"In Loving Memory ..."

Today, in sunshine, I made a second visit to the de Morgan exhibition at the Watts Gallery, Compton near Guildford. It's cheap on Tuesdays [£3] and well worth a second look at all this amazing small gallery has to offer. The staff are friendly and the whole ambience welcoming.

Of course I had to stop off at the beautiful Arts and Crafts Watts Chapel on nearby Budburrow Hill, blipped last week Here.

Quick recap: the Chapel was designed and masterminded by Mary Sefton Watts, wife of the artist George Watts [of the gallery]; it was consecrated in 1898. It is still a working chapel but I wanted to show you one of the many interesting head stones in the cemetery around it, designed by Mary Watts and executed in the same clay as the chapel tiles. I've not seen headstones like these anywhere else. She and other women artists like Evelyn de Morgan were pioneers in breaking down the old boundaries and paving the way for women to express themselves in their own right.

Mary wrote a guide to the chapel, "The Word in the Pattern" which needs to be read on the spot to get the best from it. She dedicated it "to the loving memory of all who find rest near its walls, and for the comfort and help of those to whom the sorrow of separation yet remains." A very special lady.