The main reason for a visit to Southwell Minster today was that Russell Barry had served as Bishop of the diocese between 1941 and 1963. He had been an Army Chaplain in the First World War, and his experiences there are featured in my first book, Fight the Good Fight: Voices of Faith from the First World War. Russell Barry will be the subject of a further post.
However Southwell Minster turned out to be a real gem of a place. It boasts many superb architectural features, including a complete Romanesque Norman nave and a beautifully decorated octagonal Chapter House. The more recent art instillations, especially the Stations of the Cross, are moving and blend well with the overall ambience of the building, and the stained glass windows reflect both Victorian style and more recent work which is modern without being overtly modernist.
There is also much to appreciate in terms of reference to twentieth century warfare. Firstly, there is a carved wooden memorial containing the names of those men from Southwell who were killed in the two wars, flanked by paintings of St Nicholas and St Mary. The centrepiece shows the crucifixion of Christ, positioning his sacrifice with that of the servicemen. It is a living piece of work, as the names of eighteen men were added in 2011, following research by the local Royal British Legion.
To the north-east corner of the minster there is an Airmen’s Chapel. In there hang the flags of the RAF and the Polish nation.
The altar in the chapel was made in 1919 by apprentices at RAF Norton using wood recovered from broken propeller blades found on Western Front battlefields. The communion rail was made at RAF Newton in 1984.
Airmen’s Chapel Altar Table, made from propeller blades brought back from the Western Front
In the chapel there is also a memorial to the Katyn Forest Massacre of 1941, an event I first became aware of during an undergraduate lecture given in 1990 by Professor Colin Holmes as part of the Eastern Europe 1939-1968 module he taught at the University of Sheffield. Around 14,500 Polish prisoners of war were systematically killed by Soviet forces on the orders of Stalin following the invasion of Poland in 1939-40. Many of the bodies were buried in Katyn Forest, and were discovered in 1943 by Nazi forces. For five decades the Soviet Union denied responsibility for the massacre, blaming the Nazis, until finally admitting guilt in 1990. Half the Polish officer class was wiped out, ensuring that any independent post-war reconstruction of Poland would be rendered more difficult, thus paving the way for the country’s incorporation into the Eastern Bloc until the fall of communism in the early 1990s. This extermination was backed up by the execution of many professionals who would also have helped to build an independent Poland, including 20 university professors, 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers, and more than 100 writers and journalists.
Katyn Massacre Memorial
The link between the Katyn Massacre and this small Nottinghamshire town came with the arrival of many Polish refugees in the area, some of whom served in the RAF and others who served in the Nottinghamshire coalfields. Behind the memorial tablet there is an urn containing soil from the Katyn Forest.
Nearby hangs a large lace panel commemorating the Battle of Britain. The lace industry has been associated with Nottinghamshire for many centuries, and the piece is one of thirty-eight made by the Nottingham firm of Dobsons and M. Browne and Co between 1942 and 1946. They mainly made mosquito and camouflage netting during the war. However their designers and draughtsmen found their skills underused, so the company came up with the idea of employing them to design the panels.
The detail of the Battle of Britain lace panel, this one held by the Australian War Memorial
The panel depicts scenes of the bombing of London, and the types of aircraft used in the battle, as well as the badges of the Allied air forces involved and the floral emblems of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. Also included are the names of the firm and the craftsmen from Dobsons and Browne. At the bottom on a scroll are Winston Churchill’s famous words: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.” Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral are depicted, as well as some of the London churches destroyed in the blitz. The edging of the curtain is composed of ripening ears of corn representing the season during which the Battle of Britain took place. Interwoven with these are Tudor roses, thistles, shamrocks, and oak leaves.
Thirty-eight panels were woven before the jacquards were destroyed. King George VI and Winston Churchill were each presented with one, and others were distributed to various RAF units, and to Westminster Abbey, the City of Nottingham (where the panels were woven), the City of London, and personnel from Dobsons and Browne. As airmen from New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Australia had been attached to various RAF units, these countries also received a panel.
Today the whereabouts of thirty of those panels are known, therefore Southwell Minster contains yet another very special piece of war related memorabilia.
Fight the Good Fight 