Rosemary Rutherford: East Window at St Peter's Nevendon

On Sunday I led my first service at St Peter's Nevendon, which has a significant - being her first - stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. My sermon from this service on the Good Samaritan can be read here.

The East Window at St Peter’s Nevendon is an important stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. It illustrates the Transfiguration with the central figure being Christ flanked by Moses on the left and Elijah on the right. St Peter kneels in the centre with St John to the left and his brother St James to the right.

Rutherford studied art in Chelmsford and at the Slade in London in the 1930s. She also trained in the art of true fresco. She was a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) Red Cross nurse during the second world war and created a large portfolio of sketches and paintings of all she observed in hospitals, both at home and in Sri Lanka.

She learnt stained glass making and created 40 windows, including four in Broomfield church, where her father was Rector, to replace those shattered by bombing. She was deeply religious and her spirituality guided her artworks. Her fresco at Broomfield church shows ‘Christ Stilling the Storm’ and was surely intended to give people hope during the frightening turmoil of wartime.

Rutherford is perhaps most widely known for her stained glass windows, mostly in churches, throughout East Anglia and further afield from Yorkshire to Sussex and even in New Zealand. The exhibition features a montage of many of her windows showing her versatility of style and subject. Her love of bright, bold colours is evident both in the east window of Broomfield church, in her earlier figurative designs and in the more abstract compositions at Boxford and in windows made posthumously to her designs at Hinderclay in Suffolk.

Project Rutherford at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield centres on the preservation and conservation of Rutherford’s special mural in the Norman round tower, St Mary’s unique 20th century fresco. Its protection within the tower and its promotion has involved replacement of the spire shingles, repair of the spire’s wooden framework, repointing of the round tower, conservation of the fresco itself and outreach to all church users and to the wider community in bringing the fresco, and Rosemary Rutherford, ‘out into the open’.

To bring the life and works of this remarkable but largely forgotten artist to the attention of the wider community, a permanent exhibition was opened in 2023. This exhibition summarises Rosemary’s life and extraordinary artistic achievements. Models reveal how fresco and stained glass are made. Some of her remarkable range of drawings and paintings are shown, including wartime artwork and flower paintings. Her spiritual, caring nature and brilliant artistry shine through.

This permanent exhibition can be viewed during church opening times, currently Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30 to 12:30 and after Sunday services.

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield', part of my 'Five Trios' series, reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

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Benjamin Britten - A Boy Was Born.