The Watts Chapel

Back in 19th century, the Royal Academy ruled British art and one of its alumni was George Frederic Watts. Now our George Frederic could really paint, but being Academy through and through his interests were so far removed from mine that I've never been able to get excited by it. His portraiture is on occasion truly special, but underneath the skilful brushwork and delicate light his more ambitious work was filled with nothing but allegory and symbolism and stultifying dullness. I have no issue with interweaving allegory and symbolism into a painting to add long-term interest and extra layers to appreciate but when that's all that's in the painting it becomes impenetrable to all but the initiated.

Watts was hugely appealing to Victorian sensibilities though and died a famed and wealthy man. He ended up as the kind of wealthy Victorian to whom Good Works were the order of the day and his co-philanthropist was his second wife, Mary Seton Watts. Mary was a potter and together they more or less took over the small village of Compton, a few miles from Guildford. Mary set up a pottery to revive traditional crafts, provide employment and keep the locals out of pubs and out of trouble. The biggest project by far was the Watts Mortuary Chapel, the centrepiece in Compton's then brand new cemetery.

The link in the last paragraph gives you the facts and detailed photographs but in truth all the words in world can't prepare you for a visit. When you pull up at the entrance to the cemetery there is no real clue as to whats within. The land rises steeply, and a raggedy path of terracotta tiles weaves between yews. Suddenly, the chapel is there, looking for all the world as though its in the wrong country. Its plan is based on a celtic cross but it has a Roman feel to it. As you draw closer the decoration becomes overwhelming and difficult to take in; if you walk round the outside every surface that can be decorated is decorated in a mish-mash of motifs which overall come under the umbrella of Arts and Crafts. Slowly you reach the door, old oak, black and hard as iron and decorated in a Celtic style and set into an intricately decorated and layered arch. Open it and gasp.

The interior takes the exterior decoration and multiplies it. Whiplash lines and Celtic knotwork and a Watts mural and religious iconography and arts & crafts and biblical phrases in stone and terracotta and wrought iron and plaster and ceramics and paint and gilt and glass come together in a collision that somehow floods the room and your senses with an extravagant stillness. Sunlight tumbles through one of the four windows, shimmering off the iridescent walls and plunging half the single room into deep shadow. A quick image search will give you thousands pictures of the deep colours and endless decoration and even a Google streetview of the interior, but I have yet to find one that gives a true feeling of being immersed in that small but endless space, so that's what I tried to capture.

You know how when you click on an image here it fills the screen? If you right-click on it
and choose "Open link in new window" or your equivalent you'll see it full size.
If you want it really big, email me and let me know how you'll be using it.

As you trawl the internet you see the building described as Italianate, Arts & Crafts, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Byzantine and more besides. In truth it's all these things and none of them and to the best of my knowledge there is nothing else quite like it anywhere in the world. Almost everyone in the village helped design, build and decorate it and I think its design-by-committee at its absolute best, because the basic framework is strong and the vision of one person and because what was included wasn't a compromise that everyone could accept; it was instead pretty much everything that anyone proposed just slightly modified to fit together. Click here for visitor information for both the chapel and the nearby gallery of GF Watts' work.