Domestic 1920's Glass

I recently went out to give an estimate on refurbishing windows in a 1920's house in Stirling

The glass is in generally good condition. There are a few breaks and many of the tie wires have come away from the lead.

Central Bow Window Detail

Side of Bow Window

Hopper Window

On the other side of the ground floor is a sitting room with a flat front that has a group of four windows. Two of these are hoppers. Both are bowed from the closing action and do not have any glazing bar to support the glass while closing.

The upstairs windows are of slightly different proportions to those downstairs.

The bathroom window which faces the street is odd in that it has only one leaded paned for privacy. Have the other two been lost?

In a dark corner of the back downstairs hall is a window of completely different style. It seems the arts deco (or "modernism" as it was known at the time) tendencies of the designer were allowed to be expressed. This one is to be removed and placed elsewhere due to extending the house to the back.

St John's Church, Largs

I came into contact with St John's Church, Largs through asking to quote for three small windows at the West entrance to the church. Each of these three is only about 0.5 by 1 metre in size. The plaque indicates they were installed in March 1908.

Further around on a curved part of the frontage are three more windows. These appear to be later than above three. This on the theme of "Blessed are those who dwell in the house of the Lord," but in a Scots dialect.

Then in an alcove at balcony level there are two windows dedicated to Robert Simpson who died in the second world war.

St John's Church, Largs

The large windows on the North side of the nave depict the patriarchs. They seem to have been dedicated to persons who died in the late 1870's and into the 1890's. I do not know the makers, but I may have a chance some time later to look into this.

Moses with the commandments is the oldest figure represented

Isaiah is the second oldest figure represented.

The last figure on the North side is John the Baptist

On the South, shadowed by other parts of the building, is the image of St Paul

There are a few more windows in the main body of the church. Under the gallery there is a window dedicated to Archibald Grahame. The subject is the lamb of God done in an aesthetic style but looking back at the 16th century.

In the gallery there are two round windows opposite each other, both of which are dedicated to Robert Brown. The North facing one has the text "He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time"

The companion on the South side has the dedication.

All these windows seem to have been completed before the influence of the Arts Noveau arrived. This would date them to the 1880's given the dedication dates.

However, the church did not stop with these windows. There are more at the entrance and in an alcove. They will be shown in a later blog entry.

St John's Church, Largs

I came across this church in Largs - a former seaside holiday destination as well as serious agricultural centre - when asked to quote on a few windows. So I took the opportunity to wander around. I don't have very much information about the building or the windows.

The building was constructed about 1840. It is clear that there was a lot of glass installed in the 1880's and 18890's. The majority of the glass seems to have been designed according to a plan. For example, the Chancel represents Christ and the Apostles who are attributed as the authors of the Biblical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Chancel

Christ, Saviour of the World

And then in order, left to right:

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

And then in a poorly lit corner is another window of the same size which makes a stylistic link the the large windows on the North side of the church.

The Good Shepherd

Keiko Mukaide

Some years ago Keiko Mukaide* had an installation of glass at the Hill House in Helensburgh. Her pieces were installed in the garden.

She installed many small and large blown clear glass vessels, each with some water in them, around the garden.

At the bottom of the garden

At the end of a walkway

At the bottom of stairs

And at the end of views. Each pathway is covered in white stones around the place where glass is supported on steel.

Then by the house itself she established an avenue of glass screens, again with the white base to show the glass and ...

some of the glass is with seating

The glass screens seem to form a rampart up to the paved terrace above.

While from the terrace, the glass provides a base for the view over Helensburgh to the Clyde estuary and to the hills in the South.

This is not the most widely written about installation of Mukaide's but for me it is one of the most charming in the way it both does interact and at the same time refuses to be one with the garden environment.

*From Wikipedia

Keiko Mukaide is a Japanese artist who lives and works in the UK. She studied glass at the Royal College of Art in London and was awarded a research fellowship from the Edinburgh College of Art. She has works in many public and private collections in the UK and was shortlisted for the 1998 Jerwood Prize for applied art.

Her art work employs a number of glass making techniques, casting and fusing glass in a kiln, manipulating glass in a blowing studio and even gluing shards of dichroic glass to wire nets. Her recent work has been to produce large scale, site specific installations constructed from multiple small scale glass items. "Memory of Place" funded by The Arts Council of England and Scottish Arts Council at York St. Mary's, Castlegate, York is a good example of this approach.

St. Modan's Church

All across the bottom of the windows is another slightly more modern - medieval - narrative. The narrative starts at the left and proceeds to the right, rather than echoing the central, right, left cycle of the upper part of the window.

In the first panel the young knight takes leave of his mother.

In the middle panel the knight is prepared for battle by angels while below an angel plays the lute.

Both the knight and the attendants appear to be calm and without anxiety about the coming battle.

The final scene is said to depict one soldier kneeling by his dying colleague while the angel appears offering the crown of life.

Below this an angle blows a trumpet in echo of the angel diagonally opposite trumpeting the ascension of Christ.

This figure is one of a number of finely drawn angels and lambs separating the panels re-emphasising the sacrifice of the lambs and the resurrection to eternal life.