The great east window
The window, in the chancel, is one of the consolations for the fire that gutted St Anne’s on Good Friday 1850. The blaze destroyed an enamelled glass depiction of the Sermon on the Mount, created forty years earlier by Joseph Backler from a design by the artist Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy.
Philip Hardwick, architect for the meticulous reconstruction of Hawksmoor’s church, recognized the need to replace the lost window with a comparable large-scale composition. He turned to one of the leading stained glass artists of the day. Charles Clutterbuck’s workshop was in nearby Stratford, but his stained glass was being commissioned by churches all over the country, particularly East Anglia and the Welsh counties of Gwent and Clwydd.
Resisting the vogue for mediaeval-style mosaic glass, Clutterbuck pursued the eighteenth century craft of enamel painting, applying ground glass to large panes with a brush and then baking them to a hard translucent finish in a specially sized oven. He started work on the Limehouse window soon after the fire. The Crucifixion is characteristic of Clutterbuck’s style: biblical, dramatic, large-scale, with a high horizon and a frame full of action and detail.
From a distance, the window is still impressive, but seen close up, it’s in a very bad way. Clutterbuck tended to apply the enamel too liberally, causing it to peel and crack. After a century and a half, much of his painted detail has been lost. The bomb blasts of two world wars have distorted all the panels. Many of the individual quarries have been fractured by structural or thermal movement. Original lead cames have been puttied or taped to fill cracks and keep out draughts and damp. The many leads added in previous repairs cut intrusively across the large panes of Clutterbuck’s original design. There is a large triangular break in a piece on Christ's chest and this is likely to fall out and shatter at any moment. A gust of wind could dislodge it!
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Charles Clutterbuck (1806–1861) was originally a painter of miniatures who exhibited eight paintings at the Royal Academy. He began stained glass work in the 1840s and located his workshop at Maryland Point, Stratford, East London.
His work in London included east windows for St Botolph’s, Aldgate; St Luke’s Old Street; St Matthew’s Bethnal Green; and St Matthews, City Road; as well as St Anne’s Limehouse.
Examples of his work can be seen in many churches in the South East of England: in Buckinghamshire; at St Mary's, Oakley; at St Peter and Paul, Worminghall; and at Ely Cathedral.
His work is also found in Sydney, Australia: at Holy Trinity; Milson's Point; St Andrew's Cathedral; and Christ Church St Laurence.
His son, Charles Edmund Clutterbuck (1839–1883) carried on the business until 1882.
Wikipedia
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The fourteen panels of Clutterbuck’s window are exceptionally wide and will require expert handling. Once they have been lifted out and moved to a studio, glass conservators will replace the leadwork, mend fractured panes, clean accumulated grime and carefully restore lost paintwork. The window will be reinstated with secondary glazing.
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Physically, the project needs to happen now because of the window’s condition. A 2007 report from glass conservators Chapel Studios detailed many issues, including a serious danger of collapse with consequent loss of original painted glass. There are two kinds of paint deterioration: trace line deterioration and mat deterioration.
Re-leading of the window is essential and unavoidable because of (i) dishing and bowing over the entire window; (ii) the excessive number of mending leads compromising legibility of the subjects and consequent reduction of aesthetic effect; (iii) loss of leaded light cement in many areas which has been clumsily repacked with putty, especially at the bottom and the top.
The report concludes ‘provided that it is conserved soon, with specialist treatment of the glass paint where essential, then re-glazed, which will put back the waterproofing leaded light cement so no water seepage can occur, we believe its condition will be stabilised’.
No significant work has been undertaken to the window since this report, written some 13 years ago. Deterioration has continued, making the conservation all the more urgent.