Conservation




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Little Burstead, Billericay, Essex

This elaborate armorial crest sits amongst other decorative features of various eras in a single light window in the North Aisle. It was damaged twice; once in 2004 and again in 2006 when vandals tried to break in – which they did. Apart from a 15th C roundel of the letters ‘IPC’, this piece was the only ancient piece of glass in the window. It is beautifully decorated with fruits of many colours, all of which had to be duplicated using layers of enamel paints, stains and oxides. Fortunately, the photographs taken in 2004 gave the pictorial information required to complete the missing piece of 2006. The new piece was edge-bonded to the original pieces and back-plated for stability and to protect it from the elements. Only strong fixings for the existing wire guard and new external ‘burglar bars’ have, thus far, protected it from further impact.    more

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Matching, Essex

One piece of red angel’s wing had taken a stone from the lawn mower – an all too common occurrence! The piece of glass itself would have been very difficult to replace due to its bubbly quality, colour gradation, thickness and general uniqueness.    more

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Elmstead Market

Three ‘squint’ windows in the South elevation of this remote church had been previously damaged approximately 12 years ago, forcing the glaziers to install sheets of 10mm thick plate glass against the exterior surface of these strange patchworks of mediaeval glass. The images shown are of the South Choir window which was heavily over-leaded following its previous bout of damage. Each piece of glass that had been broken had been leaded together with predominantly 10mm round section lead, rendering the lattice work of diamond quarries illegible. Due to the lead being fairly new and far too large for purpose, to remove the newly broken pieces would have inevitably resulted in breaking them further. As the panel was quite distorted by the impact anyway, it was decided to dismantle the panel to access the broken pieces and then re-assemble them into the original cohesive arrangement of diamond quarries with basic architectural border details. In addition to the previous glazier’s protective system, we created an inter-space between this and the leaded glazing (which was ventilated to the inside) and added wire guards and bespoke ferramenta sets.    more