The Bird Window

A record I got for Christmas almost fifty years ago. The whole window in St Mary's Church, Selborne, Hampshire. Designed by A Gascoygne, made by Horace T Hinks, 1920.

There is a unique bird window in St Mary’s Church, Selborne, the Hampshire village where the eigtheenth century naturalist Gilbert White lived for most of his life (above right). It shows St Francis preaching to the birds and depicts every bird, I counted 67 different species, mentioned in White’s Natural History of Selborne. Painted in accurate detail, I know these birds well from the cover of a record I’ve had since I was a teenager. Because the record cover designer has cunningly omitted the uninspiring figure of St Francis in the middle of the window and the standard canopies and predella panels surrounding the scene, it was a surprise to see that the actual window is only remarkable if you look closely - how apt for a window about bird watching.

The other unique bird window that I’d wanted to see for a while is the only known work in stained glass by the artist William Nicholson (below left). This window, in the Somerset village of Mells, is also dedicated to St Francis, and is a memorial to John Francis Fortescue Horner of Mells Manor, commissioned by his widow Frances who knew Nicholson as well as many other leading artists of the time. It’s a window with a dynamic composition, where circles radiate from Mary’s halo and fish become birds as they rise to the top of the tracery. The window was painted by Nicholson assisted by Barbara Batt (or the other way round?) a 21 year old student from the Central School of Art who clearly knew what she was doing in terms of glass painting.

St Francis window in St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset, and detail of Mary with baby Jesus. Designed by William Nicholson, painted by Nicholson and Barbara Batt at The Glass House in London, 1930.

St Francis from The Selborne window, St Francis from the Mells window.

It is interesting to compare aspects of these two windows, like the figure of St Francis with the same hairstyle and hand position, but painted so differently (above). The treatment of the lettering particularly shows these differences of style. The paintwork in the 1920 Selborne window is so neat that it looks stencilled, while the writing on red glass, so unusual in its placement at the bottom left corner of the 1930 Mells window, is confidently hand written, scratched through two layers of iron oxide paint (below).

Birds and lettering at St Francis' feet, Selborne. Dedication panel from the Mells window.

The birds themselves are the stars of both windows. In a section (below left) of the Selborne window you have three overlapping blackbirds surrounded by, clockwise from centre left, song thrush, yellowhammer, cuckoo, blue tit, house sparrows, nuthatch, wallcreeper, woodcock and kingfishers on a lush green background painted in the same detailed style. Whereas the birds in the Mells window are not identifiable. A section (below right) from the centre of the window shows a variety of bird shape and detail in the most subtle colour scheme with bands of light in the background that are spokes of the radiating circles that hold the design together.

Blackbirds from the Selborne window. Unidentified birds in the middle of the Mells window.

My first public commission on the cover of AN 1987. Full size drawing of one of the painted birds in the design.

When I saw a call out to make a bird window for Lansdowne Hospital in Cardiff soon after I graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1986 I had no doubt that the commission had my name written on it (above). I hadn’t come across many other contemporary stained glass artists who were comfortable drawing birds. More bird windows followed, including one for my old school (below) - the size of the glass pieces I painted the birds on increased with the size of my new kiln. Bird windows were so popular that I had to include birds in designs where I would have preferred not to, until I stopped doing them altogether. In addition to the aforementioned record cover, my way of depicting birds was influenced by the collection I had of birds on postage stamps and from drawing stuffed, not moving ones. My clients are still asking for bird windows and I think I’m ready to have another go, this time taking with me some influences from Nicholson, whose birds don’t perch but move and fly.

My second public commission (1988) in the chapel at Lady Margaret School, London S.W.6. and bird detail from it.

twentieth century Stained Glass

Hornsey Parish Church (of St Mary with St George) from the outside.

I saw that the doors of Hornsey Parish Church were wide open as we drove past it, giving a full view down the nave to a window of the type that I particularly like. My visit, later in the day, didn’t disappoint. The church was designed by architect Randall Morris in 1959, there is no mention of a designer or maker of the windows in the comprehensive information boards inside the church, but they look to me to be architect designed. Made in the simplest way with large pieces of pastel coloured machine made unpainted glass, these would generally be classified as leaded lights rather than stained glass.

Hornsey Parish Church, the chancel at the north end and the west wall of the nave.

The interior is wonderful, light airy and calm with colour on the ceiling panels emphasising the parabolic curve of the roof that is echoed in the design of the windows on all four sides. The proportions of these windows change from the back (facing north) to the south (above the doors) to the sides, but the design of overlapping scales sensitively coloured and placed on the windows’ supporting bars is consistent throughout.

