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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
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And now to Kinver - I hope I'm not keeping you too
long, I've only got another 15 or 16 slides I think. Now Kinver were in
some terrible trouble because the North Aisle was falling down - it was
jerry built you see about 1856. And they wanted to rebuild it.
And of course, the planners, bless them, the planners wouldn't let them.
It had got to be done exactly the way they wanted it. And you know, they
held the church up for two years before, there was a big enquiry held, I
was asked to give some evidence about the stained glass windows, oh the
stained glass windows had to go back and once got these in they had
exactly the same fault, they wanted to build it in a modern way so they
could hold these summer fairs that they have in the church to raise funds
you see. And do you know, when the Minister gave his decision they were so
adamant, the Council were, of course, they always make everyone go to
appeal. It’s almost standard now, you've got to go to appeal and then 9
times out of 10 you win the appeal. It’s a total waste of money, some of
the planners decisions. Anyhow, by the time they got the plans through and
the Minister suggested, nothing to do with me what they do with the
stained glass windows, he said it is solely the prerogative of the church
authorities themselves, and he allows it to be built, of course. And in
the meantime the costs of building it had escalated and the church had to
find something like £40,000 more than they had.
And I was taking all the windows out -
that's me looking a right Charlie at the top there three dimensional
saint. I took all these windows out and they are still in storage, they
don't know what to do with them, there's no place for them in the church.

And I had to make some new windows for them in the new nave that they were
putting up, the new aisle rather, North Aisle. There had been a window
that had been blank for many years where the choir hold their meetings I
was just to fill it in so I used some little bits of things that were up
in one of the gables which couldn't be seen, they couldn't be seen at all
and I made them into 12 panels, you see me working there on them.

Bill working on the panels for St Peter's Church, Kinver
And that was the new
north aisle it was built, a very modern structure and that's the
window, about, well it’s quite a height that is, it would be about 14
or 15 foot, and all these little panels inside, they did very well, I
thought. They were right, they'd never been seen these, they were so
high up in one of the gable ends of the church. And it was nice to
bring them down and install them somewhere they could be looked at.
And there's me putting a modern window in the back, I didn't design
it, don't blame me for it, it was the architect's design. It had to be
done like that in clear glass to let a lot of light in so that when
they hold their summer festivals and fairs and that they let plenty of
light in the vestry. |

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My friend Stanley Griffiths, I
usually have a chat with him, he was very fond of that. He designed
the church at Potters Cross and he borrowed a bit of a drawing off me
Brian Stokes' drawing of Figure of Charity. And it was sent down to
Powells of Whitefriars because they were very famous stained glass
people and they'd got a French artist there who was a specialist in
this (deserred?) type of glass, you know big blobs of coloured glass,
and they chip it on an anvil and no paint whatever is used upon it.
And when the church was all ready for opening I went down with Stanley
Griffiths and he said, what do you think about it? I said, well you've
got to stand in front for about 5 minutes before it comes to you and
there's that figure of charity, there's no paint whatever, this is
chipped bits of glass and there are five figures around it, and you
can't see them until you've been looking at it a long time. But the
theory of it and the design is good, there's a scythe and an anchor,
you see representing the fruit of the earth and the fruits of the sea
and that is the figure of Charity in Potters Cross church, and very
lovely too.
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And then they came to me and
they say, now we've got 2 little panels by the sides of the door and
we want to match the colour that's in there, something like that, you
see. But to show you how effective it was as far as the colour match
goes you see I've more or less got the effect at any rate. I was very
pleased with that.
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Panels to the side of the
main door by Bill Pardoe |

Potters Cross New Church in 2016
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