Alexander (Greek) Thomson House

One of the great things about this job is that you get to see houses that might go un-noticed because of their out-of-the way nature of their location, or non-descript face.

Such was a house I was called to to look at storm damage to the stair window.  As I finally negotiated my way down a lane and missing the entry causing me to go on to a railway station that I did not know existed, I finally went across the cattle grid to be presented with this.

Yes, as I was to learn, this is a Greek Thomson house, possibly his first outside Glasgow.  This is an architect of such importance that there is a society established to study his works.  This grand house is impressive in its size as well as in the amount of light he allowed into the building.  No other architect at the time was filling the wall with so many windows.

The front door is as impressive as the rest of the house.  And probably the scale was meant to impress visitors with the wealth of the owner.  The front doors are twice the height of the average person.

The back of the house is no less impressive than the front.  The house is marred by the modern extension at the left, but still is a handsome house.  Note the number of windows all of which face over the River Clyde to the south.

This gives an impression of part of the view just from the garden.

The view from the first floor must allow views over to the Mull of Kintyre and the Isle of Aran.

But now I have to get to work.  This is the external view of the area of storm damage.

Fortunately the leaded glass had been covered with protective glazing some years ago.  This meant that the falling slates and guttering extensively damaged the external glazing, but not much of the leaded glass.

As I was welcomed into the house, I noted the generous cloak rooms with the fine cornices at the upper level of the walls.

This kind of elegant decoration continues into the modern down stairs lounge -  which would have been the dining room originally.

As we went round the stairs to the kitchen, there were a pair of windows under the stair:

And just to the left of them the door into the kitchen:

You can see from these pictures that coloured glass was not an important element in Thomson's architectural decoration.  What there is is simple and elegant, relying on varied textures in the glass for interest.


Now, really, I must get to work.  The falling roofing materials had broken the protective glazing extensively, and in some places had come through to the leaded glass.

My job was to get up to these breaks, which were about 4 metres above the landing, and repair them.  Fortunately, the client has a friend who runs a scaffolding firm.  The scaffolding was put in place for me to get up to the glass.  It was difficult as much of the broken glass was pieces next to each other and the lead had been  twisted by the impact.  The obvious pieces are at the right centre of the picture, but there were others broken under the glazing bars.

Fortunately the broken original glass has modern imitators that are a very good match, so I was able to fit the glass and leave it appearing to be original.


I have been to this town many times, but would never have seen the outside of the house, let alone its inside.  The owner of the house is proud of it and happily pointed out lots of things to me, but of course does not want a string of visitors.  So, my job is a good job for someone - like me - who is interested in domestic architecture

Brilliant Cut Glass

While being at the house in Bathgate doing the removal and installation of the cloakroom window, I could not help but notice the glass in the front door.

This is the first brilliant cut glass that I have seen (not that there are not others, of course) in a domestic front door.  Upon enquiry, it turns out that this building of three flats was built in the early 1920's by a local foundry owner.  It may be that the wealth available lead to the commissioning of this front door.

It is not only etched with hydrofluoric acid but also white acid (a combination of alkaline and acidic chemicals to give a more pale etched colour).  The white acid effect can be seen in the thin line surrounding the clear brilliant cut lines.

You can also see the effect of the white acid in the paler upper central area of the panel.  This shows the effects of the two acids clearly.  The chemical combination gets its name from the whiter appearance achieved with its use.  It is rarely used nowadays because of its heat-creating reactions and subsequent risk of explosion.

The brilliant cutting can be seen in the six heart-shaped petals at the top of the stylised acanthus leaves and above the fleur-de-lys emblem at their junction.

This lower section of the central panel shows the effect of the brilliant cutting.  The four "cartouches" shown here have lines at the curve, showing the use of different wheels to do the cutting.  The rectangles and circles are relatively easier to cut than the sweeping curves leading to the circles.

The bottom of the door panel is relatively plain, but contains some superb artistry in the brilliant cutting.

In this emblem at the bottom of the door, the cartouche is cut in one sweep of the wheel.  The inner detail is cut with two sweeps of the wheel for the outward flaring shapes and finally the points put in with a "V" shaped wheel.

The side of the panel shows more of the skill of the cutters. Three linked olive shaped areas are cut and polished beside a group of faint cartouches.  Below is a group of three heart-shaped references to honesty seed pods.  But a simple and difficult feat is the straight lines cut all the way around the panel.

The corner again shows the work in creating both curved and straight lines.  They are all incorporated with the acid etched designs in an almost seamless manner.

My admiration for the skill involved in producing this door panel relates to the requirement that the lines and shapes are cut into the glass and then ground repeatedly with finer an finer grits until polished.  And there were no slips!  Secondly, the whole piece of glass (around 120 cm by 80 cm and 8 mm thick) was suspended and balanced by weights to enable the craftsman to manoeuvre the glass over the spinning wheels.

This work deserves to be at the very least listed as an important piece of work and at best incorporated into a museum setting as this work cannot now be reproduced as all the hand skills have been lost and the computer controlled brilliant cutting machines cannot reproduce the curves of this design.

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.