HAVING spent the spring working on photographs of accidents, fires and floods in Reading, during the summer I moved out into the country, cataloging images of villages such as Theale, Burghfield, Mortimer and Sulhamstead.
This week I am featuring a picture, supposedly of Sulhamstead, from the studio of Cyril E May, a prolific Reading photographer of the 1920s and 1930s who did a lot of good work for the Reading Standard newspaper.
The picture was published as a postcard – unfortunately without a caption – but someone at some time in the intervening years has written ‘Sulhamstead Church’ on the back.
However, I have been unable to reconcile it with photographs of any of the churches in that area. Although today there is just one Anglican church in Sulhamstead – St Mary’s, Sulhamstead Abbots – there were two churches in neighbouring Sulhamstead Bannister, during the period when photography was possible.
The two were both dedicated to St Michael – an earlier one which had been rebuilt about 1815, and a later one which replaced it, built in 1914.
In fact, in the batch of photographs I have just catalogued for Reading Central Library, there is one which shows the old St Michael’s, with the new one under construction behind it. The church of 1914 was demolished in 1966.
The church in the photograph does not look particularly old, and it seems to be too tall to be either of the two old churches, so at first I assumed that it must be the new St Michael’s.
However, photographs of the 1914 church show that the east wall was flat, and without the two angled windows that appear on either side of the three-light east window.
Wherever it is, it is a very distinctive church, with that triple chancel arch with the mural paintings in the spandrels. The reredos seems to be heavily carved and gilded, and that chandelier, like some kind of giant crown, is rather unusual.
I feel sure that the church must be well known in the Reading area, and would be most grateful if someone could let me know where it is.
Email alangley@berksmedia.co.uk
DAVID CLIFFE
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