SPACE AND COLOUR AT E. ACTON

By IRIS CONLAY EAST ACTON is a remarkable parish. In common with other post-war growing centres, it needed a new church. But how to raise money? Bazaars, garden fetes, raffles-no , these would never cover the cost. A parish football pool was inaugurated and it flourished exceed
ingly. In four years it raised £40,000. Every week shillings were collected by willing workers from more than 10,000 people.
Today the new church which those shillings have raised is one of the most Interesting in London. It was opened on Sunday by Cardinal Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster.
Most churches are free-standing, but the facade of St. Aldan's, East Acton, is sandwiched between shops with bright faciaboards shouting their names across the street, and a row of
small houses. By placing the tower right up against the shops, it effectively breaks the line and the eye is immediately led from that to the high east window rising above the canopy over the entrance.
Inside, the sense of space is exhilarating. St. Aldan's is a church to sing in, to be free in, to feel that serving God is a joyful thing. Ceneroes proportions have something to do with it. The colour of the windows has something to do with it. Colour of it special richness which is carried through by the triptych altarpieces painted by Roy de Maistre of the Sacred Heart and of Our Lady of Walsingham which flank the High Altar, Colour starts at the entrance with a series of jewelled glass windows, set in cement, representing in an abstract way, the whole growth of the church in England from the missionary struggle of Roman limes, through the flowering of the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the Second Spring up to the struggle today against industrial materialism. Mr. Fourmaintraux, who designed these windows, was also responsible for those of the English saints who stand on guard on either side of the sanctum).
Graham Sutherland's painting of the crucifixion is not yet ready. So for the time being the wall behind the High Altar-a focal point-is left white and empty, but there is much else to dwell on in this remarkable church, the finest feature of all being, perhaps, the baptistry wall in ceramic (with its four angels seeming breathlessly to be awaitthe new member of the church) which is the work of Adam Kossowski.