Walter Starmer

This afternoon we welcomed the Kirkby family from Guildford on their first visit to St Jude's. Norman Kirkby, seen here with Kathy and their daughter Abigael, is the great nephew of Walter Starmer the painter of the murals in the church. The family have a considerable collection of works by Starmer including several of St Jude's that we had never seen before.

Photo by Richard Wakefield

They were also able to tell us many biographical details which were new to us, not least that the man we always call Walter Starmer was known to the family as 'Percy'. We were only aware of one photograph of the artist until today; now we can share several:

Starmer as the war artist who met the first vicar, Basil Bourchier, in France.

A young Starmer at work in St Jude's.

One of Starmer's later commissions at St Jude's was the west window in memory of Bourchier. Here is a coloured sketch of the window (note the word 'Inscription' for the presumably as yet undecided text). We have an uncoloured version with the text in the vestry.

The west end as it was for only a few months before the window was installed.

Starmer at work on the full size design for the window.

Starmer and Bourchier with the Bishop of Willesden and the Mayor of Westminster at St Anne's, Soho (where Bourchier was Rector after he left St Jude's in 1929). This window by Starmer was destroyed in the Second World war.

Three photographs showing Starmer at work on the restoration of the murals at the Chandos Mausoleum at St Lawrence Whitchurch (Little Stanmore).

And as President of the Watford Art Society.

All Starmer photographs courtesy of the Kirkby family.

Link to W P Starmer inventory

Handel in Little Stanmore

On Sunday 15 November the St Jude's choir under the direction of Nic Chalmers joined with the choir of St Lawrence's Stanmore at a Choral Evensong to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel. Handel was resident composer to the Duke of Chandos who had purchased the nearby Cannons estate in 1715 and whose family mausoleum adjoins the church. Our connection being through our organ scholar from Henrietta Barnett School, Anna Steppler, whose mother directs the choir at St Lawrence's.

Like St Jude's, St Lawrence's has a painted interior - although a rather grander one. The Duke employed fashionable artists of his day to decorate his great mansion of Cannons, then under construction (and since demolished). Those same artists - Antonio Bellucci, Louis Laguerre, Francesco Sleter - created the dramatic interior of the church. Walls and ceiling are covered with paintings of biblical scenes, some brilliantly coloured, others in sepia and grisaille, with trompe l'oeil used to considerable effect. The paintings were recently cleaned and restored. The splendid woodwork includes an organ case carved by Grinling Gibbons.

The Vicar of St Jude's particularly enjoyed being able to observe Divine Service in an eighteenth-century manner from the Chandos Pew - actually a kind of royal box in the gallery at the west end of the church (flanked by smaller boxes for bodyguards and flunkies).