Church of St Martin, Brampton, Cumbria
Address
Church of St Martin, Front Street, Brampton CA8 1SHRecommended by
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East windowArtist, maker and date
Designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by Morris & Co., 1880-81Reason for highlighting
Figurative glass painting and draftsmanship at its best. The artists have managed to balance their use of colour with design, making the whole work uniformed and complete.
Artist/maker notes
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was born in Birmingham and studied at Exeter College, Oxford where he met William Morris, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Together they created hundreds of stained glass windows that collectively stand as one of the finest artistic achievements of their time. The stature of this formidable artist and designer was recognised after his death when he became the first artist to be given a Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey.
Morris & Co. (1875-1940) was the successor to original business of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. William Morris had always been the driving force behind the ‘Firm’ and he finally determined to remove his earlier partners and to take the business into his own hands, with Burne-Jones as principal designer. The business flourished and continued after Morris’s death, when it also continued to use Burne-Jones designs. It finally closed in 1940.
Sources:
For a brief overview of the two companies see Morris & Co on Wikipedia
The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona McCarthy, Faber & Faber, 2011.
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy (Faber & Faber, 1994)
Burne-Jones Special Issue, The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XXXV, 2011
Damozels & Deities Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1870-1898 by William Waters and Alastair Carew-Cox (Seraphim Press Ltd, 2017)
Other comments
The other windows in the church are also filled with glass by Morris & Co
The former vicar of Brampton, Arthur Penn, produced an excellent book, St Martin’s, The Making of a Masterpiece, copies of which are usually available in the church.