Bill's Lecture - Arley

 
 

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Introduction

Introduction

 

Bill's Lecture

Brierley Hill

Dudley

Dudley Wood

Cradley Heath

Cradley

Wollescote

Stourbridge

Yardley

Stourton

Kinver

Romsley

Arley

 

Additional Material

Postscript

Worcester

Bethesda, Cradley

Oldswinford

Great Witley

Summary

 

 

Now the last five frames and we're off. I'm taking you down to Arley. Because something caught my eye in Arley church. In the Lady Chapel there's a beautiful window - The Good Shepherd, The Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan and Christ blessing with the children. But it’s only the two in the centre that I'm interested in. Because they were misplaced somehow, either in the leading the put the inscription wrong because that should have been there and that one should have been there. And I'm certain of it. They're wrongly placed. It may have been when they were fixing it, the fixers put them in the wrong order.

 

 

That's the Prodigal Son and here is the Good Samaritan.

 

                       

 

Now why, why are they wrong? As you look at them and read the inscription underneath 'Father I have sinned, go and do thou likewise'.

 

                                               

 

You don't need to tell me that that should never appear in a church on a window. Now if they had been the other way round about no one would have read it as one sentence. Father I have sinned, go and do thou likewise.

 

Well, I think that lets me out, I hope I've entertained you, given you something to think about.

 

This was the end of the Talk to the Society of Glass Technology.

 

There was one question:

 

Where do you get your coloured glass from when you are not painting it yourself, or is it all stained by yourself?
 

“The stain, you've said another word there, it’s painted with a flat pigment, ground glass. But there is another colour in stained glass which is an oxide of silver you put on the other side and according to how much you heat it up in the kiln, temperature controlled, you can get anything from a beautiful pale lemon light down to a deep rich amber. According to temperature, that's staining. But the coloured glass, in fact I've got a lot of it which I bought, well nearly 50 years ago, which I bought from the firm of W E Chance at Oldbury, I've still got some of it. I've still got enough to last more than my lifetime and when I'm finished with it, it will probably all be chucked down the tip. They're all little pieces and no one will know what it is or what to do with it. Beauty there is in it. I can often go and get a thrill by fishing one or two pieces out of the glass and just putting them up like that. But that's it, I've got more than enough to last my lifetime.”