Hornsey Parish Church, the window above the south facing entrance doors - a really satisfying design.

St Paul’s Parish Church, South Harrow, east and south facing windows on a dull day.

Rising incongruously from the streets of another London suburb, is St Paul’s Church, South Harrow. It’s a Cachmaille-Day church from 1937, and again I could see from the outside that it contained exciting looking stained glass. It was open but there was a service about to start, so I only got a glimpse of the windows from the entrance (above right), these are arranged in two sets of five very tall thin lancets facing south and east..

Cachemaille-Day worked with many different artists using many different styles in the dozens of churches he designed or reconfigured between the 1930s and 60s. The St Paul’s windows are listed as the work of Christopher Webb from 1938, their colours may look familiar but their style is not like the C. Webb windows I’m used to seeing. There is a motif of stars and curved bands that repeats up each window, creating a jazzy 1930s regular pattern that is spectacular when the sun is out, as in the photo below right (not my own). I wonder what level of collaboration between architect, artist and commissioner led to this stained glass solution, so perfect for the building.

St Paul’s, south facing window from the outside, the windows on a sunnier day.

NUMBER 41

I returned to see a set of windows I designed and made last year for a house in Stockwell, London, no 41. I wrote about all of these windows while I was making them in previous blogs, so this post is about how they work in the space. It’s an early Victorian four storey double fronted house that the architect owner has completely refurbished - I’ll have to go back again to take a shot of the front elevation when the light is right (I mean when I remember to turn it on behind the fanlight).

Front door and fanlight above: double glazed front door panels. The initials (& the shoes) belong to family members.

At the front there is a stained glass fanlight using colours that run through the house - ochre, gold, silver, red, pink and pale green, all of them in warm shades. Lined up with the yellow foliage blobs on the fanlight are two rows of trees on a pair of double glazed panels in the door below. I used both inside surfaces of the glass in the double glazed units to paint and sandblast on, creating the depth you can see in the detail below. The glass provides the right amount of privacy up close and also lets a lot of light in.

Front door and reflection: detail through the two layers of glass.

The back of the house: back door from the inside.

The back door faces south to a large unshaded garden. The techniques I used, again sandblasting and enamelling on the two inside surfaces of the double glazed units, show up really well from the outside and also very dramatically in sunshine. These are midsummer photos, in winter the colour travels further along the adjacent walls and the two different oranges in the glass are intensified on the yellow ochre background. I left a lot of clear glass for visibility in to the garden, you see this window down a short flight of stairs as soon as you come in the front door of the house.

Details of double glazed panels in the back door.

Second floor bathroom from the outside (lights on): from the inside.

The bathroom glass was the first I made for the house, the design was an enlargement of the colour samples I make with every colour agonised over until we got the right mix (and then they do unexpected things in the kiln). In the master bedroom it’s mainly yellow (above), upstairs serving the children’s bedrooms (below), there are more colours and a bigger difference when the lights are on and off. These colours are hand painted on etched glass so there is no chance of seeing through the glass in these lovely, functional sliding doors.

Top floor bathroom from the outside (lights off): from the inside.

Process

The concept was clear and simple, to make a panel 300mm square inspired by The Thames at Kelmscott via some old favourites - May Morris’ embroidery (top) and my drawings done along the same stretch of the river (above). I worked on it sporadically during a few disjointed weeks, making decisions along the way guided by the materials rather than making a detailed plan and then executing it.

During this process I continue to be amazed at my incompetence. I’m not able to see whether I like what I’m making until it’s leaded up, cemented and in the window. This small panel was leaded up four times, I reused the lead again and again resulting in a slightly chewed up appearance, a good description of how I feel after finishing the piece. In the final version (number 4) I have kept the best bits of painting with little lines that reference the embroidered stitches without copying anything in the picture.

Starting by finding the pieces of glass I wanted to use; on the lightbox you can see the textures of the central piece (Pilkington’s arctic) and the purple cast chunks; first attempt at painting.

Panel masked up for painting before the next firing: version 1 leaded up and in the window: the same panel with the tracing paper backing removed, electric colours and cauliflower textures. However, I should know by now that just copying a good drawing on to glass never works.

I pulled the panel apart and preferred it like this; version 2 repainted with the corner pieces I hated replaced by scraps of painted reeds - just looked like a mess; version 3 with a yellow border - composition is unbalanced and not what I wanted.

Pulled the panel apart again and chose some peaceful watery scraps of painted glass: version 4 in the window; version 4 with tracing paper behind.

