Convoy arriving with Wounded, 1927 (oil on canvas)

This was the first picture to be painted in the Chapel itself. It shows a convoy of wounded soldiers arriving at the Beaufort War Hospital. The ugly, thick set warder in the right foreground was based upon Sam Vickery, an unpleasant character who frightened Spencer. The key hanging upon his left leg in the picture is the same as those used for the Chapel doors at Burghclere. The rhododendrons crowding in on the scene are a local introduction inspired by the lanes around Burghclere, and Spencer used them to describe details of the hospital drive which he could not clearly recall. This painting immediately sets the tone of the whole Burghclere cycle - that of the human companionship of war, not the horror of front-line action.