Sidelight window

The garden flat, showing 3 of the 4 doors and the front door at night.

When a friend moved to a flat in Bath she gave me the choice of any window for a commission. There are so many good places for stained glass here, including three sets of french doors and also internal windows between the extension and the original Georgian building. I chose the front door sidelight (a new word for me) because it doesn’t open and it seemed useful to define which was the front door, which you can see in the night time photo (above right).

Choosing and then cutting the glass pieces. Painted landscape piece on the left and chopped up on the right.

The friend had already chosen a piece of painted glass, a landscape, from my offcuts pile, maybe she was thinking that I would make her a window of that size. I put it next to some other types of glass in the right colour range for her interior, a textured pale peach, a dense green and a pink swirl (above left). I decided to cut a column of each to make a stripy window that would fit the sidelight.

I couldn’t remember where the landscape piece of glass had come from, just that it was part of a commission for a private house in Bournemouth that I made in 2001. I found photos of some of these panels in my studio window before they were made into double glazed units (below). I’ve no idea when some of them broke - maybe during transit, but certainly not during toughening which makes the glass shatter, as I’ve been using large pieces of the original panels in other windows ever since.

Photos of a commission from 2001 which was the origin of the landscape painting.

Top and bottom sections of the finished window.

I cut the landscape piece straight so I could use all of it, but introduced a gentle curve on the dark green glass on the right. Next to that is a thin line of patchwork pieces in harmonious colours before the pale peach that I sandblasted at the bottom where you don’t need to have light coming in. The stained glass sits in front of two wide wooden window bars, hiding them when its dark outside and the lights are on inside. There is some tweaking to do on the installation, but the window fitted and the colours and details looked completely at home.

Front door with sidelight and detail.

Comparing Trees

St Mary’s Church, Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire. Window with C16th glass fragments.

St Mary’s Church in Lydiard Tregoze on the western edge of Swindon contains some of the best medieval stained glass in Wiltshire. The church has recently benefiited from a £1 miilion conservation project supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, and when I visited last week there were the robed figures (above) and the pink and yellow angels (below) that I remembered, with views of Lydiard House and Park seen through grills in the windows underneath them.

St Mary’s Church, Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire. Window with C16th glass fragments.

There are echoes of the tree you can see through the angel window in the one that fills the central light of the Van Linge east window (below). This tree is a more realistic one that the trees in stained glass that I’ve written about before here, although it’s an olive tree and not the shape that I would expect it to be. Still, it’s nice to see a tree with coats of arms nestling geometrically in its branches filling the space where you might expect to find a figure.

East window at Lydiard Tregoze Church by Abraham Van Linge 1633.

Window by M.E.A. Rope 1964, in All Saints Church, Lydiard Millicent, Wiltshire.

In the church in the next village, Lydiard Millicent, is a 1960s window by Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope (the younger of the two Margaret Ropes) in praise of nature. I’ve used her painting of a blackbird in this window many times (below left) to show how to paint a bird, not using lead to make its shape but instead painting across the lead lines to create a bird that looks as if it could move and fly. The trees seem well observed too, maybe a laburnum on the left and a silver birch on the right with more birds hidden among the foliage. In contrast to the Van Linge window, the central light is left empty allowing the trees on either side to spill over and take up a natural shape. When you start drawing trees you realise that they are mostly as wide as they are tall and not like a tall, thin window light.

Details from All Saints, Lydiard Millicent.

The Parable of the Sower window by Andrew Taylor 1999, in All Saints Church, Great Chalfield, Wiltshire.

Further west, in All Saints Church, Great Chalfield, is one of the many windows in Wiltshire by Andrew Taylor. The trees in this one are well observed too, and in my eyes are the most succesful part of the Parable of the Sower window (above), Taylor is also a landscape painter. On the right we have maybe a fir tree, definitely an oak in the middle and probably a beech on the left. This tree is a cross between a realistic tree and one that uses the patterned clump of leaves technique that you find in both medieval and victorian stained glass.

St Mary’s Church, Fairford: The Old Testament window and detail of The Burning Bush. Early C16th glass.

Always on the look out for those types of tree, I found some strong examples in St Mary’s Church Fairford, Gloucestershire, where every window contains some pieces of medieval glass. There is the apple tree in The Garden of Eden (above) and in the next light the burning bush in which God revealed himself to Moses. The detail shows red glass for the burning centre of the bush and little silver triangles all around the edge of the outer lead. The three trees in this window create a diagonal design that stands out because of the deterioration in the paintwork on the surrounding glass pieces. Then there is half a tree that fills two window lights with dark green glass and has an angel hovering in front of it and above the scene of The Flight into Egypt (below). This one uses what I call the clump technique, emphasised by that worn away painted detail.

