A Place Like No Other: the wonders of Watts Chapel in Compton, Surrey

In the age of blockbuster retrospectives and internationally touring exhibitions, it’s hard to imagine the art world in a pre-celebrity age. Until the late 19th century, however, painters and sculptors – though known around the world – didn’t enjoy stardom like they do today. That all changed, however, with George Frederic Watts.

Widely considered the greatest painter of the Victorian age, Watts (1817-1904) was astoundingly famous. So famous, in fact, that he could barely work in his Holland Park studio-home, so often was the doorbell ringing. “He had a very good work ethic and, even as an old man, he really wanted to paint,” says Dr Emily Burns, curator at Limnerslease, the house he and his second wife, Mary Fraser-Tytler, commissioned in Compton, near Guildford, in early 1890. The idea behind their country residence, designed by Ernest George, a teacher of Lutyens, was that it would give George and Mary, a Symbolist artist in her own right, peace, space and time to work.

George’s celebrity never waned, but hitherto, Mary has been seen as little more than the handmaiden to his success. Yet, finally, her own legacy at Limnerslease is rightly coming to light. Open the public, the house – its name a compound of ‘Limner’, the Old English word for artist, and ‘lease’, a verb meaning to glean hope for the future – is the result of the couple’s joint determination to develop a conjugal creative sanctuary, but its environs are in many ways more Mary’s domain.

When she and George moved to Surrey in 1891, Mary set about the creation of the Watts Gallery, on land behind the house (it would open in 1904, the year of George’s death). But she was also instrumental in the creation of another monument around this time, dedicated not just to the grand painter’s work, but to art – and its place within the community. “Compton is a small place, even today,” says Emily, “so George and Mary were big personalities in the village.” This meant that when in 1894 the parish council required a new cemetery, the couple, as beneficent local figureheads, agreed to gift a mortuary chapel. And while it was financed by George, Mary was undoubtedly its driving creative force.

“It’s a very early example of a public art project,” Emily continues. Mary, who had trained at the Slade before becoming a painter and sculptor, had a strong social conscience, shaped by her ideas that art and craft – morally improving, financially empowering – was for all. When in London, she had given free clay-modelling classes to shoeblacks; here, working on similar principles, she employed more than 70 villagers – many of them women – in the creation of decorative terracotta tiles for the construction of the circular chapel.

By 1898, the exterior was finished and Mary started work inside. Her efforts here are entrancing. The space – a single round room, small and dimly lit with a cavernous ceiling – is alive with glinting gold and enigmatic symbols. “It’s full of meaning,” Emily explains, “drawing on everything from Art Nouveau motifs and Celtic imagery to classical iconography, by way of Europe and Egypt, where she and George had honeymooned – all chosen knowingly and lovingly and with deep fascination with their meaning.”

“It’s all about love, life, death, justice, innocence – and the balance between them all,” Emily explains, referencing the book Mary wrote to help explain her symbols, The Word in the Pattern. The tree of life looms large here, with a hierarchy of angels turning their backs away from evil and towards goodness, glimmering in the crepuscular darkness, filtered light from the high windows sparkling on the gilding. This mesmeric effect is heightened by the walls’ 3D nature, for the figures and tendrils here aren’t merely painted, but modelled using gesso-coated wire that Mary pulled, carved and coloured. She also incorporated cord, felt and leather into her decorative scheme.

For the chapel’s eastern end, George made a version of The All-Pervading, a mysterious Symbolist vision of sibylline power, as a secular altarpiece. (Today, the original – on loan from Tate – hangs in its place.) It would be a swan song of sorts, for three months after its picture’s installation, in July 1904, George Frederic Watts died. Mary, 32 years his junior, would spend the rest of her own life upholding her husband’s astonishing reputation with the Watts Gallery and furthering the opportunities of her neighbours and fellow makers in the village, founding the Compton Potters’ Art Guild and working with them on commissions for Liberty & Co, Lutyens and others. When she died in 1938, she was buried next to her husband. Their joint tomb at Compton, in contrast to the remarkable red-brick building nearby, is spare and simple. Instead, the chapel, luminescent labour of love, stands today as her monument – and what a marvel it is.

The Watts Chapel, Cemetery, Gallery and Artists’ Village, and Limnerslease are all open to the public. They can be found at Down Lane, Compton, Surrey GU3 1DQ. Its current show, Dreams and Stories: Modern Pre-Raphaelite Visionaries, is on display until 26 February 2023. For further information visit the website

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Archive image: Mary Watts and students decorating interior panels for the chapel, 1902, Watts Gallery Trust