In 2009 Christopher Miles, then of Calstone House, took on the project of restoring the 300 year old coat of arms in Calstone church. He obtained a grant from the Council of Churches for £2,000 and the other £2,300 required was raised through a screening in Cherhill Village School of one of the most acclaimed films that he directed ‘The Virgin & the Gypsy’ and from a donation from Sabrina Horne of £1,000 in memory of her husband Michael.
The arms are of Queen Anne just after the Union with Scotland, so dating it c. 1708 it was painted on a thick layer of hair and lime plaster, the green areas were originally in Prussian Blue, and the medium used was in most parts oil paint. The arms had gone very black over the years due to the coal fired heating system and time itself. At date if 1740 can just be seen under the arms. The restoration work was carried out by Jane Rutherfoord and new lighting was installed to make it easier to see clearly.
About 50 villagers attended a celebratory evening service led by Archdeacon John Wraw to mark the completion of the restoration.
Below is a note from Christopher Miles written on 16/12/2008 giving more information on the Royal Coat of Arms and outlining the funding raising efforts.
St Mary’s church at Calstone Wellington – exciting new discoveries
In the spring of 2007 I persuaded, without any difficulty the Calstone Wellington PCC to consider restoring our somewhat grubby Royal Coat of Arms above the church chancel. These Arms, about which we knew very little, were painted on the only section of plaster which the Victorians had not hacked off the church wall during their “re-ordering process” in 1885.
During the next six months I tracked down, with the help of the Council for the Care of Churches, someone whom I felt was the right person for this type of restoration work – Jane Rutherfoord, who lives not far away in Pewsey. She studied painting restoration in Florence, and then worked on restoring works for the Bavarian Government and the State Department in Vienna. She is a member of the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation and is on the Wall Paintings sub-Committee.
She has worked for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Lord Bath at Longleat, Dulwich College and for the Church Conservation Trust at Inglesham among many others. Most of 2007 and the early part of this year was taken up in my submitting papers to the Diocese of Salisbury Advisory Committee (DAC) in order for them to approve that we could be on their Agenda for a Faculty for the approval of the Committee for the Care of Churches; as the only time they would consider our application for a financial grant was on 14th March this year, and all had to be prepared by then. A scaffolding was then gallantly rushed up under the church chancel by Pat and David Maundrell, so that Jane could examine closely the structural condition in order do her report and so try for a grant.
Her Report on her Preliminary Inspection of our Arms is a wonderfully detailed and erudite work, which many in the Parish have already seen – if you would like to see it and know more please contact Suzy Miles, and borrow a copy – but please remember to return it! Jane had to fight her way through cobwebs, bat excrement and centuries of dust and soot from the previous old church boiler to examine the state of the painting, which was done, she discovered, on a surface primed with ‘size’ on a layer of hair and lime plaster of about 6-7mm thick. An associate of Jane’s, Catherine Hassall, did a laboratory test on the paint and found that the lead white which was used, had not blackened much during the three centuries, indicating the likely use of oil paint.
Jane found out that the Royal Arms are those of Queen Anne after the Union with Scotland in 1707, and were probably painted a few years after that. She also discovered some over-painting in the circle beneath the Royal Garter, which although it has practically disappeared with age, a date of 1740 can just be made out. This could commemorate the date when a new incumbent came to Calstone, the Rev Robert Rogers; or it could even commemorate a visit by Queen Anne to the area on her way back from Bath to London, as Derick Eaden has found an historical reference to the trip.
On the 15th May we were delighted to receive a letter from Dr Pedro Gaspar, of the Conservation Council, saying we had been given a £2,000 grant to restore the arms. This, together with a very generous donation of E 1,000 from Sabrina Horne in memory of her late husband Michael, who was much in favour of the restoration when he was alive, gets us a long way towards Jane’s E4,000 estimate – of which $450 has already been paid by the PCC for her report mentioned above.
To raise the rest of the money, on Friday 30th January 2009 I will be showing one of my early films “VIRGIN & THE GYPSY” (with full approval of our own vicar!) about the young rebellious daughter of a vicar in Derbyshire who falls for a gypsy. There will be a special raffle at the showing – prizes will include a Royal Hamper and a Magnum of Champagne.