St Mary’s Church, Fairford: The Child Christ window and detail of The Flight into Egypt. Early C16th glass.

Like the windows at Lydiard Tregoze these ones have been expertly repaired and conserved by the workshops at Canterbury Cathedral and Keith Barley Studios respectively. The effect of all the cleaning, mending, replacing and protecting the glass pieces over the years has left a set of windows that appear fragmentary in their design, with faded traces of architecture against slabs of bright blue, green, amber and purple. All around the church the light comes in through the white glass backgrounds with parts of buildings, plants and figures standing out and giving to this series of 28 windows a new and different life.

Fairford: Left The Virgin Mary window (north facing). Right: The Risen Christ window (south facing).

Bathroom Window

Bathroom window, 881 × 786 mm. The grid reference at the bottom is for a wooden cabin in the Adirondacks.

A bathroom window is the perfect spot for a glass commission. Usually you need to block the view for passers-by outside but with this solution you also get to see some of the outside world, here it’s the quickly changing sky as it passes over the sand dunes and estuary in Hayle, Cornwall. Because of the damp air in a bathroom, the enamelled surface of the glass has to be sealed inside the double glazed unit and because I was wary of making the room too dark I used only pale, watered down colours with opacity coming from sandblasted areas of glass.

Left: Painting of the cabin in the Adirondacks by Juliet Goodden, 1982. Right: Bathroom in Hayle.

Two months ago in a blog post called Postcard from the Past I described my struggles with the concept for this commission, which was based on a painting by Juliet Goodden of her family’s wooden cabin in the Adirondacks, New York State (above left). The interior of her new bathroom (above right) is also based on memories of the cabin, so my final design is not a copy of the painting (it’s proportions are different for a start) but is one that takes the billowing curtain then adds in a grid of colours as if they’re streaming through the open window.

Left: View of the bathroom. Right: detail of curtains and enamel colours.

Grey was the best colour to complement this range of colour washes against the brown of the wooden walls. I have three different grey enamels and I love them all, although the pot of my favourite discontinued soft grey is nearly empty. I particularly like the photo of the open window (below left) that looks as if it’s floating away, but wonder why the modern window is not a thing of beauty in itself. From the outside, high up and facing west, you catch a glimpse of colour and the white lines of the sandblasted window and curtains.

Left: Window open. Right: Bathroom window from the outside.

The Garden Museum

Courtyard of The Garden Museum with view of east window. Interior view of east window with bottom half of the figures obscured by interior wall, glass by Francis Stephens (1953).

The Garden Museum in St Mary’s Church, Lambeth was the world’s first museum dedicated to the history of gardens and gardening. Due to changing population in the area the church was made redundant in 1972 and condemned for demolition, this was only fourteen years after the installation of a series of windows (made from 1953 - 58) by Francis Stephens that replaced the ones destroyed in the blitz.

The churchyard contains the tomb of John Tradescant and his son John who were gardeners, plant collectors and creators of their own public botanical garden in Lambeth in the 1620s. Building on this legacy, Rosemary and John Nicholson saved the building from demolition and established the Tradescant Trust, opening the church as The Museum of Gardening History in 1977. Since then it has undergone a complete transformation inside and outside, with new gardens by Christopher Bradley-Hole and Dan Pearson and an interior remodelled by the architects Dow Jones in 2008 and 2015.

Interior of The Garden Museum looking west. Exterior view of west window by Francis Stephens.

The remodelled interior keeps a central space for events (above left), with a separate exhibition gallery and a display space on a mezzanine level that wraps inside the outer walls without touching them. The clear glass windows are visible to let in daylight, but nearly all the stained glass is partly obscured. I went outside to see Francis Stephen’s west window from 1958 (above right), drawn by the top of two globes just visible above the gallery walls. These illustrate Stephen’s interest in missionary work but also hint at the world wide travels of the Tradescants.

The only stained glass that you can really see is in the baptistry at the museum’s entrance, although a carved stone has been put at its base (below left). Above is a scene showing the apostles at Pentecost, below are rituals of the church across different lands: the detail shows a confirmation and a baptism scene with the people drawn in a style that I remember from picture books of that period depicting ‘children around the world’.

Baptistry window by Francis Stephens (1957) and detail.

Stained glass windows often get blocked off or moved, particularly as tastes change or the subject matter is irrelevant to the new use of a building - so fair enough with the treatment of these 1950s Francis Stephens windows. But there was a window commissioned by Rosemary Nicholson in 1981 for the new museum - The Tradescant Window by the great stained glass artist Lawrence Lee - that nobody thought was worth highlighting in the latest remodelling of the Garden Museum. It is behind the wall of the exhibition gallery in the north west corner of the church, so when you get up on the mezzanine level you can look at the top tracery and down the length of the window - a hopeless view as you can see in the photo below left. There’s not even a sign acknowledging the window or its maker.

