32 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
A Wall Painting in Lambourne
Church
BY D. R. CURNOCK, M.R.C.S.
During the last few weeks, at the Parish Church of St. Mary and All
Saints, Lambourne, there has been partially uncovered on the south wall
of the nave a fourteenth century painting of St. Christopher and the Holy
Child seated on the Saint's left shoulder. The uncovering and preservation of
the painting has been carried out by Mrs. Bardswell, of Loughton. Professor
Tristram, the great authority, has been to see it and he dates it as the end of
the fourteenth century.
The church is well known to members of the Essex Field Club. The nave is
twelfth century with Norman north and south doorways, which are blocked
up, and two twelfth century windows. The chancel is thirteenth century, the
bell turret is early sixteenth century, and there is a fine brass of Robert Barfort
1546, with his wife and children. His merchant's mark and the arms of the
Mercers' Company are shown. Other treasures are five rectangular panels of
early seventeenth century German or Swiss painted glass.
The nave, chancel arch, and chancel have much early eighteenth century
plaster work of baroque style and to all this is now added the very fine wall
painting. The painting being on the south wall of the nave shows that in
medieval times it was the north door that was mostly used for entering the
church. The entrant, seeing the painting, would offer up a prayer to the Saint
to be delivered from evil, and that would include deliverance from calamity
and sudden death as well as from moral evil. The head of the Saint is very well
painted and Professor Tristram dates the painting from the style of staff in the
Saint's hand and the treatment of the hair as quite at end of fourteenth century.
Mrs. Bardswell's notes sent to the Rector are as follows: The flesh tints
are solidly painted over a dark under-colour as in Byzantine art. The head of
the Saint remains in very perfect condition. Of the remainder, only the main
lines of the colouring once there can be made out. The picture is executed in
black line upon a bright red background diapered with dark red sexfoils. The
Saint wears a tunic which has once been of a light claret colour bordered with
green round the neck. His cloak, draped round his shoulders as in East
Anglian examples, is of a bright light blue lined with red. The halo is red
towards the middle, with a pattern in black, and bordered with a band of dark
green. The Holy Child, seated on the Saint's left shoulder, holds a bright red
orb in the left hand, supported by a small light green cross with trefoil ter-
minals. His right hand is raised in blessing. The nimbus is perished and diffi-
cult to make out. The hair is painted in red line on yellow and is curled. The
Saint gazes upward at the Child, who wears a tunic bordered in the same
colours as the Saint's and a dark green cloak fastened with a torque across the
chest and lined with a grey fur with black tails. There are signs of the painting
having been touched up at a later date in the fifteenth century.