 8 ‘predella’ pictures below the arched pictures and 8 little pictures of incidents happening outside the door of a tent; these least to go either side of steps leading to the altar.66 The ‘8 little pictures’ that Spencer wanted re-considered for the end wall were representations of soldiers at the entrance to bell tents. This habit of thinking

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63. Pearson to Behrend, 26th February 1926, IMG 8449 64. All drawings will be referenced here.

65. Keith Bell, Stanley Spencer: a complete catalogue of the paintings (London, Phaidon Press, 1992, p.422.

66. Stanley to Florence, September/October ?

1923, TGA 825.14.

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out loud, and then committing his thoughts to long letters augmented by copious sketches was a favourite iterative device deployed by Spencer. For an architect hoping to hand a final design to a builder it must have been irksome, if not infuriating. Indeed Spencer remained a constant ‘offstage noise’ during the evolution of the design of the interior.

In June 1926, only weeks after handing over the blueprint to the chosen builder Pearson confessed to Behrend that he had received a long letter from Spencer trying to revive an idea to install / place his ‘small tent pictures’ in the chapel, an idea that had been deferred and then abandoned months before. As we have noted Spencer had first envisaged placing them either side of the large ‘East’ end wall, but was now ‘suggesting putting them on the Western Wall’ [around the main door].

Given the advanced state of the design it was an awkward intrusion. ‘I am writing to him [Spencer] to explain that I must discuss this with you before going any further.’

Enclosing a small sketch of the long windows, the architect warned Behrend that ‘if these are cut short, it will very much spoil the effect.’67 Behind these few words lurk simmering tensions that were about to surface. It is easy to see why. Pearson was trying to finalise the design for the exterior. Spencer kept changing his mind about the interior. Behrend was doing his best to pacify them both. Having already had to identify at short notice space inside and above the main door for an engraved inscription, Pearson was now being asked by Spencer to find further space for up to six small canvases of encamped soldiers. This was an unforeseen and very late request that required the architect to rethink the length of the windows and find a fresh location for the coat of arms and memorial tablet that had been commissioned from Charles Pibworth.68 Such last-minute requests would have taxed any architect.

67. Pearson to Behrend, 14th June 1926, PG IMG 8455 68. See page …. In this volume.

69. Pearson to Behrend, 19th June 1926, PG IMG 8458

Although decorum was maintained in the correspondence it is clear that feelings were running high. Writing by hand and from his home address, Pearson asked to be indulged in a grumble, or as he puts it ‘a grind’: I should like to explain that the idea that you can strike out parts of a design and leave others is most unsound and quite honestly I would rather not carry out a

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job at all than do it in these conditions. I would suggest us leaving any further discussions for a week or two as I shall be very busy and away a good deal this next 10 days. Also I feel sore on the subject at the moment but no doubt will recover in time.69 To his credit, John Louis responded promptly. His letter (replete with crossing out and pencil annotations) shows his concern at Pearson’s frustration / mood: I am awfully sorry to think that you are upset about the design; I would not have dreamt of altering it, if it were one you had just made, but this design I merely altered it to shew what I meant, and I certainly not have touched it, if it had not already been superseded by alterations agreed upon. (as regards the inside tablet, which surely presumably will have to be put in hand without much delay).70 However, Behrend was clearly irritated by Pearson’s inability to devote as much time to the scheme as he felt was needed, especially when it involved an artist as attentive [and fastidious] as Spencer. In his reply he strikes an assertive note, with none of the revisions evident in the initial apology, as perhaps befits someone who had already committed many thousands of pounds to the project:

70. Behrend to Pearson, 22nd June 1926, PG IMG 8457. This is actually a carbon copy of the original letter and shows the erasures and additions.

71. Behrend to Pearson, 22nd June 1926, PG IMG 8457

It is a great pity that you are so busy as not to be able to devote much time to the affair, for Head [the builder] is getting on pretty fast, and I greatly fear that there may other details similar to the stone skirting, which may be rendered impossible by the advancement of the work. I am very sorry you are so worried about it all and I would hazard the opinion that a good deal of this worry could have been avoided if you had sent us the designs in good time. I must confess that I am ignorant as to how far a client can have his views adopted, but he surely must have some say in the matter, otherwise why send him any designs at all?71 The dispute appears to have blown over, although for a short while Pearson’s correspondence is addressed to ‘Dear Mr Behrend…’ rather than anything more endearing. However, the design of the roof was never fully resolved to Pearson’s satisfaction.