The Tradescant window by Lawrence Lee (1981). Left: looking down. Right: kneeling down in front of a display case and looking through a glass balustrade to the centre of the window.

I read that it was one of Lee’s favourite windows - it does look wonderful and it’s a treat to get up to the top tracery and see the plants close up including a red columbine (bottom right) and the three petalled flowers of the plant tradescantia around the initials JJT for father and son. Lee wrote about the window: The central circle is the world as seen from outer space – a symbol of a world-wide interest in plants promoted by the Tradescants …. The square area below is a symbol of order and may also be thought of as an enclosed garden …. Though these elements are the main subject matter of the window, the spectator should first see it as an evocation of nature through colour and design, and not be too concerned with literal explanations. This is something I always like to hear!

I was particularly interested in the way that Lee used the central mullion as a part of the design, with the tree stems growing alongside it, and the branches higher up organically crossing the tracery shapes. I’m amazed that this window wasn’t used as a centre piece of the museum, but it’s still there and I hope that the walls around it will come down one day.

Above and below: details in the tracery from The Tradescant window.

Sketching in the City

This was a day organised by Rachel Mulligan of The British Society of Master Glass Painters, based around five churches from Caroline Swash’s book (The 100 Best Stained Glass sites in London), all with post war glass that replaced windows damaged during the Blitz.

Gray’s Inn Chapel, Memorial window by Christopher Whall 1919.

The earliest work that we looked at was Christopher Whall’s memorial window in Gray’s inn Chapel. We sketched away peacefully as Rachel read the relevant section from the book, the lights were off and no one else was there other than the organ player - perfect. I was very comfortable drawing the setting and the light fittings, before zooming in on what was behind the light, some beautiful flames rising behind the head of St George. I am always less comfortable drawing heads and decided not to avoid them but to think of them as just another part of the picture, with lines and shading in vaguely the right places.

Why were we drawing? Was it to learn more about the stained glass artists, to get good at copying, to make a nice drawing or to capture the atmosphere of the church? There was hardly time for that, as after less than an hour we needed to pack up and walk to the next church.

Gray’s Inn Chapel, detail of St George by Christopher Whall.

St Ethelreda’s Church, Ely Place. Two of the nine nave windows by Charles Blakeman 1952-58.

The church of St Ethelreda’s in Ely Place was definitely my favourite of the day. All the windows in the nave are by Charles Blakeman and are filled with small scenes surrounded by a coherent pattern of irresistible dark blue zigzags, such as I have never seen before. Drawing the pattern helped me work it out and to see how The Annunciation scene fitted in to the spikiness of the framework above and below. There was so much to draw here, but this being a Catholic Church it was filling up with lunchtime worshippers so on we went.

St Ethelreda, Annunciation from north nave window by Charles Blakeman 1958.

St Nicholas Cole Abbey, 3 windows by Keith New including St Nicholas window 1962.

St Nicholas Cole Abbey is a Christopher Wren church refurbished in 1961-2 when the glass for three arched windows was commissioned from Keith New (above). There was another refurbishment in 2013 and now it’s basically a cafe. The windows looked much better once they’d removed the screen that is normally in front of the bottom of the middle window but were still hard to draw. There is a tangle of lead lines, painted lines and structural support bars with irregular circles meandering around them leaving me floundering in the lack of regular patterns and the right sort of lighting.

St Mary Aldermary is half church, half cafe. I settled down in front of the west window by John Crawford (below) and drew the bottom right corner, more flames and depictions of London’s buildings and more questioning of the purpose of this type of drawing when you’re just copying someone else’s work, only not very accurately.

St Mary Aldermary, west window by John Crawford 1950.

St Mary le Bow, Christ in Glory window by John Hayward 1963.

I suppose the key is to find something that you’re really interested in, and I would guess that our last church, St Mary le Bow, had something for everyone. John Hayward’s career is unlike most mid twentieth century stained glass artists as he joined a firm of church decorators rather than continuing with post graduate studies in glass. He received the commission to design all the windows and much of the furnishing in this church, designed by Christopher Wren ,when he was only 30 and the mix of old and new here is incredibly successful. I began to see the sort of drawing I could spend more time on with architectural volumes and splashes of colour (above left), and I also found a detail I really liked on the book in the hands of the risen Christ (above right) - blocks of muted colour and jumbled words bounded by Hayward’s criss cross leading.

So it probably took me all day to get me eye in. Not in order to make nice or accurate drawings, but to remind me of the things that interest me about stained glass in its architectural setting, things that may help me with my own work.

St Mary le Bow, east and west ends with windows and furnishings by John Hayward.