CHURCH MURALS
by John Ward and Gordon Davies
"About this time [1954] I undertook my first mural, again through my good friend Bill Gaskell. He had neighbours, Jack and Dolly Botley, who were much concerned over the restoration of their local church at Challock, and thought the chancel would be enhanced by a mural. It was wintertime when we first visited the church-my father-in-law was staying with us and had generously replaced our ancient Jeep with a small Ford van- and we set off to find the place after a fall of snow.
The church lay remote from the village down a steeply banked and heavily treed lane (Kent is again and again surprisingly wild and unknown). The road petered out into a muddy track with the church standing to the left between great old trees. It was locked but, by hanging on to the window-ledge, we were able to see something of the interior, enough to make me wonder whether murals were really necessary. Later I met my patron, the vicar and some members of the parish council, with Bill Gaskell playing the part of the good go-between. Restoration had undoubtedly left the church a little raw and my scruples about the suitability of murals were overcome.
Passages from the Bible were selected and that winter I worked on the designs. From the first I reached for the aid of my old friend Gordon Davies, realising that apart from his undoubted painterly skills he had a practical sense which would be all-important.
In early spring I had the designs settled and we rented a cottage on the Downs not far from the Challock mural, painted in 1956, the year I was elected to the Royal Academy. The subject on the main wall (about 10 x 25ft) begins with the Annunciation, then the Nativity (shown taking place in the barn which stands across the road from the church). Then follows the Baptism of Christ by St John, and finally Christ preaching from the boat. church. The weather was fine if cool, and I made studies of plants and trees and buildings - cottages and bungalows and barns for as far as possible I wanted everything to be identified with the village and countryside around the church.
... Most of this summer of 1956 was spent painting the mural with Gordon Davies, I painting the figures, he the flowers and birds and rocks. He was a perfect painting companion, quick and skilful and inventive, and, swinging about the scaffolding like a monkey, could make all the adjustments needed for painting at different heights. We campedin the sexton's hut, Gordon sleeping on the bier and I on a camp bed. Gordon was a little given to sleep-walking in those days, and there were times when I would guide him back through the tombstones to his bier.
Meals we cooked over an open fire. There was plenty of firewood and friends would come and spend evenings picnicking. There were only two cottages near, one was haunted and empty, and in the other a delightful family called Jones lived.
Entry into Jerusalem, Challock Church, by John Ward and Gordon Davies
Watercolour design for Challock Mural
We would spend evenings with them. There was no electricity and so no television, and entertainment came by way of story-telling from Mr Jones, who had grown up in, and once owned a small farm on, Romney Marsh.
Few people found their way down to us; sometimes the vicar, nicknamed Slogger Horsley because of his preaching style. Looking at our work he would sigh heavily, and made no bones of his opinion that the £350, which was our fee, could have been spent on more practical necessities.
Gordon Davies and John Ward died within three months of each other, and, together with Alison, are buried next to each other in Challock Church graveyard
Annunciation, Elham Church, by John Ward and Gordon Davies