Keith Cattell: 1000 years of Stained Glass:

 Chartres cathedral

On one of the coldest days of winter with a temperature of -2°C, 63 hardy members braved the weather to attend our February lunch. Unfortunately, our scheduled speaker was prevented from attending due to the adverse travelling conditions and local architect and historian, Keith Cattell, stepped in at short notice, to save the day.

In his illustrated talk entitled 1000 years of stained glass, he explained that there is evidence of stained glass in Britain dating from 675AD. This was installed in churches and monasteries and came mainly from France because the glass was of a superior quality. The windows were mainly paid for by rich benefactors who were often depicted in the art work as were picture narratives from the Bible, of historic events and from literature.

It took great skill to produce the required colours of glass and the pigments were very expensive. This was achieved by adding metallic salts to the glass and then heating in it kilns to fuse the colour. After cooling, the coloured glass was cut into shaped pieces which were then held in place by strips of lead and secured by a rigid frame.

One unusual window was of Saint Apollonia who is regarded as the patron saint of dentistry and is shown holding a pair of pincers in her hand; this window can be seen in the parish church of Kingskerswell in Devon. Most of us had no idea that there was such a saint and the mere thought of tooth extraction made us shudder!

We learnt that Chartres cathedral has magnificent windows including some of the earliest examples of cobalt blue and Coventry Cathedral houses fine examples of modern stained glass artwork. One modern artist Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was prolific in producing stained glass and a fine example was installed in a chapel St Blaise des Simples at Milly la Foret near to Fontainebleau in France where he lived and is interred. It is a very modern, mainly blue, design named Seen and not seen which when viewed upside down, reveals a hidden face.

Keith was thanked for attending at such short notice and for his very interesting talk.