IS THIS the most beautiful door in England? The Watts Chapel in the village cemetery of Compton in Surrey is certainly one of the most remarkable buildings in the land.
I have to admit it completely escaped my notice until a friend of mine founded a distillery a few years ago and based the logo on the seraphs depicted within the chapel. While the interior is indescribable it is also curiously incapable of being captured by photography to any satisfactory degree.
Being a Celt with a Norman surname who loves the Romanesque, it’s the entry portal that captures my imagination. It beams at the very same frequency as my heart.
What a wonderful melange of elements — Celtic, Saxon, Romanesque, and Nordic — are combined here with blithe ease.
Incessant stylistic purity is the realm of the boorishly tiresome, as Ninian Comper knew well, and here the eclectic blend works well.
As architects are incapable of learning the proportion required by Georgian and neo-classical styles, I’ve long believed the Romanesque (or ‘Norman’ as the English often call it) must be the starting point for the recovery of good solid modern architecture.
I, for one, welcome our Norman-Romanesque future with open arms — while prizing this late Victorian gem.