Stained Glass Tours in EnglandSherrill, Charles Hitchcock
History
Stained Glass Tours in England
Sherrill, Charles Hitchcock
Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel; Glass painting and staining -- England
The archives tell of a large purchase of glass in Rouen in 1301 and
again in 1317 for use in this cathedral. Much of these purchases is
still to be seen in the large east window. Here we are struck by a
strange anomaly of obviously Decorated glass in purely Perpendicular
masonry. Nothing could be more distinctive of the later period than the
Perpendicular mullions surmounted by stiffly upright tracery lights,
and yet the glazing could not be mistaken for anything but Decorated.
Evidently old wine has been put into new bottles. Although a great deal
of restoration is noticeable in this window, the strongly brassy tone of
the canopies in the three outer lancets on each side clearly indicate
that they antedate the discovery of yellow stain. An explanation of this
anachronistic clash between the glazing and its framing stonework
appears upon the rolls of the Chapter. April 21, 1389, one Henry de
Blakeborn, then Canon, moved by the fine appearance of the newly
constructed west window, offered 100 marks towards properly enlarging
the eastern one. This offer was accepted and the work at once put in
hand. The glazing of the earlier east window was saved to put into the
new and larger embrasure. As yellow stain was not known at the time of
glazing the first east window, it is absent from the early glass,
although it is plentifully used in the heads, &c., of the additions made
necessary in 1389 by the increased size of the window. One must not
quarrel with the judicious restoration which has preserved so charming
an _ensemble_. But this indulgent mood will be abruptly dismissed when
one examines the lights along the north side walls of the choir aisles,
for here the colour in the patterns upon the white panes proves to be
Decorated glass cut up into bits for this purpose by some modern
glazier! Any further comment upon his taste is unnecessary. It is one of
the instances which causes one to query if it be always wise to impose a
punishment for murder!
DORCHESTER
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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