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Paul St Pol Bolitho Window

This is a five light window with tracery war memorial. There are eleven sections to the tracery, each of which is occupied by angels playing musical instruments. The three inner main lights are panels depicting the dedicatee as Sir Galahad who is leading a horse and holding a spear. He is attended by mature and youthful angels in the adjacent lights. The main panels of the first and fifth lights are a complicated border pattern incorporating the arms of Cornwall, the Bolitho family, Flanders, the 19th Hussars, HMS Bellerophone and a representation of the Town Hall at Ypres, together with several angels. Across the heads of all five lights is a depiction of the battle-scene at Hooge with the roads, buildings and British trenches labelled clearly. Below the inscription across all five lights at the base of the window is a representation of cliffs and the sea. This has been interpreted as the view of the west coast of the Lizard as seen from the churchyard at Paul Parish Church.

In 2018 War Memorials Trust gave a grant of £44,380 towards conservation works to replace the damaged tracery stonework of the window. The stone type chosen for the tracery at the time of the window’s insertion had proved incompatible with the environment in which it was placed and was severely eroded putting the memorial at risk. As such it was necessary to identify a more appropriate choice of stone with which to replace the eroded stonework, exactly matching the design of the original. In addition to this, the leadwork to many of the panels had failed and the entire window was bowed. The window was removed from site and the panels were each carefully cleaned and conserved in a specialist’s workshop before being re-set in the new stone tracery in its original position in the church. The conservation and repair of this war memorial has been the catalyst for a wider set of works to the church and the restored Bolitho war memorial window is considered a centre-piece of the church and the community in its commemoration of the area’s Fallen and an important educational piece.

A Faculty for the memorial was issued in March 1918. The memorial was designed by Scotland’s Robert Anning Bell (1863-1933) and executed by The Glass House of Lowndes & Drury (Maker’s mark dated 1917). The window was commissioned by Bolitho family and dedicated to Lieutenant William Torquill Macleod Bolitho, plus other members of the family and men from the parish who perished serving in the Royal Navy at the Dardanelles in 1915.

The memorial is unusual in its avoidance of the more common St Michael/St George symbols and its emphasis on the personal history of its dedicatee. Robert Anning Bell was one of the leading Arts & Crafts artists of the first decades of the 20th century. He was a highly respected artist, mosaic designer (for among others Westminster Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster) and stained glass designer. From 1911-1923 he was a lecturer at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art.

Further information

War Memorials Trust reference WM7980
UK National Inventory of War Memorials: 33593

149116: War Memorials Online

If you have a concern about this memorial please contact the Trust on conservation@warmemorials.org

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