writing - church design

Comper in Upper Norwood

Adjacent to the junction of Hermitage Road with the south side of Beulah Hill at number 67 stands Priory Crescent, with its three functional blocks of flats built in 1967. It is amazing that only forty years ago on this site stood The Priory, a Gothic mansion, possibly designed by Decimus Burton and built in 1836, set back from the road with trees and a lake and overlooking what was, at the end of the nineteenth century, leafy Surrey. The Priory, like so many other houses and villas along Beulah Hill, fell victim to the changing fashions of the area and the pressure for affordable and space-conscious housing. At the time of its demolition much disquiet was voiced by concerned individuals and groups protesting at the wanton destruction of such a large and important selection of houses on Beulah Hill. I wonder if such destruction would be possible today?

Having previously lived at 177 Knights Hill, The Priory became home from about 1912, to Ninian Comper, the eminent church architect and furnisher, who was knighted in 1950, his wife Grace and their six children. In 1887 Comper had moved into 7 Maidstone Villas, West Norwood, the home of a colleague Willaim Bucknall from the office of Bodley and Garner, the renowned church architects. William was soon to become Comper's business partner and in 1890 Comper married Grace Bucknall, William's younger sister. In 1905 Comper's partnership with William Bucknall came to an end and subsequently he set up his own studio at 228 Knights Hill, where his painted glass was made. This studio was bombed during the Second World War forcing Comper in 1948 to move his studio tom The Priory, where work went on in some of the downstairs rooms until his death. Comper embellished over 600 churches with his genius both as artist and liturgiologist, in a career which spanned the years 1889-1960.

Comper was well known in the area and in his later years worshipped at S. John the Evangelist, Auckland Road, Upper Norwood, a fine mid-Victorian Church designed by Pearson. Comper's first involvement with the church occurred as early as 1890 when he designed a Rose Window in the North Transept, to which he added a majestas or 'Christ in majesty figure' in 1954. Other work at S. John's followed this early commission including a fine chasuble and a sumptuous cope embroidered with angels (1898), an impressive banner and various items of silverware. In January 1960 Comper also became the first president of the then Norwood Preservation Society, now The Norwood Society, but alas he was to die in December of that same year. A member of The Norwood Society, Mrs Warwick met Comper through her husband, the author of The Phoenix Suburb, a book about the Norwood and Crystal Palace area. She and her husband used to take Comper to midnight mass at S. John's which he said had the best services in South London. After the service they would take Comper back to The Priory and he would invite them in for a drink of Benedictine which he said was a very suitable drink after coming back from Mass.

Commissions in the area were not many. At S. Alban the Martyr, South Norwood completed in 1898. The work is good but thanks more to Bucknall than Comper. However, by this time Comper had already created a chapel at S. John's Hospital, Upper Norwood (1890-94) and in the 1930's, minor work was completed at All Saints, Upper Norwood. Very late work followed at S. Peter's, Streatham 1953-55 (where Comper had proposed to Grace Bucknall) and at S. John's, East Dulwich in 1958.

Other major works in London are All Saints, Carshalton with significant additions to the church's interior, Southwark Cathedral, where he designed the High Altar and the retro-choir chapels and Westminster Abbey including the eight windows in the North Wall of the nave and the Warriors Chapel. Finally what is one of Comper's finest complete works can be found at S. Cyprian's Clarence Gate begun in 1903, near Baker Street station in London.

Upper Norwood can be justly proud of this man, a famous, gifted and involved inhabitant. This would be best acknowledged by the erection of a plaque appropriately placed on or close to Priory Crescent commemorating Sir Ninian Comper and his involvement in his local community.

The Church and Rectory of St.

Clement’s, Southampton.

The historical and artistic context for an example of the work

of Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) and his son, Sebastian Comper

By Simon O’Corra

Contents

1)Background to the design and building of S.Clement’s Church and Rectory

2)Sir Ninian Comper

3)Testimonials

4)Conclusion

1)Background to the design and building of S. Clement’s Church and Rectory, Southampton.

The earliest mention of the involvement of Mr J N Comper (architect) in the Parish of Holy Trinity, Millbrook, the mother church to St. Clement’s, Southampton is in a bill of 1921 sent to the Revd. J L Beaumont James for work undertaken by a variety of sub-contracted tradesmen and women on The War Memorial Chapel. This was followed in 1924 by the erection of a baldachino or canopy over the High Altar to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the church.

