Over 3 years was spent upon the conversation of the William Wailes windows in St Thomas Elizabeth Church, Thurnham, Lancaster. It was one of the first parishes in England to be awarded Catholic status post reformation.
William Wailes was a leading figure in the gothic revival and a favorite of Alfred Pugin. These windows carry the date 1847. His studio was prolific and highly regarded. Having central windows in both Gloucester and Chichester cathedral and many high profile churches around England.
It was a great privilege to be entrusted to the task of conserving these windows. It was a particularly challenging conservation, more so than most, due to a technical failure in their original production. A lot of detail has been lost. This is due to early experiments of the introduction of borax as a flux into the paint mix. This was discovered upon the removal of the first triple arch. Some of the paintwork was so delicate it could be scratched off with the back of a thumbnail, at which point we requested permission to re-fire these 160 year old windows. The heritage officer eventually granted this permission. Experiments with re-firing were carried out on small pieces of paintwork shattered beyond repair. The normal firing temperature for painted glass is between 630°C and 640°C. The paintwork failed to fire at this temperature. 15 further firings raising the temperature by 5°C each time were needed before meaningful fixing of the paint was achieved at 710°C just 10°C below the melting point of glass.
These windows do not appear in the William Wailes catalogue quite possibly for this reason. If not for the insignia on the west window these windows would not be verifiable as Wailes windows. Upon the discovery of this insignia the stained glass is automatically awarded conservation as opposed to restoration status, where by all original glass, as much as is possible, must be conserved.
The lady chapel window has particular historic significance in as much as it depicts the kneeling Lady Dalton (as main patron) offering up the gift of the church to the parish.
The north and south isles have a series of highly decorative quarry windows that carry in their quatrefoils and upper roundles esoteric symbols, the meaning of which is lost to all that I have spoken to. The lower roundles, it is believed, carry the initials of the many patrons that contributed to the raising of funds for the building and decorative embellishment of the church.
Each window carried it’s own demands and a sensitive conservation was undertaken to respond to these specific conundrums.