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TENDERS CONSIDERED: CONSTRUCTION COMMENCES

By the end of March 1926 Pearson wrote to Behrend with two tenders for the construction of the building. Both were from local contractors: Hosking Bros. of Newbury offered a price for construction of £4,037; and William G. Head of Burghclere, the slightly lesser amount of £3,879. ‘I hope Head is the man whom you wish to carry out the work’ opined Pearson, ‘as I know you favour the local man.’72 And indeed, by 19th April the contract with William ‘Bill’ Head was ready for all parties to sign.73 Within days Head was grappling with the complicated matter of levelling the site and readying it for construction. Rather than transport surplus earth some one and a half miles away - at some cost - he and Pearson agreed, with characteristic pragmatism, to dispose of it in the north-east corner of the site where the land sloped away into the railway cutting. An illustrated letter to Behrend on 24th April showed the proposed building in plan, and a hand-written note added that any remaining earth could be used to level the land in front of the chapel, which sloped slightly from west to east.74 It is clear from the correspondence that Pearson was busy in the following weeks resolving a number of issues about the essential functions of the building. His detailed letters covered rather pedestrian, but essential, details such as the location of the boiler, the heating chamber, several shallow cupboards, and other such matters.75 Most were resolved without fuss, although on 28th May the architect raised concerns that the ‘idea of placing the altar about two feet from the end wall’ might create ‘a danger that this will take away from the length of the chapel?’76 Enclosing the latest blueprint with this letter he suggests that Behrend consider this carefully before deciding, advice that was clearly ignored as the final position for the altar is some two feet from the wall, sufficient space to permit Spencer access to complete the very lowest part of the end wall many years after the rest of the Chapel’s paintings were finished.77

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72. Pearson to Behrend, 31st March 1926, NT archive IMG_8451 73. Pearson to Behrend, 19th April 1926, covering letter with the Contract for ‘Memorial Chapel and Almshouses’, PG IMG 8452.

74. Pearson to Behrend, 24th April 1926, NT archive, IMG_8452 75. See letters between Pearson and Behrend, 22nd and 28th May 1926, IMG_8454 76. Pearson to Behrend, 28th May 1926, IMG_8454. The blueprint must be presumed missing or lost.

77. In the letter of 28th May 1926 the architect shares some proposals made by the Quantity Surveyor, namely the omission of the rain water tank, and the extra funding needed for the oak doors. Earlier that year Russell and Co. Engineers of New Bond Street, London had provided detailed technical information about the capacity of two 1,000 gallon tanks, their ability to hold sufficient water for 10-11 weeks without rain, and an estimate that the roof of the chapel will collect 9,000 gallons of water annually assuming average rainfall of 30 inches per year. Extract of a letter from Russell and Co. to Behrend, 17th March 1926, IMG 8458. For an examination of the painted wall immediately behind the altar see Paul Gough, Journey to Burghclere (Bristol, 2006) p.333.

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Amidst the continuing three-way discussion about the final design of exterior and interior of the building, Bill Head and his men had commenced digging foundations and ordering materials. The builder was paid in regular instalments of £500 after two initial smaller payments, and by October 1926 had invoiced for £2,200 representing some five months work on site.78 Head was working closely with Pearson to resolve many small but essential details.

In early September the builder asked Behrend to ‘please let Mrs Behrend know, that I got in touch with the architects & have also had “Hopes” man down about the chapel windows, so all is now clear’79 Although Mary Behrend is not mentioned often in the copious correspondence about the building her contribution to helping realise the chapel must never be underestimated; she played an essential role behind the scenes. A month later the architect wrote to Louis Behrend endorsing Head’s decision to commission Elliotts – a local carpentry firm – to make the oak doors for the front of the building, suggesting that they also construct the side doors in oak but with deal wood frames to match the rest of the painted work. Between the architect, builder and carpenter they also arrived at a handy solution for ‘getting rid of the nasty raw colour of oak’ by using a special staining process devised by Elliotts.80

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78. In order for the builder to be paid the architects would issue a monthly certificate to Behrend requesting payment to Head. On 9th September 1926 Head corresponded with Behrend about a missing balance of £100, IMG 8461.

The archive contains a typical instalment certificate No.5, 19th October 1926, IMG 8463.