This was quite a major furnishing commission for Comper, who in fact was to completely design only 20 or so church buildings. Fr. Beaumont James commissioned Comper to produce a design for the whole church of St. Clement’s Church, Southampton at a cost of £40, the presentation of these plans including an interior view being noted in the Church Council meeting minutes of 5th March 1934. Comper continues to be mentioned in Council Meeting minutes for some time. The church was not built until the early 1950’s but there is no reason to suppose that Comper’s original plans were not used, despite possibly being further developed using up to date materials and building methods due to the passing of some twenty years, particularly as no other plans have come to light. Indeed in a book "Shall he find faith" ,produced by the Parish to raise funds for the new church the following comment was made:

The new Church of St. Clement has been designed by Mr J N Comper, one of the foremost Church architects of the day; and his design has won the warm commendation of the Diocesan Faculties Advisory Committee. The aim to produce the spaciousness and freshness of the Christian Church in the early centuries before schism and controversy had darkened its fair fame. But at the same time advantage has been taken of later developments in Church architecture; the wise master-builder brings out of his treasures things new and old, things ancient and modern. The design of the current building of St. Clement’s, Southampton is simplicity itself yet this perfectly matches Comper’s other major and complete buildings of St. Cyprian’s, Clarence Gate, London (1903) and a little closer to home St. Phillip’s, Cosham, Portsmouth (1937).

Both of these churches are brick built with simple and pure stone tracery at the windows, as is St. Clement’s. With regard to the interior it is difficult without access to the building to comment further on the provenance of the furnishings. What I have seen of the parlous and derelict state of the interior through the broken windows cannot but raise questions about its design. However, having seen the Christ crucified figure now in the War Memorial Chapel of Holy Trinity Millbrook, that came from St. Clement’s Church, I believe that Comper was the designer. Moving onto the rectory. There is no doubt that Sebastian Comper, J.N.Comper’s son, designed this building in 1929. This is clarified by a photograph and text in "Shall he find faith" and by plans held in the local archive. Sebastian Comper was an important architect in his own right, although he supported his father and his business in later years. Sebastian was more known a domestic architect but he did produce some striking church designs including St. Helen’s, Kensington, London.

2)Sir Ninian Comper, (1864-1960)

The career of Sir Ninian Comper is important because in the field of ecclesiastical architecture and design his work is beautiful and liturgically functional, often far ahead of its time in terms of the latter. Between the late 1880s and the 1930s Comper built and decorated a significant number of churches in Scotland, particularly on the East Coast. Comper was born in Aberdeen in 1864, the son of the Reverend John Comper, of Pulborough, Sussex, and is wife Ellen Taylor, the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Hull. Comper's Godfather was the eminent churchman John Mason Neale. Comper began his education at Glenalmond School, for which he later designed a reredos and a war memorial. From there he went to the Aberdeen School of Art and to the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford. He began his ecclesiastical career in 1882 under Charles E Kempe, the ecclesiastical glass designer before joining the eminent late Gothic Revival firm of Bodley and Garner in 1883. Following his time at Bodley and Garner Comper went into partnership with a colleague, William Bucknall in 1888, who became his brother-in-law in 1890 when Comper married William's younger sister Grace. The partnership lasted until 1905, when both men agreed to part company due mostly to artistic differences. Comper continued alone for many years ably supported by his nephew Arthur Bucknall and then his son Sebastian and great nephew John Bucknall, who carried on the firm for a while after Comper's death.

In most Comper works there are three ingredients the use of which make him stand out from other architect/designers: An unerring eye for space and liturgical shape; a masterly ability to decorate including the mixing of a variety of styles; an ecclesiologist's skill in producing painted (not stained) glass which draws the eye to the image depicted in vibrant and warm colours by including clear glass. His liturgical planning and his use of space and light was far ahead of its time and as a result he was sometimes misunderstood. He said that the church was a lantern and the altar the flame within it.

