Kempe

Continuing my catalogue of church stained glass windows in south Oxfordshire, I set off for St Lawrence's Church in Watlington on a very wet afternoon. All but one of the windows here is by Charles Emer Kempe, or at least its from the Kempe works, so its a good location to study the distinctively extravagant, almost Baroque-like, Kempe style. Kempe was especially prolific and his 'brand' is found in churches all over the country. Regular readers of my scribblings will know that I am slightly obsessed with the rather niche world of the maker's mark and I tend to scour windows searching for them. This particular church had seven Kempe windows and I found the distinctive golden wheatsheaf hidden in five of the designs. This window, on the south aisle, is from 1901 and depicts St Peter and St John. Maker's marks are usually towards the bottom of a window so this one, woven into the margin just above the keys held by St Peter, is slightly unusual. It seems to me that the keys are deliberately pointing at the mark. I've seen this before in Kempe windows where feet, hands and even eyes appear to be directing the viewer in this way.