5 December 2025
Last weekend we were in the pretty town of Cookham on the Thames in Berkshire to visit the Stanley Spencer Gallery. It’s a lovely little museum celebrating Cookham’s most famous resident. The gallery is currently focussing on Spencer’s final unfinished painting ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta’ - a painting frozen mid-creation. This huge canvas has been lowered from its usual position high on the wall to floor level to allow visitors to examine it closely. It is fascinating to see, in the unpainted sections, Spencer’s grid lines and sketches. Throughout autumn 2025 a conservator from the Courtauld Institute is working in the gallery, carefully examining the painting, and explaining her work (and Spencer’s technique) to visitors. Stanley Spencer died in 1959 but there are still some Cookham residents who remember him pushing his pram (filled with paints and brushes) around the town to find subjects for his works. The pram is now displayed in the gallery, as are sketches for Spencer’s incredible war frescoes in Sandham Memorial Chapel which we visited at Burghclere, Hampshire, in November 2023.
