All Saints, Lamport, Northants / December 17, 2019 by Sasha Ward

Detail of window with the roundels spaced in squares, south and east aisle windows.

I saw this church from the car, on a side road, and decided to explore. The door was boarded up and there were KEEP OUT security signs on the churchyard gates, obviously I couldn’t get inside. But I could see fantastic patterned windows even from the outside, unlike anything I have ever seen before. All the windows, except the stained glass east window, are filled with leaded lights using pressed glass roundels and other linking shapes.

Pressed glass roundel in leaded framework.

Moving around the church, I was even more excited to see that the roundels shifted in the next few windows to form quatrefoils, then trefoils, then quatrefoils arranged differently, on stalks and looking like flowers.

Detail of window with the roundels forming quatrefoils, south aisle window.

Detail of window with the roundels forming trefoils, west aisle window.

Detail of window with quatrefoils on stalks, north aisle window.

I haven’t discovered when these windows were made or by which firm, nor have I found anything similar in my books or internet searches. I know that patterned windows are usually ignored in the guidebooks (for this church the windows are described as eighteenth century but I think that refers to the stonework) but they are something that really interest me. The world of pattern takes you away from a particular time and place to an enjoyment of the play of universal shapes with the circle holding a particular fascination.

Here are some of my design from the 1990s when I started many large scale designs with circles combined in different ways. The pencil sketch is for a stretch of wall 26 metres long (drawn at 1:50) around a circular entrance space, it’s still there although the accompanying hanging glass piece isn’t. The coloured sketch below (drawn at 1:300!) is the only reminder I can find of a scheme for some huge windows in a shopping centre - this design rejected for being over complicated but, in my memory, one of my best ever.

Design for sandblasted wall in entrance to Leeds General Infirmary 1997 - click to enlarge.

Rejected design for shopping centre glazing 1997 - click to enlarge

Stained Glass Made Simple / November 26, 2017 by Sasha Ward

St Mary, Upavon, Wiltshire, above and below

I gave a talk last week to a local group at www.pewsey-heritage-centre.org.uk and, needing to gather my thoughts and opinions, took a quick tour of some of the churches nearby. St. Mary, Upavon has a celebrated Nativity window (below) designed by Henry Holiday in the late pre-Raphaelite style. It also has a set of windows of plain pale coloured glass in simple patterns that give a lovely wash of colour to the whole interior of the church. In the corner (above right) I spotted a window that had a few bright red borders, as well as the addition of some painting consisting of traditional iron oxide patterns and some silverstain - the yellow stain made from silver nitrate that gave stained glass its confusing name.

St Mary, Upavon. Nativity window by Henry Holiday 1917

These three examples were perfect for showing what a coloured window would look like without paint, whether the window is improved with a little bit of it, and how the painting and leading should work together to create what we call a "stained glass window". This is always one of the main topics when I talk to people who are not stained glass makers themselves. Is the unpainted window stained glass (it's a leaded light really!), is a window without lead but with silverstain (like the things I do) a stained glass window? You can find confusing explanations of how stained glass got its name everywhere, here's an inaccurate one I saw recently in the seat of learning that is Kings's College Cambridge.

I found an example of a peaceful atmosphere in All Saints, Alton Priors. This ancient church is now in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust and has a stripped interior, simple furnishings and plain windows. The ones in the main body of this church have very attractive blue metal grills in the leaded framework and an accidental pattern in subtle colours made of shattered glass still in place. The conclusion I drew from these examples was that the stained glass has to be really good to beat a simple leaded window, especially when it includes a view of the beautiful trees and landscapes around this area.