Martin Crampin: 'Stained Glass at St Seiriol’s' (2023)

Description

Lede
Although the Church of St Seiriol has long disappeared from Holyhead’s skyline, some of its stained glass can still be seen in Holyhead.

Story
The images of two saints can be found in Venetian glass mosaics at the entrance to the Celtic Gateway Bridge in Holyhead. One is of St Cybi, whose church can be found in the grounds of the Roman fort, and a Victorian church in Holyhead was built in the 1850s and dedicated to St Seiriol.

The spire of the Church of St Seiriol was formerly a local landmark and a useful navigational point for those on the sea around Holyhead. The church was located on Porth-y-Felin Road and was built in 1853–4. Structural problems resulted in the church being closed in 1989 and it was demolished in 1992.

At least seven stained glass windows were commissioned for the church. Most of them survive and some of them remain in Holyhead, and other plaques and furnishings were also saved from the church.

The earliest known stained glass window at the church was placed in the east wall of the south aisle; it was given in memory of Vice Admiral Charles Frederic Schomberg, who died in Holyhead in September 1874. Much of the window is now on display at Holyhead Maritime Museum and shows Christ teaching from a boat by the lakeside and Christ calming the storm. The window can be attributed to the London firm of Heaton, Butler & Bayne and another version of the window with the same two scenes can be found at a church in another coastal location at Fowey, in Cornwall.

Windows and other memorials were associated with individuals connected with the crossing to Holyhead. A window that no longer survives was commissioned by Thomas Liddicoat, who had been a Commander in the Holyhead and Dublin Express Service, in memory of his wife Sophie and only daughter Ethel Maude. A plaque was given commemorating Thomas Hirste (died 1861), the Superintendent of the Chester and Holyhead Railway and of the London and North Western Railway’s Marine Establishment at Holyhead.

The east window of the church behind the high altar was a First World War memorial by the London firm of C.E. Kempe & Co. The window consisted of a Crucifixion scene at the centre with standing figures of St David and St Deiniol at each side. Kneeling figures at the foot of the cross represented the Anglesey saints St Cybi and St Seiriol, the patrons of the two large Anglican churches in Holyhead. The window was acquired by Tonbridge School, where it was installed in the large east window of their chapel.

At least four more windows were added to the church before it closed in 1989, all of which were the work of different studios. A second window that survives at Holyhead Maritime Museum is the work of the Lancaster firm of Shrigley & Hunt. It commemorates two brothers who were drowned in 1930, when Cecil Ralph Bulmer died in his attempt to save his younger brother Francis Hubert.

A window of 1935 at St Seiriol’s was made by the firm of William Morris, reusing nineteenth-century designs by Edward Burne-Jones, and more windows by the firm can be found at St Cybi’s in Holyhead and at Rhoscolyn, to the south of Holy Island. In about 1956 the artist Hugh Easton, who also made a window for St Cybi’s in 1950, made a window for St Seiriol’s with figures of St Nicholas and St Stephen. Both of these windows from St Seiriol’s seem to have been sold to private collectors.

One window at the church was moved to St Cybi’s in Holyhead, which was given in memory of Francis Bell and his wife Florence in 1982, only a few years before the church closed. The window was made by the Swansea firm of Celtic Studios, and depicts Christ with a boy scout, as Francis Bell had been a scoutmaster.

One further item made for St Seiriol’s was the rood figure of Christ carved by the Welsh artist Jonah Jones in 1979. It appears to have been moved by the donors to All Saints Llanelli in the early 1980s when the family moved to south Wales. The figure inspired another to be commissioned for another church in Llanelli by the same artist in 1983, but by 2010 both churches in Llanelli had also been closed. The location of the Christ figure from St Seiriol’s is unknown but the other, made in 1983, stands in the grounds of the Church of St Mary, Tenby.

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