145 year old stained glass window being restored at Salisbury Cathedral
Some of the paint had started to fade but will now be restored
A 145 year old stained glass window is being restored at Salisbury Cathedral.
A team of glaziers have started work on the window, featuring art from Edward Coley Burne-Jones, which will take around two years to complete.
Greatest Hits Radio spoke to Sam Kelly, head glazier at the Cathedral, who said the glass had been poorly fired at the point of execution.
"That means that the painted detail that forms the basic shape of the heads and hands and road work lines is starting to fade," he said.
Glass needs to reach around 690°c in order to allow paint to fuse into the surface properly.
"If that temperature isn't reached, what you end up with is a slightly fired powder sitting on the glass surface.
"Cycles of condensation or rain coming through the window will slowly remove that semi water soluble solution from the window," Sam said.
But the team working on the window cant repaint the original pieces, instead they'll be cutting matching pieces of glass with the various details on new glass, before firing them in the kiln in a traditional way - at the required 690°c!
"Those pieces will have the required detail on them and they will be plated against the old pieces," Sam told us, adding "you get a better visual appearance to the window, much more how burn Jones would have intended it to be."
Of course, the most dangerous part of removing the glass panels is taking them out without breaking them, which is tough when the panels weigh upwards of 40 or 50kg.
"They have to be sort of manhandled out of the window and got down onto the ground onto a frail and ran to the workshops," said Sam.