A group of enthusiasts established the Margaret Rope Archive in 2020, having acquired (from a number of sources) around 500 drawings and ‘cartoons’ by Margaret as well as other relevant documents and works. Research carried out there since has thrown a great deal of light on how Marga, and, by inference, other stained glass artists of the time, worked on their productions.

One of the most engrossing activities of the Archive Team is recovering as much information as is possible about a lost window. A ‘lost window’ could be one taken from a redundant building, or removed for safety reasons (as in World War Two), or simply never have been actually installed but put into storage. Some, sadly, may have been badly damaged and destroyed. For a full list of Marga’s lost windows, please click here.
Tracing such lost windows is an arduous task, particularly if the pieces are unlabelled in private collections, or lie forgotten in a depository.

Lost in Bermondsey

It really helps in tracing lost windows if one has a good idea what they might have looked like – which is where the work of the Archive comes in.
By piecing together artefacts within the Archives – preliminary sketches and drafts, contemporary photos and on-the-ground evidence -, the team can build up a good idea of the appearance of a lost window, even to the point of knowing what size it was.

A good example of this work is the lost Bermondsey window.
It was Margaret’s last major work, undertaken in the 1940s, and was for the chapel of the Catholic Nursing Institute in Bermondsey in London. (One of her maternal aunts, Florence Burd, had established an order of nursing nuns to work at the institute, and, following her death, the window was commissioned as her memorial).
However, after the Second World War, the order of nuns declined in number and the hospital buildings were eventually sold on – and the windows removed. Their fate or whereabouts are still unknown.
But we do now know how they looked, drawing on information from the Archive…

Getting the picture

For this window, first, we have a rough vidimus in the Archive, giving us a glimpse of the intended colour scheme.

We also have an architectural drawing, giving dimensions.

And a contemporary photo of the installed window, unfortunately a bit overexposed:

Most importantly of all, we have the cartoons, which give us the best idea of how the window must have looked (– or still looks: who knows?).

The team even identified the probable year of installation, as 1944. There is an entry for this year in the Lowndes & Drury order book (reprinted in reduced form in the BSMGP Journal of Stained Glass XLI p. 187) for the hospital, as a “Glaze window: £32”.

So, it’s now theoretically possible – using artificial intelligence programmes perhaps! – to recreate what the finished window probably looked like.
And, if the original stock orders for the type of glass used can be found, such an AI programme could even show how the window would have refracted its colours from outside light.

We may never see the window again sadly, but this detective work at the Archive gives us a strong idea how Margaret’s final work came out, and just what we are looking for as we continue to search for it.

AR + MS
For more on the work of the Margaret Rope Archive, please click here

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