79. Head to Behrend, 9th September 1926, IMG 8461.

80. Pearson to Behrend, 19th and 21st October 1926, IMG 8464.

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THE ROOF AND THE WELL

By early November 1926 the construction was well advanced. Once more Pearson addressed the vexed issue of the roof. A hand-written letter and an accompanying drawing set out his preferred options: three windows on the main elevation (a wide central window flanked by two narrow ones), a steeply pitched roof and a rather ornate dormer window resting on a solid parapet, the whole feature waterproofed by a simple lead treatment. The carving of the dormer, he adds, ‘would give a bit of enrichment in a place where it would be most valuable.’ It was his final attempt to convince both patron and painter, ‘I don’t think we ought to abandon the dormer lightly in any case.’81 Behrend’s response is not known but Pearson must have sufficiently encouraged because two months later he was still exploring the cost of having ‘dormer tops’ priced up by a supplier, and fitted by Head to save money.82 However, two days later he cautions Behrend that ‘lead is very high in price nowadays’83 As ever a middle path was adopted, by 19th January 1927 Behrend had agreed a less ornate and significantly smaller dormer to the front elevation, and agreed with the architect to ‘the back dormer in a plainer style so that the two will match to some extent.’84 Despite Pearson’s sound professional advice the proposal for a clerestory was never revived and Spencer’s views about the roof were preferred over his. As built by Head it is appreciably shallower than in any of the architect’s drawings, the pitch is less obvious and the dormers reduced significantly in size and visual impact. The only surprising modification to the exterior was a small carved stone block surmounted by a white cross. ‘The resulting compromise,’ noted George Behrend, ‘is rather unfortunate.’85 Indeed, the final design suffers by the lack of a bold roofline and the interior is blighted by the absence of any light in the upper reaches of the painted panels, which means that in weak daylight the highest details are rendered almost unreadable. The cross appears to have been a last-minute decision. It appears in

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81. Pearson to Behrend, 8th November 1926, IMG 8465.

82. Pearson to Behrend, 12 January 1927, IMG 8472.

83. Pearson to Behrend, 14 January 1927, IMG 8474 84. Pearson to Behrend, 19 January 1927, IMG 8478 85. George, Behrend,Stanley Spencer at Burghclere (London, Macdonald, 1965) p. 47.

86. Pearson to Behrend, 19th January 1927, IMG 8478

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none of Pearson’s earlier designs. Possibly, in the absence of a significant roof, it was added as a signifier of the building’s religious status. The architect mentions it in passing in his letter of 19th January 1927 when he advises Behrend that the glazing for the chapel windows is unflattened crown glass, which is ‘quite clear and there should be no difficulty in seeing the back of the carved stone.’ 86 87. George Behrend, ‘An Unexpected Life’, p.22. From 1870 until the 1970s, Reading was known as ‘Biscuit Town’ because of the fame of Huntley & Palmers biscuits.

88. See Pearson’s handwritten to John Louis, 1st January 1926, which features a handdrawn plan of the proposed building and the phrase “…the lines of the GOD BOX as you call it…” IMG_8444

Despite these many compromises, Pearson ends the letter on a mutually positive note: ‘I am glad you like the building so well.’ Views varied. George Behrend described the chapel’s dimension as ‘unattractive’. In his memoir he writes, rather acerbically, that his sister described it as looking like the Hunter and Palmer’s biscuit factory that they had visited in Reading, and ever after the children called it such.87 However, as a relatively simple unadorned cube, the chapel met most of Spencer’s strict specifications – a Holy box indeed, or as Pearson and the Behrends chose to call it on occasion ‘Spencer’s God Box’88

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CODA

To the disadvantage of the builder there was no running water at the site. However, a water-diviner detected a source and a well was dug directly in line with the chapel doors about half way down the length of the current garden meadow in front of the building. It was dug by hand, each bucket of spoil used to level the sloping forecourt of the future building. Rather theatrically the well-digger was wound up and down at the beginning and end of each day, a not inconsiderable depth as it had to be deep enough to sink below the level of the adjacent railway cutting.

George Behrend recalled one adventurous day at the chapel when he and sister helped the builders to mix cement. However, instead of using one of the ordinary galvanized buckets, they came across an oak, barrel-shaped bucket which they happily used all afternoon. In the evening it transpired that this was the bucket used by the residents of the almshouses to draw and carry water from the well. Full of hardened cement it was completely ruined and had to be replaced. The capped well remains today.

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路 The Holly Box 路

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