Rose Window at Church of St Matthias, Richmond and the Golden Rectangle

Successive Golden Rectangles dividing a Golden Rectangle into squares (Rose window).

Church of St Matthias, Richmond, The main part of the church was built in 1857-8 to the design of Sir George Gilbert Scott, the upper part of the tower and spire being completed in 1861-2. The choir vestry was added in 1884 (John Oldrid Scott); All Saints' Chapel in 1915 (Cecil Hare).

Key internal features include the great wheel window at the west end of the church, filled with fine stained glass by Wailes and Co of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, depicting the heads of the twelve Apostles with the head of Our Lord at the centre, dating from 1869, and the beautifully executed oak fittings and furnishings, marble paving and painted ceiling decoration in the chancel and chapel dating from the early 20th century, sensitively restored and relit in the 1990s.

A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. In northern France, a rose window is usually the central feature of the facade. The transept facades commonly contain rose windows as well.

Sacred geometry is geometry used in the design of sacred architecture and sacred art. The basic belief is that geometry and mathematical ratios, harmonics and proportion are also found in music, light, cosmology. This value system is seen as widespread even in prehistory, a cultural universal of the human condition.

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A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.
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