Mary Adshead’s dynamic mural, To the End of Time, takes up the entire east wall of the parish church of St Francis, Luton. At its apex is Christ’s bowed head, with the symbols of the four evangelists surrounding the cross, and, at the base, scenes of the modern world.

Intended to resemble the Hagia Sophia, with a monumental concrete dome, the neo-Byzantine St John the Baptist church was built in 1927. The interior is dominated by a magnificent mosaic scheme which covers the sanctuary apse, designed by the art critic and artist Eric Newton for Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd., a mosaic firm set up by his grandfather. The scheme, which took a year to build, draws on Newton’s considerable knowledge of art history and his study of early Christian mosaics, although there are echoes too of more recent religious art, such as the prints of William Blake. It depicts Christ the King in the central semi-dome, surrounded by the four Evangelists, with processions of angels bearing wreaths and the apostles as sheep in tiers below. Behind the altar is a shimmering expanse of gold, shot through with finely patterned vertical lines. To each side are scenes from the life of John the Baptist – Christ’s Baptism and John’s beheading. The deep arch connects the human congregation of the nave to the eternal life within – four saints are depicted, Jerusalem, Noah’s ark, the Bishop of Salford’s coat of arms. Here are some of the most dramatic parts of the scheme: to the right, a blue-black winged Satan casts the damned into Hell, and above, angels blowing horns frame an enormous, explosive star. No part of the scheme lacks detail and imagination: robes, wings, edges all boast rich patterning; behind the tearing of the veil, an olive tree bends in the storm.

Elisabeth Frink’s bronze lectern for Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral was her first major commission. She was known at the time for her sculptures and drawings of birds – one made while she was a student was exhibited in 1952 and bought immediately by the Tate Gallery – and the lectern was to take the traditional form of an eagle. Unlike these early works, where the figures seemed aggressive but also vulnerable, and often had militaristic overtones, Frink’s lectern eagle is confident, in control of its powers – Spence thought it looked ‘as if it has just settled there after a long flight’. Its outspread wings, whose blocky, textured feathers Frink created by setting kindling into the plaster, echo the flock of wooden thorn-like shapes in the canopy of the choir stalls (built to designs by Spence’s partner Antony Blee) behind.

Hans Feibusch, a Jewish artist who fled Germany in 1933, became the most prolific muralist in the history of the Church of England. Through his relationship with George Bell, the Bishop of Chicester, he created murals for many churches, often those built or restored after the war. His murals combine the palettes, techniques and forms of European Modernism – Expressionism and Cubism – with those of the early Italian Renaissance, while speaking to the spiritual concerns of the post-war church. Feibusch saw his work as essentially collaborative – not only with his assistant, Phyllis Bray, and the architect, but also with the worshipping congregation. ‘A work of art in church is there to help the worshipper, to lead their thoughts from the tumultuous outer world towards an inner spiritual one.’ (Hans Feibusch, ‘Mural Painting in Churches’, Studio, 1954)