3)Testimonials

S. Philip's, Cosham, completed in 1938, bears little resemblance to anything that the man in the street is likely to associate with functional architecture. Yet there is no church built in this country since the beginning of the century which is so perfectly fitted to its purpose. It is the work of an architect for whom architecture is essentially the handmaid of the liturgy, and Christian tradition something far more vital than a storehouse of precedents and historical detail. This church functions, as the great majority of modern churches- for all their display of contemporary clichés – do not. It is a building for corporate worship: a building to house an altar.(Liturgy and Architecture by Peter Hammond, 1960)

Comper's amalgam of a light and open architecture with 'pontifical' sanctuary fittings yielded some of the most brilliant churches of the early 20th century. (England's Thousand Best Churches, Simon Jenkins, 1999)

Comper more than any other English architect of the twentieth century, endeavoured with passionate conviction to penetrate to the very core of western civilisation by studying the Church art and architecture of Europe to find there spiritual values applicable to his own time. (The twentieth Century Church, The Journal of the twentieth Century Society, Anthony Symondson SJ, 1998)

I read for myself Comper's 'On the English Altar' and found myself in the presence of a kindred spirit who asked theological questions about the shaping of sacred space, who was neither satisfied with a merely historical account of the development of church buildings, or driven by a mean functionalism with regard to their present use. Comper understood the sacramental quality of seizing space as an expression and means of forming the church. (The Right Reverend, David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury, 2001)

What marks out Sir Ninian Comper from his colleagues and contemporaries is his faith in God, the Church and its sacraments. When in the presence of Comper's work we are not simply confronting a work of art that happens to be in a church. We are in the presence of a thing of beauty whose sole purpose is to serve and honour God. (The Comper Trust Journal, Geoffrey Thompson.)

Comper is the logical outcome of the Gothic Revival. He has gone on from where Bodley...left off. Voysey turned the domestic architecture of the Morris Movement into something which is now identifiable with what is genuinely modern. What Voysey did for small houses, Comper has done for churches. (John Betjemen)

S. Mary's, Wellingborough is a masterful example of beautiful functionalism. Every part of the church is correct for its purpose: the gilded altar is at the heart of the building, suitable for east or west facing liturgy; it has two chapels of differing designs to suit the need for a range of service styles; a grand almost cathedral-like space for processions; copious amounts of light for witnessing the beauty of the whole; and throughout it tells the glorious story of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit in visual terms. (S. Mary's, Wellingborough, Church Buildings, Simon O'Corra, August 2000)

4) Conclusion

Comper's mastery cannot be denied and with over 600 commissions large and small his skills and importance in world and particularly church art cannot be disputed. Comper designed and built less than twenty-five complete churches and as it seems likely that St. Clement's is one of these it would be a grave error to allow a process to continue which would mean an important building would be lost to the nation. Likewise the Rectory given its beauty, date and its architect deserve a listing appropriate to its importance.

S. O’CORRA. 2002

Seeking the Numinous - Then and Now

Inspiration for and elements of the work of Sir Ninian Comper,

church architect, designer and furnisher (1864-1960)

by Simon M O'Corra

Introduction

Although Sir Ninian Comper, during a seventy one year career (1889-1960), occasionally expounded in print on his detailed theories of beauty in relation to his work and his search for the numinous therein, not much if any, Others concerning these issues have presented commentary. This paper seeks to address this fact by exploring his divine, and to him, natural inspiration and the elements in his work which best express that inspiration. It will also point to the way in which Comper is able to help us to find our spiritual way today by trusting in God-given beauty allowing a church to "Pray of (1), Itself" it being a prayer.

The Search for the Light

In most major Comper works there are three ingredients, the use of which vmake him stand out from other architect/designers:an unerring eye for space and liturgical shape; a masterly ability to decorate including the mixing of a variety of styles; an ecclesiologist's skill in producing painted (not stained) glass, which he made, to draw the eye to the image depicted in vibrant and warm colours by leaving the surrounding glass clear. It is this light which assists the viewer to see the most important part of the church, the altar. Comper had previously expounded his maxim for the altar at the presentation of his first paper of 1893 given at St Paul's Cathedral on 29th November:

"We want neither sideboard, nor mantelpiece, nor a box

bed, but the table and altar of sacrifice which should stand as much as possible in the open". (2)

It is clear that his work did, and still does, just that. A superb example of lambency can be found in St Philip's Cosham, with itswhitewashed walls and clear glass save part of the still unfinished East window. Here Comper has created a masterful design with five major components (font, west gallery, organ case, altar with ciborium, housing the Blessed Sacrament and Lady Chapel) all radiant with natural light in abundance from the aforementioned windows. Alternatively in the convent chapel of the motherhouse of All Saints, London Colney, clear glass is used but beyond the fantastic ciborium is a glorious Jesse Tree East window.

