5 - Caddonfoot Parish Church, Scottish Borders

At one point Herbert Hendrie was the most prolific British stained glass artist of the time. The church at Caddonfoot in Selkirkshire contains a five-piece window which was a personal favourite of his. Hendrie’s compositions have a bejeweled iconic stillness and repose to them in contrast with Strachan’s strongly gestural compositions. A product of Christopher Whall and the Royal College of Art (ARCA) he took charge of the Stained Glass course at ECA before becoming head of the Design School there. At Caddonfoot we can see the chiselled features of his figures with their drapery echoing the forms of post-Reformation Flemish Painting, the model for many glass painters of the early 20th century. To the rather graphically exaggerated details of form he added a mobile definition by way of line, stipple and dry brush with fine wet line-work to finish. At Caddonfoot the right-hand lancet is the only known memorial in stained glass to Sir Walter Scott. It includes a local landscape reference to the estate of Bemersyde from where the famous Scott’s View looks across to the Eildon Hills and beyond.

Hendrie’s studio at ECA produced a number of student glass-painters who worked there on his windows. These included John Blyth and John Cook who, after Hendrie’s death in 1946, continued on their own working in their similarly mannered styles. Their work carries the almost identical style of Hendrie but their meticulous modelling looks drier and the outcome more arid than their master. As Hendrie’s assistants, Blyth would paint a bee in the border, the mark of Cook being a fly as identification. Hendrie’s largest work, revered by many, is at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. I find this huge window a disappointment : it comes across, uncharacteristically, as dull, inappropriately scaled and ill-defined for its setting.

Another student, Walter Pritichard, went on to teach stained glass, mosaics and murals at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). The Hendrie style of glass painting taught by Walter Pritchard brought about another west coast differential which can be seen in the work of Sadie McLellan, his wife. Her remarkable set of windows for the Robin Chapel Chapel at Craigmillar in Edinburgh, nine of which reference incidents in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, shows a personally advanced form and freer composition. Crear McCartney also studied under Pritchard at GSA. In the sharp, finely detailed work at either side of the entrance to Peebles Parish Church vestiges of the Hendrie can still be seen in lyrical landscape terms. Interestingly a contemporary of mine John K Clark also studied at GSA under George Garson (ex ECA), and has taken a very tight technical approach to his work. In his recent set of small windows at the Barony Hall, opposite Glasgow Cathedral, his exactingly precise technique can be seen.

This is the fifth part of a 10 part essay, to continue reading please follow the link below

Part 6 – The Eric liddell Centre, Edinburgh

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