Page 9 - St Alphege Guide 2012 for website

St Thomas à Becket’s Chapel

In the stonework behind the reredos can be (1584-1669). It is a copy of a painting by Sir
seen the tower buttress on to which the wall Anthony van Dyck.
of the north transept was built. The pediment contains the shield of Henry
In the angle between the buttress and the Greswold Lewis of Malvern Hall and was part
archway, later blocked, was the original chapel of the screen to the family pew.
of St Thomas à Becket. The builders of the first On the south wall of the chapel is a Jacobean
church would have shared the popular monument containing a brass, dated 1610, to
reverence for the martyred Archbishop who William and Ursula Hawes, the builders of
was murdered in 1170 and made a saint in Hillfield Hall.
1173. There were close parallels between his Below it in a modern window opening is a
life and death and that of St Alphege to whom stained glass panel from Hillfield Hall,
the church had been dedicated.
containing the coats of arms of Fielding,
The chapel was reordered when the north aisle Greswold and Aston.
was built and later desecrated when it became Opposite, in the north wall, is a dramatic
the family pew of the owners of Hillfield Hall portrayal of the martyrdom of Thomas à
and later of Malvern Hall.
Becket. Dated 1956, it is by Lawrence Lee one
The chapel was restored in 1944. The altar is time Professor of Stained Glass at the Royal
a good seventeenth century chest given by College of Art and designer of windows in
Rector Clive. The reredos contains a fine Coventry Cathedral.
Crucifixion painting by Gaspar de Crayer