Auchtertool Church

The refurbished and re-leaded window of Mary will be placed in Auchtertool Church, East Lothian.  It is a church set on a small hill top over looking the valley toward the sea.

The modern approach by road is from the North East.

The original approach was from the south and below the church to approach from the south west.  The entry porches can be seen on the right.

The main stained glass windows are in the East and South windows.  This window of St Andrew and St John is probably the oldest of them.  It is behind the pulpit.

The next window was probably this one, in memory of the Minister's wife and children.

There is a window in memory of several young railway workers funded by their fellow workers.  These young men were killed in an accident while working on the railway that runs near the church.

The final window on the South is a WW1 memorial window.

There seems to be no record of who designed and built these windows, and nothing can be seen on the windows themselves.  They are good examples of late 19th and early 20th century work. Though it is obvious there was less money to spend on the borders of the railway workers window, the clarity of the image is enhanced by the simple border.

As you can see, this new window with Mary as its subject will be a big contrast to the existing windows with their traditional imagery.

Cloakroom Repair

I am quietly proud of this repair.  The window was broken in several ways.  There was a considerable amount of glass broken so that it was not weather tight.  There were some very amateur repairs with glass that was too small and held in place with "sticky-backed plastic".  The tie wires were mostly broken.  There were a large number of broken solder joints.

All this meant that the panel had to be taken out of the opening and repaired on the bench.  It also made it easier to repair the complicated shapes.  However, as soon as it was inspected on the bench, it became clear the whole panel needed re-leading as most joints were broken.  The client agreed that this could be done, as there was going to be little additional expense.

This photo was taken on a very sunny evening, so it washes out a lot of the intense red at the top of the panel.  I had to replace almost every transparent piece of glass and I am pleased that it is very difficult to tell which are the original and which the new.  I kept all the opalescent glass, as it forms a large part of the panel's character.  Where they were broken, I edge glued them together with Araldite 20/20 epoxy resin.

I think the outside looks really good now too.

It sits in its stone casing to the left of the front door, reflecting back the light according to the textures that are on the inside of each piece.  Fortunately the client likes the result too.