This combination of clear glass, gilded ciborium and colourful east light makes for a dazzling display which evokes awe in the viewer. Finally, John Betjemen's most frequently mentioned of Comper's churches, St Cyprians Clarence Gate, has a rich screen stretching across the entire width of the Church, it has gleaming chapels, a wonderful high altar with decorated buckram frontal and dossal and a refulgent tester, all of which hardly need further light to achieve their purpose, and yet Comper installs clear glass in the nave windows to highlight his handiwork with that of God's own.. A triumph.

The ultimate importance of and search for beauty

In a paper presented in 1932 Comper spoke of the challenge of blending the earlier individual work of others into his own unique style He summed up the problem by quoting Socrates in Plato's Banquet:

"A man should, from hisyouth seek for forms, which are beautiful. At first he should love but one of them; then recognise the beauty, which resides in one as the sister of that which dwells in the other. And if it is right to seek for beauty generally, a man must have little sense who does not look upon the beauty of all bodies as one and the same thing. At first, that is, he seeks in youth for unity in Beauty by exclusion and ends by finding it in inclusion". (3)

Comper also left thoughts, even later in his career, on a definition ofbeauty by suggesting that God has given us a key to the definition of beauty in his creation, a revelation and image of himself. The Lord bids us to consider the lilies of the field, which he has created for no apparent purpose but their beauty. A measure of this is in the way that some find their faith encapsulated in a flower. It is possible to find a definition of beauty in God's work, i.e. in nature. Man's work can be beautiful only in so far as it conforms to this ethos. (4) A more modern comment along these lines can be found in Alice Walker's The Colour Purple where Shug Avery talks of the nature of God as seen in the flowers which are the title of the book:

"God loves everything you love---and a mess of stuff you don't. Butmore than anything else, God loves admiration". (5)

Comper maintained that "The whole history of the altar through all its periods reveals the high place given to beauty in the Christian Church. All the arts have been enlisted by her to do honour to he lord in the Eucharist". Even "the dance, so conspicuous in the Old Testament, and in Beato Angelico's pictures, is still to be found in Spain; and notably at Seville, on the feasts of the Corpus Christi and La Purissima and at the Carnival, when the Seises, or six boy-canons, whose school was founded in the Thirteenth century, dressed as pages of the time of Philip the Third, dance a minuet with castanets while the Canons are prostrate before the altar."(6)

Seeking the ultimate liturgical plan

Setting beauty aside, although as we will see later in descriptions of Comper's work it best operates in conjunction with it, we must turn to his liturgical planning. Comper's upbringing in Aberdeen, where his father, The Reverend John Comper, was a leading light in the later flowering of the Oxford Movement in Scotland perfectly equipped him with a knowledge of liturgy, ecclesiology and theology which, coupled with his mother's encouragement towards the arts and his own detailed studies into church and Art history over many years and supplemented by visits to Europe and North Africa all played a part in the making of the genius he undoubtedly is.

Discussing Comper's liturgical and architectural eye, Peter Hammond said:

"St.Philip's, Cosham, completed in 1938, bears little resemblance to anything that the man in the street is likely to associate with functional architecture. There is no church built in this country since the beginning of the century which is so perfectly fitted to its purpose. It is the work of an architect for whom architecture is essentially the handmaid of the liturgy, and Christian tradition something far more vital than a storehouse of precedents and historical detail. This church functions as the great majority of modern churches-for all their display of contemporary clichés-do not. It is a building for corporate worship: a building to house an altar". (7)

Comper was an innovator ahead of his time in re-introducing the nave altar. The church of St Philip provides conclusive proof that bringing the altar forward, allowing the people to surround it does not sacrifice mystery; if anything it settles the intimate focus on the altar of sacrifice where the sacred mystery of the consecration happens:

"This intimacy was still further realised at the consecration of the Chapel of the mother-house of the All Saints Sisters at London Colney by the Bishop of St Albans in 1927, when an equal part of the worshippers was facing each of the four sides of the altar". (8)

In an unexecuted instance of the Comper design oeuvre he was asked n the 1930s by Downside Abbey to assist them in the problem of the 500 boys at its school being unable to hear what was going on at the high altar. He suggested taking the monks stalls, which divided the newly extended nave from the high altar, out and moving them towards the high altar and putting another altar on the step of the chancel. They thought this too radical and said no. However, interestingly enough, this is exactly what they did do in the 1970s.

