For a long time now, it has been a sore point with Margaret Rope enthusiasts that the very beautiful series of windows in Newport Catholic Church (Salop) is marred by one major disfigurement: the face of Our Lady in the central window of the series.

Broken by random vandalism more than a decade ago, the original face has been replaced twice, but these replacement faces have been so poorly done as to be almost been worse than no repair at all (see photograph, right).
It has been decided to have yet another attempt to replace the face.

Background

In 1910, Margaret Agnes Rope burst into the world of ecclesiastical stained glass with her first masterpiece, the Great West Window at Shrewsbury Cathedral.
Within less than two years, she received a number of commissions for important windows. Chief among these was an order for a series of windows at the small Victorian church of SS Peter and Paul in Newport (Salop). This was an opportunity for her to further demonstrate her skills to the world of church design and she rose to the challenge magnificently.

Before and during the First World War (1914-18), she and her team made five complementary windows there, in the names of the saints Peter, Paul, Winefride, Nicholas and Our Lady (Help of Christians). Each is an impressive and beautiful artwork on its own, but it is as a series that they are best seen!
It is the last-mentioned window that concerns us here.

Repairs & replacements

In the Catholic Church, the focal importance of Our Lady cannot be overstated. Likewise, in a stained-glass window of a sacred figure, the most important focal point is usually the face.

The original face of the 1912 window was broken a few decades ago (no one remembers how), and a replacement face installed.
To be fair to the restorers, there was (amazingly) no photograph of the original – so they were unable to ‘match’ it, which may be why the replacements are so bad.

Peter Cormack, the leading historian of stained glass of the period, comments: “This first ‘restoration’ (see pic right) was, I believe, done by Hardman’s Glass of Birmingham, or by someone who had worked in their studio. It has the rather grotesque and ‘pious’ look that is typical of the firm’s work. However, it was markedly better than the second hideous repair!”

The second repair (see main pic, top of this article) occurred more recently, when the church’s windows were re-leaded. Hardman’s were not involved in this second repair, but, as one can see, it was arguably even less successful than the previous effort.

The other faces in the series, of Saints Peter, Paul, Winefride and Nicholas, are consummate achievements of portraiture in stained glass but the face of Our Lady stands out for all the wrong reasons.
The result is that the church has five wonderful windows but with one outstanding blemish that it is impossible to overlook.

Restoration

Thus the consensus was that the ugliness of the face of Our Lady seriously distracted from the sublime quality of the window and that a professionally produced replacement, designed & made in Margaret Rope’s style, would be a tremendous improvement.

Arthur Rope, the biographer of Margaret Rope and leading member of the Margaret Agnes Rope Archive Group, took on the project at the beginning of the year, his first move being to consult the leading glass restoration firm Holy Well Glass.
Simultaneously, the parish priest at Newport was approached, and through him the congregation, to ensure that a restoration would be welcomed. That done, the necessary diocesan and municipal consents were obtained. David Hill, the deacon at Newport, became point-man for the project on behalf of the church.
A grant of £3000 was secured from the LD Rope Charitable Trust.

The process was underway!
Next: the restoration process…

The account of the restoration of the glass at Newport in 2022 has been split into three parts: Newport 1 (Setting Up the Project); Newport 2 (Restoring The Glass); Newport 3 (The Installation)

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Addendum
A reporter for The Newport & Market Drayton Advertiser was present at the unveiling of the window in 1912, and in the edition of the paper for 13th July of that year wrote a long piece describing the event and the window. Of the face, s/he wrote:
“…Our Lady – a woman, passing sweet, with the gracious dignity of a queen – is the predominant figure. Her hair is confined in a wimple, but a golden lock has struggled from its bonds, to grace her forehead, and to lend added beauty to a countenance suffused with the tenderness of a mother’s love; her eyes are beset in reverent adoration upon the face of the Holy Child, Whom she is carrying in her arms…”

The writing is rather florid (!), as was the style back then, but even so, one gets an idea of the effect of the face when seen for the first time. It certainly would have been wonderful to have seen Margaret Rope’s original…

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