It’s an interesting fact that, apart from Shrewsbury, where she was born and raised, Margaret Rope spent the most time in her life in the small estuary town of Woodbridge in Suffolk.
And now the local community has honoured her with a blue plaque.

The blue plaque is prominently placed, for all passers-by to see, on the wall of the former Carmelite Convent in the town’s Church Street; the place where Marga lived for fifteen years. The spot marks what would have been the main entrance to the convent (and its public chapel) during her time there.

The installation becomes the second blue plaque commemorating Marga – the other is in Shrewsbury.

When Margaret decided to become a nun, which she did in the early 1920s, it was Woodbridge Convent she chose. Her family was long-established in Suffolk and it was through visiting her sister Irene, who at that time lived in Woodbridge, that she became aware of, and was able to visit, the Carmelite convent there.

Thus it was that, in 1923, she became ‘Sister Margaret of the Mother of God’; and it is quite possible that the plaque is sited just at the point where she said her final goodbyes to friends & family before turning to enter the building. As an ‘enclosed’ nun, she had vowed not to encounter the outside world again.
(Somewhat surprisingly, she was allowed to continue her stained-glass work, and was provided with a studio to do so; the income from her work eventually became an essential means of support for the impoverished community. Here she produced at least 35 windows of her total of 60 windows.)

Civic gathering

The plaque was proposed by Linda Fullick and Garry Humphreys – their house occupies part of the former convent buildings – who undertook research to support the proposal and the required Listed Building Application.

Margaret Rope’s name, her achievement and her international reputation, largely unknown in Woodbridge, now have a permanent public memorial, which was marked on 15 March this year with a gathering in the Shire Hall, hosted by The Woodbridge Society, and attended by many well-known faces, both local and on the national scene (see footnote* at the bottom of this article).

The guest speaker was Caroline Swash*, an internationally-recognised authority on stained-glass. Garry Humphreys then spoke about the buildings – as important an element in a blue plaque proposal as the person being commemorated! – pointing out that those originally housing the convent are still largely extant, and, despite many adaptations and changes of use, still contain features described in the convent’s 1938 sale document.

Woodbridge

It was not by accident that Marga chose Woodbridge Convent. Not only was she attracted to the Carmelite way of things, but her cousins and paternal grandfather and sister Irene lived locally, and her brother was to marry nearby, so she already knew the region well.

Despite being in an enclosed convent, Marga did also leave her mark on the town in another place – at the local Catholic church of St Thomas. In 1930, the Catholic community moved into the present building (the former Public Hall), and the local priest spent an extraordinary amount of money on a neoclassical baldacchino for the altar. It seems he also persuaded the artistic sisters of the convent, including Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (Marga) and Mother Rosario, to contribute artwork. In Marga’s case, it was the lettering on the baldacchino’s rim.
However, it seems odd that no window by Marga is in the church…

By the end of 1938, the Carmelites had left Woodbridge; it had become simply too cramped and noisy for the growing community. After ten years at Rushmere near Ipswich, they finally settled at at Quidenham Hall in Norfolk, where they remain today. Marga died at Quidenham in 1953 and is buried there. The windows she made for the Nuns’ Choir at the Woodbridge convent are now in the enclosure at Quidenham.

Achievement

Congratulations and thanks must go to Garry and Linda for their perseverance and their extensive research which finally led to the installation of the plaque, and to the Woodbridge Society who made it happen.
Marga is only the second woman to be commemorated by a Woodbridge Society blue plaque, preceded a few months earlier by one for Edith Pretty, at nearby Sutton Hoo.

The project brings the appreciation of Marga’s work one step further forward in a part of the country where she not only spent much time but where some of her most significant work can be seen: within just a few miles of Woodbridge are the windows at Blaxhall and at Kesgrave which count among her best work.

Thanks to Woodbridge & Melton Society for the use of the photos

*
Addendum. Officers of the society, representatives of local trusts, councillors, and current occupants of the former convent buildings were present at this event, as well as guests including Philip Fortey, Master of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass, Martin Harrison, founding trustee and former curator of the Stained Glass Museum at Ely, and Rosemarie and Margaret MacQueen, whose parents managed the community’s estate first at Rushmere (1947) then at Quidenham (from 1948); they grew up on the estate and still live there; as young children they knew Marga, and came as formal representatives of the current community at Quidenham.
The main speaker was Caroline Swash, who is a third-generation stained-glass artist and whose grandfather, Henry Payne, taught Marga at Birmingham and regarded her as one of his best pupils.

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