St Marie's Church - Rugby
Small Two-Light Window under SW Tower 1997
In early 1996 I was in search of a suitable theme for my final exhibition piece as a student of Architectural Stained Glass in Swansea, and decided I wanted to do something that would have some sort of life after college so sought out some small 'vacant' windows in local churches in my home town with a view to donating the window after graduating. I was surprised to find two such windows at St Marie's in Rugby, a church I've long known (and on a few occasions attended). I'd originally considered the small lancets in the north porch, but these windows lighting the lower storey of the south tower (part of the original smaller church designed by A.W.N.Pugin) looked far more promising so I went to have a chat with the priest, who was fortunately open to the idea.
However the two lights were rather brutally subdivided on the inside by thick metal bars which thus limited what could be done with them, effectively making four spaces out of two. I would have liked to have removed them and have two unobscured subject panels, but this looked far too difficult so in order to work with these conditions I had to think of four subjects with a strong vertical emphasis, hence the Four Archangels came to mind (the other options were the Four Elements and the Four Evangelists, whose symbols are included at the base).
However the two lights were rather brutally subdivided on the inside by thick metal bars which thus limited what could be done with them, effectively making four spaces out of two. I would have liked to have removed them and have two unobscured subject panels, but this looked far too difficult so in order to work with these conditions I had to think of four subjects with a strong vertical emphasis, hence the Four Archangels came to mind (the other options were the Four Elements and the Four Evangelists, whose symbols are included at the base).
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The surrounding space is lit by two fine windows from the 1960s by Edward Nuttgens whose work I've always admired, thus I attempted to make these designs balance and respect them in terms of employing similar colouring and traditional design (the simple border design derives from them). The light in this tower space was formerly quite unbalanced as a result of the excess light from these windows, creating a glare contrasting with the cooler tones above; now the lighting is much more even, which enhances appreciation of the Nuttgens windows too.
The first window was made in Swansea and shown at the summer exhibition at the college. The right hand window was made later that year just after I moved to Redditch with a more muted colour scheme to vary the tones across the pair. Both were finally installed in April 1997. |
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