ST JAMES’s, Norlands, will look familiar to fans of retro television and movies. The pale-coloured stone church with central tower, surrounded by imposing stucco houses in a garden square, has featured within the TV series Minder, and within the movies A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1979), National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), and Jack and Sarah (1995).
Roads near by function visual shorthand in documentaries about London’s inequality: north-west of the church, Nineteenth-century Holland Park terraces, favoured by celebrities and overseas investors, give option to North Kensington’s social housing, including the shrouded shell of Grenfell Tower. On the night of 14 June 2017, a fireplace engulfed the 24-storey tower block, taking the lives of 72 people (News, 15 June 2017).
This January, commemorating those that lost their lives in the fireplace, two latest lancet windows were installed within the church’s north wall, near the font. They depict Christ’s baptism, on the left-hand side, and his meeting with the Samaritan woman on the well, on the precise. The latest windows are an addition to the Victorian and Twentieth-century stained-glass memorials within the Grade II listed constructing, designed by Lewis Vulliamy and accomplished in 1845.
The Vicar of St James’s, the Revd Gareth Wardell, says that the inclusion of portrayals of Black figures in the brand new window, in addition to references to the local area’s transnational heritage, has been warmly welcomed by the congregation. “One of our churchwardens, who’s a Black woman, said how good it was to feel represented in the material of the church. It is so positive for people to see themselves.”
There have been no negative responses to the content and design of the brand new windows, he says, aside from some initial queries from the diocesan advisory committee about having such a striking contemporary stained-glass design in a Victorian Gothic church.
One of the primary priests to be licensed over Zoom, Fr Wardell got here to the parish of St Clement and St James in 2020, in the course of the pandemic. Before ordination, he worked in international development in Afghanistan and Pakistan, after which at York University’s Postwar Reconstruction and Development Unit.
The windows were designed by the artist Mark Cazalet, a former churchwarden of St James’s, and their cost was covered, anonymously, by the family trust of one in all the artist’s clients. The donor had no link to the church, but wished to do something for the community. Mr Cazalet says that, with stained glass costing £400 to £500 per sheet, and allowing for design, fabrication, and leading, the estimated cost of the brand new windows is about £1000 per square foot.
An unexpected three buckets of render needed to be added to the supporting stonework during installation, as replacing windows in old churches often involves additional structural repairs.
In the Baptism of Christ window, Grenfell Tower, with its symbolic green heart, could be seen at Christ’s elbow, with the flames of the fireplace reflected within the waters of the Jordan. Behind Christ’s bare back, manufactured from dark-brown glass, the Westway makes reference to the Afro-Caribbean community’s history of activism for social justice, from the race riots of the Nineteen Fifties onwards.
Capitalising on the transformative qualities of stained glass, different features of the scene turn out to be more and fewer apparent with changing light. The word “Cleansed”, at the bottom of the scene, almost disappears at some points of the day, flitting like a CAPTCHA online-recognition puzzle across the scene.
The Samaritan woman on the well window depicts a Black woman in dialogue with a seated Black Christ, the waters of the well between them. An expressionist fig tree forms the background. The word “Quenched” appears across the ochre rock on which Christ is seated. “The waters of life are there for you, even in case your social situation and private life are complicated,” Mr Cazalet says.
Returning together with his labrador, Molly, Fr Wardell drives me the couple of minutes to St Clement’s, within the north of the parish, which became a point of interest after the Grenfell Tower fire, including a visit by then Prime Minister, Theresa May. The church’s 2008 “Carnival” triptych depicts local children, a few of whom later perished in the fireplace, including the artist Khadija Saye.
The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, will dedicate the brand new lancet windows at St James’s in October.
