A few years ago we were given 3 old stained glass windows. We believe them to be Victorian in age and they may have come originally from a house in Glenlyon. The then owners had had them leaning against a wall in their garage for a number of years and had not come up with a use. They came to move and downsize and donated them to us, thinking we may come up with a way of using them. They lay under a bed for a few more years until we decided to salvage what we could of the glass - much was broken - and create new windows using the design principles the original artist had adopted and as much of the salvaged glass as we could. This is the story of the subsequent project, which started in April 2023 with dismantling of the three panels and the salvage operation.
The Original Windows
Although I thought I had pictures of the original panels, if I did, they have been mislaid. The three had the same basic lay out. This comprised an oblong portion with two semi-circular portions above. An idea of the design is given below, the red lines indicating the shape and the photos of glass giving some idea of the appearance. Round the whole design was a double border comprising an outer row of clear, textured glass and an inner border of plain essentially red glass. At the centre of the semi-circles were coloured roundels, at the centre of the main part a painted image., also having a red border.
Dismantle and Salvage
The first step was to cut away the old lead and dispose of the broken and unusable glass. Fortunately, the centre pieces of the panels were unbroken and we decided to keep them in their original lead and re-use them as was. We then had to set about cleaning the old cement off the glass. Previously, with small er salvage projects I had used cement remover quite successfully, but this is a hazardous chemical to use and we sought alternatives. Searching the web Anne found a YouTube video from Sophie's stained glass that lead us to bicarbonate as a technique. working on her idea we developed a soak technique rather than paste and found that about two days of soak in a fairly concentrated solution did the trick.
Patience and elbow grease brought the necessary clean-up. Examples are in the picture below, but a lot more was recovered.
Re-imagination
The key design elements as we looked at the originals were:
- painted circles as the centre-piece
- Small roundels as further circular elements
- oblongs of varying pastel shades, randomly distributed
- all the oblongs textured, but no single texture - also varying
- a double border with hammered texture, clear glass outside a narrower strip of untextured red stained glass, varying in shade
The new location
Dunolly Cottage was originally built as a workshop, probably sometime in the 1890s. It was converted into a cottage in the 1930's and has subsequently been added to on more than one occasion. In the last re-development in 2016 a porch was added to the front of the cottage, in a style echoing other homes of the era in Aberfeldy. Adorning this porch with stained glass largely of Victorian origin seemed a very appropriate use.
The plan is to put symmetrical panels in the upper panes of the four sides of the porch, those to the sides having painted centre-pieces, those to the front, either side of the door, just one of the small roundels. |
The Glass Challenge
While the concept was decided, actual realisation of the vision would rely on the amount of salvaged glass. Unfortunately, there was not enough to complete the vision solely from the salvaged glass. For the main body of the four panels, It was therefore necessary to find modern glasses that would be harmonious with the original concept in respect of colour and texture. Many different types of textured modern glass were considered, but in the end only a couple really worked on both texture and shade.
For the borders, there was enough of the original clear border glass to do most of the small panels, but nowhere near enough to do the large ones. The shortfall on the small panels was made up with identical glass salvaged earlier, while the clear glass for the larger panels had to be a best modern approximation. Most of the salvaged red glass was too small to be really useful, However, once again, in our cache of earlier salvaged Victorian glass was sufficient of a very similar red glass and this was used. Probably about 80% of the glass used was Victorian.
For the borders, there was enough of the original clear border glass to do most of the small panels, but nowhere near enough to do the large ones. The shortfall on the small panels was made up with identical glass salvaged earlier, while the clear glass for the larger panels had to be a best modern approximation. Most of the salvaged red glass was too small to be really useful, However, once again, in our cache of earlier salvaged Victorian glass was sufficient of a very similar red glass and this was used. Probably about 80% of the glass used was Victorian.
Design
The height of the new panels dictated that we could not precisely follow the pattern of standard oblongs that formed the main element of the original panels. However, there was sufficient height to have two rows of oblongs and therefore also re-use much of the glass that surrounded the circular painted elements. The borders were of similar dimensions to the originals and the balance made up by smaller oblongs to the same width as the salvaged glass.
Once the basic design was settled and the drawings made, the next challenge was to allocate the salvaged oblongs, so the random character could be maintained. This meant that some of the salvaged oblongs were cut to make small oblongs, so the balance of old and new glass could be maintained across the whole design. Some of these were also fashioned from the broken glass that was big enough to yield the required size.
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Once the basic design was settled and the drawings made, the next challenge was to allocate the salvaged oblongs, so the random character could be maintained. This meant that some of the salvaged oblongs were cut to make small oblongs, so the balance of old and new glass could be maintained across the whole design. Some of these were also fashioned from the broken glass that was big enough to yield the required size.
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