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Stained Glass Window at St Martins C of
E Primary School, Dorking, Surrey 2008
In the summer of 2007 I finished making
a new stained glass window for St Martins C of E School in
Dorking, Surrey.
As a parent of two girls, one at the school, the other a recent
leaver, I had a desire to create a long lasting gift for the
school. Magnificent help from the members of the PTA in fund
raising ensured that the materials would be paid for with
kind donations from local businesses.
The centre of the stained glass window
is made in the traditional way using cutting, painting and
firing to produce the detail. It depicts the houses of the
school through the seasons. Ranmore in winter, Box Hill in
Autumn, Bury Hill in summer and Leith Hill in spring. On this
journey we also see some local flora and fauna, harvest mice
cling to ears of corn, a bee orchid grows upwards on the left
and we see Roman snails, a feature of walks in the Surrey
Hills and spotted by many a local child.
The cross is woven into the design of the
stained glass implying the way in which the Christian faith
is woven into the lives of the children at St Martins.
The inscription at the top of the stained
glass is the schools vision statement, Inspiring children
to be the best they can be. This reflects the very positive,
nurturing and learning environment provided by St Martins
C of E Primary School.
The wonderful border was created with glass
fusing techniques. The children were asked to provide pictures
of anything that inspired them. To draw or paint something
they loved. These were then faithfully and painstakingly reproduced
in fused glass by Mannon
Lloyd, another parent and artist working with me at Abinger
Stained Glass.
I then leaded the stained glass window together and cemented
it in the traditional way .The stained glass was left to sit
for 3 weeks to allow the cement between the leads to dry before
we encapsulated it into a unit of toughened glass.
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