The mulberry tree

Kelmscott Manor from the west in April and September

This was one of my first drawings of the Manor, from a picnic bench in the meadow. That view is now obliterated by fruit trees; I have hardly looked at the west side of the Manor recently because the mulberry tree is so overpowering - you can see it hiding the two right hand gables in the picture above. The path in front of the green room windows has been closed off because of disturbingly dropping fruit, and I am taken straight into the world of Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market". 

Mulberries, blackberries, cartoon of CGR by DGR

The cartoon, above right, is one of a number of fantastic drawings by DGR at Whitwick Manor. It shows Christina in one of her tantrums smashing furniture, in reference to a favourable 1864 review in the Times that included the line, "Miss Rossetti…can point to finished work - to work which it would be difficult to mend".  If you haven't got anyone, ideally a sister, to read "Goblin Market" aloud to you, here is a link to the poem.

www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poems/goblin_market

Brown and yellow windows

The first panels I made at The Royal College of Art (Albert Hall in the background) in 1983

Painting on glass is to me the most interesting aspect of stained glass. When I was a student at the RCA before I developed my own way of using glass enamels I used the traditional glass painters' opaque iron oxide and yellow silver stain. 

Imagine my amazement when I went to the V&A last year and saw that some windows had appeared using these same techniques and on the back of rolled plate glass, usually used in industrial buildings. These were commissioned when the V&A opened from William Bell Scott (friend of DGR & WM) but were already out of fashion by 1910-13 when they were removed and stored.

Two of four staircase windows by William Bell Scott in the V&A made from 1867-9

I saw an example of these same painting techniques in a series of four leaded windows to Noble Women in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. They were made by Powell and Sons between 1910 & 1920, lovely design, lovely subject matter including Christina Rossetti on the right, below.