At St Mary's Wellingborough, which was designed by Comper between 1906 and 1948, we can see a near perfect ecclesiastical and liturgical interior in which the Catholic Anglican tradition can function. Everything which encompasses Catholic ritual is possible and made delightful here. However, unlike St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, it has fixed pews and therefore limited possibilities in terms of where the congregation can go. This is an oddity as Comper said:

"Nor, if the church is to have an atmosphere of prayer must not be cluttered up with pews and chairs. The introduction of fixed seats or pews in our late medieval churches was a great abuse, to the evil of whichthe Reformation added by renting the pews to the rich and setting part bare forms for the poor". (9)

It is perhaps yet another sign of his genius and flexibility as a designer to bow to the dictates of his clients upon occasion.

Expressing Beautiful Functionalism.

Comper's major work, the already mentioned, St Mary's, Wellingborough is a masterful example of beautiful functionalism:

"Every part of the church is fit for its purpose: the gilded altar is at the liturgical heart of the building, suitable for East or West facing liturgy, although Comper is likely to have felt that Westward facing possibilities were only ever an unwitting and accidental benefit of such an open style; it has two side chapels of differing designs to suit the need for a range of service styles; a grand almost cathedral-like space for processions; copious amounts of light for witnessing the beauty of the whole; and throughout, it tells the glorious story of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in visual terms. It truly can bring one to one's knees. (10)

Comper's beautiful functionalism is easy to see in his work, but what makes him so different from other church builders and furnishers? Their work clearly can and does inform but Comper's work is the apogee of worshipful and functional beauty using nature as its source and not counting the cost in the creating of it nor being afraid of offering God the finest that we can furnish. Comper talking about the temple with the golden statue of Athene in Athens made from the offerings of all her citizens said:

"The altar beneath its ciborium took the place of the statue, and the statesman Akominatos, Metropolitan of the twelfth century added rich treasure and silver doors to the great entrances. It is the lesson to be gathered from the acceptance by our Lord of costliness lavished upon himself in his presence on earth.". (11)

Conclusion

Comper's Beauty by Inclusion whereby he combined many of the ecclesiastical and secular styles into an amazing whole is created as mentioned before through many influences not least the Almighty’s. He suggested that:

"In all arts the Church took over the best traditions of Jews and Greeks adapting and perfecting them to her use. And the measure of achievement is the degree in which she succeeds in eliminating the sense of time and producing the atmosphere of the heavenly worship." (12)

This fits in with Comper's view that an architect should not wish to embellish a building with his/her own stamp or the mark of the times but that his/her work should be timeless and divinely appointed.

Doctor Pevsner, who did so much damage to Comper's standing in the ecclesiastical design world, is perhaps misguided insome of his comments in the context in which he was presenting them. This is because when making such comments he was not viewing Comper's work from all angles to fully comprehend Comper's liturgical and aesthetic genius, but instead from his own narrow and secular Modernist viewpoint. It is time to rehabilitate Comper, the creative genius to his rightful place in church history and in church and artistic life today ~ an act which is, with the dawning of a new century, at last underway. A recent rehabilitation has been afforded by Simon Jenkins in his book ‘England's Thousand Best Churches’,

"Comper's amalgam of a light and open architecture with pontifical sanctuary fittings yielded some of the most brilliant churches of the early 20th century." (13)

References

1). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It’, full account, p.17 SPCK 1950

2). Peter F. Anson, Fashions in Church Furnishings 1840-1940, p.280, The Faith Press, 1960

3). A.T. P. Cooper, Wimborne St Giles, ‘A Ninian Comper Restoration’

4). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It’, full account, pp. 13-14, SPCK 1950

5). Alice Walker, ‘The Colour Purple’, 1983

6). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It’, full account p.8, SPCK 1950

7). Peter Hammond, ‘Liturgy and Architecture’, pp.75-6, Barrie and Rockliff, 1960

8). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings Which Contain It’, p.35, SPCK 1950

9). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It’ p.20, SPCK 1950

10). Simon M O'Corra, ‘St. Mary's Wellingborough’ by Sir J Ninian Comper, Original Text, Church Buildings, August 2000

11). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It, pp17-18, SPCK 1950

12). J. Ninian Comper, ‘Of the Christian Altar and the Buildings which Contain It’, p.9, SPCK, 1950

13) Simon Jenkins, ‘England's Best One Thousand Churches’, p.418, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1999