South Devon Church Interiors

On holiday in the South Hams district of Devon we visited five churches, chosen just because they were on our route. All are large rural churches with rows of massive pillars down the nave and, a Devon speciality, a fine medieval rood screen separating the nave from the chancel. The photos I took in the five churches looking down the nave to the screen and the east window beyond show the similarities, but each screen is different and each church has its own particular atmosphere.

Church of St Sylvester, Chivelstone: exterior, nave, fragmented screen end.

A series of new panels describes the history of the large church in the tiny village of Chivelstone, formerly the main place of worship for agricultural workers from all the villages to the south, between Chivelstone and the sea. These are part of an on going programme of repair that includes the conservation of the medieval screen and pulpit and later wall paintings (C17th - 18th). The rood screen has fifteenth and sixteenth century sections, with some painted figures, some renaissance arabesque panels and some reassembled fragments (above right). This is a harmonious interior with little touches of colour, like the pink around the borders of windows and the welcome stained glass of the decorative Victorian variety in the chancel (below centre and right).

St Sylvester, Chivelstone: back of screen, pink bordered window, stained glass in chancel.

Church of St Winwaloe, East Portlemouth: nave, screen, detail of medieval painting on screen.

In the church at East Portlemouth, two and a half miles to the west, the only stained glass is in a drawing hanging on the wall (below left) by the architect Sir Charles Nicholson who carried out the 1934 restoration of the church. Here the panels on the rood screen are filled with 26 exceptional early sixteenth century paintings of saints, beautiful and delicate, like the carving that surrounds them (above right). But the large windows with criss crossed lead lines and lime green borders give this church a chilly atmosphere (below right).

St Winwaloe, East Portlemouth: drawing by Charles Nicholson, reredos as seen in drawing, window with teddy.

Church of St Nicholas and St Cyriac, South Pool: nave, screen, detail of painting on screen.

Next was South Pool, a couple of miles north east along the river estuary. The rood screen in this church is covered in the now familiar carvings of vines and scrolls and painted in mainly reds and greens. The lower panels are all painted in the rare renaissance arabesque style (above right), behind them you can see subtle stained glass in the east window. I was looking forward to finding some more modern stained glass in one of these interiors, here we get a cheesy scene of the village by Roy Coomber of Solaglas, Bristol 1988 (below left) and a number of saints from the Exeter firm of David Gubbin and Son. You can always find a nice bit of detail in this type of glass, like the birds flying in front of St Francis (below right), but do they add anything to the quality of the interior space? - particularly when the scenes and figures are laid on those clear backgrounds that do nothing to temper the light.

St Nicholas and St Cyriac, South Pool: stained glass from the 1980s and 1990s.

Church of St Andrew, Harberton: nave, screen, screen pillar.

Simon Jenkins, in England’s Thousand Best Churches, would say no, but then he doesn’t seem to be very keen on stained glass. To me it was wonderful to go into our next church at Harberton and find all the windows filled with colour - and also to find explanatory boards complete with names and dates (all the windows were made between 1854 and 1931) - but to Simon Jenkins the stained glass in this church is ‘ubiquitous and pernicious’. The whole interior shines, the heavily restored rood screen is detailed in gold with figures of saints that were painted on metal panels in 1871 to replace the original wooden ones, now displayed on the wall of the nave in this very informative and rich interior.

St Andrew, Harberton: screen sideview, The Trist window to the four virgin martyrs Saints Catherine, Agnes, Margaret & Barbara by Beer of Exeter, detail from 1931 window by Maile & Sons.

Church of St Mary, Berry Pomeroy: nave, screen sideview, screen detail.

Berry Pomeroy Church, in the north of the district, rounded off our trip with another magnificent rood screen going from wall to wall in the nave. This one has all its original parts and its painted figures, though they were defaced during the Civil War or the Restoration (above right). The side views of the screens in the last two churches show how far the cornice overhangs, and also the clutter of furniture in front of them (above middle) which I only then realised was to protect the paintings from being bashed. High up in the chancel are three windows by the great Christopher Whall, and there is another by his daughter Veronica in the north east chapel (below right). By this stage I had started to make comparisons and couldn’t help thinking that Christopher Whall’s chancel windows are in the wrong place. They are too elevated to have much chance of interacting with the shapes and colours in the screen, although they were the only windows we saw that could stand up to the comparison.

St Mary, Berry Pomeroy: stained glass in the chancel by Christopher Whall 1908 and by Veronica Whall 1926