East and West Walls

The East Wall consists of a massive mosaic made by Steven Sykes, who had also created mosaic work (1959-60) in Coventry Cathedral’s Gethsemane Chapel. Sykes’ symbolic representation is repeated and incised on all sides of the Nabresina Roman stone marble altar and the Baptismal Font. The iconography is biblically based upon Apocalypse’s ‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending’.^[i] This reminds the viewer of God’s eternal presence and that everything originates from him. This message is emphasised in Lillington with large lettering and its repetition in the Church.

The West Wall has a cruciform rose window with mullions in a cruciform shape. It is like a medieval rose window that has been magnificently modernised, homogenous to the Church of Our Lady of Fatima in Halow, Essex, which has three round windows. One of which is a cruciform rose window, like in Our Lady’s Church. In Lillington, the West Wall is the main Church façade which faces the road. The cruciform rose enlivens the entrance, symbolically demonstrating the building’s purpose as a House of God. The cruciform shape reminds and reinforces the message of the mosaic, that Christ is the beginning and end of all, summing up the spiritual theme of the Church. The mosaic helps to create a sense of spirituality as light is reflected from various sources, giving it a stupendous sparkling effect.^[ii]

^[i] Revelation 1:8.

^[ii] Lillington Church, The Church of Our Lady, Lillington, Leamington Spa: A Magazine to mark the Opening of the New Church (Leamington: Courier Press, 1963), 6.