New Bespoke Stained Glass Replaces Tired Original Glazing to Breath Life, Light and Colour into the Staircase of a Large 1920’s Private Residence in the High Peak District

This large scheme of bespoke stained, etched and leaded glass, covering almost 7.5 square meters, was one of our last major commissions to be completed in 2016. Our briefs main aims were to create a “Wow Factor” focal point for the residences large central lobby area while striving to respect and compliment the period of the property and its large quantity of existing 1920’s leaded glass top-lights. Our client was also keen for the commission to maintain a “contemporary edge”.

After months of design development and lengthy discussions back and forth (in which we presented a total of 6 completely different design proposals), production finally got underway in the Spring of 2016.

Our design features a simple back-grid of rectangular quarries cut in Lambert’s clear Reamy Danziger glass and subtly coloured central columns of intertwining branches, berries and leaves with a number of gold & bullfinches (reflecting our clients lifelong love of bird-watching). While primarily allowing us to inject a beautiful pallette of Lamberts sparkling blue, green and yellow cylinder glass into the commission, the use of colour in these central columns (also reflected in the outer borders) serves to tie the three separate windows together on the horizontal plane, creating a sense of unity. The very outer border of the panels was cut using clear “English Muffle” glass. This not only gives a nod to the much used glass in decorative lead lights from the Victorian period right through to the 20’s & 30’s, but we felt also contrasted very nicely in texture against the large expanse of Lambert’s cylinder glass.

With regards to the possibility of refurbishing and retaining the original leaded glass scheme, this discussion was held very early on in the process but was fairly quickly discounted by the client given his great dislike for both their design and the large quantity of Flemish glass contained within them.

On unveiling the completed commission to our client (a man not given to mincing his words), following a few seconds careful consideration, his somewhat unorthodox yet greatly welcomed response was;

“I ******* love ’em!”. High praise indeed as far as we are concerned.

We are currently at work producing a set of complimentary panels for the properties internal porch which is situated at the opposite side of the lobby from the staircase.

Our images show a number of full panel and detail shots following installation, the commission in its entirety across all nine panels, details of the five finches prior to inclusion and finally the original glazing scheme we replaced.