Issue 40 winter 23 web - Flipbook - Page 73
Creating a ‘Jewel Box’:
York Glaziers Trust and
the Radley College Chapel
In September 2019 the York Glaziers Trust (YGT) was
invited to visit Radley College to discuss a new glazing
scheme for the as-yet-to-be-built extension to the
majestic school chapel of 1893-95, with its superb glass
by Burlison and Grylls. Designer and senior conservator
Rachel Thomas was tasked with creating a ‘jewel box’ effect
for the new building, in which the stained glass would
occupy narrow panels filling an octagonal window under
the dark oak-beamed vault over the altar, which would be
accompanied by the relocated reredos.
Rachel drew inspiration from the old chapel. The palette
of rich blues and reds was influenced by the surviving
panels of stained glass saved from the first school chapel
of c.1847. Naturalistic details and Christian motifs and
symbols were taken from the carved liturgical furnishings
and the pews of the main chapel, combined with the
crossed keys of St Peter, the emblem of the school. Armed
with numerous detailed photographs of glass and wood,
Rachel began to prepare small-scale drawings (known as
a ‘vidimus’). She was anxious to unite the aesthetic of old
and new within the unusual proportions of the new
windows, balancing the natural light that would enter the
building from above, with the richness of the stained glass
below. Rachel explained that she also ‘wanted the new
glass to create an alluring, safe and colourful space for the
onlooker, holding them still, whilst lifting their eyes to the
heavens through the range of colours of the rainbow’. She
created a design that was indebted to the rich palette of
the old glass, and wove the selected Christian symbols
together through a foliage framework derived from the
distinctive and exuberant background grisaille running
throughout the Burlison and Grylls windows. The
windows move through deep blues, purples and varying
tones of red that blend into rich orange, warm golden
yellows, paler yellows and tints, into the palest blues.
Silver stain and transparent enamels provide tone, while
a darker 5mm trace line was chosen, to echo the width of
the internal lead calmes.
Below, Rachel Thomas (left) and Anna Milsom (right) at work on
the creation of the new window (Photo: The York Glaziers Trust).