Holy Family Catholic Church, Farnham, Surrey
Address
Catholic Church of the Holy Family, 34 Alma Lane, Farnham, Surrey GU9 0LHRecommended by
Highlight
Complete scheme (All windows 14)Artist, maker and date
Designed by Moira Forsyth and made at Lowndes & Drury/The Glass House, 1960-82Reason for highlighting
An exceptional church which contains a set of windows made over a long part of the career of one of the outstanding English stained glass artists of the last century.
Artist/maker notes
Moira Forsyth (1906-91) was the daughter of the ceramic and stained glass designer Gordon Forsyth. She studied at Burslem School of Art and at the RCA from 1926, where one of her teachers was Martin Travers. Her first commission was for the rose window at Guildford Cathedral. Her Benedictine window at Norwich Cathedral was one of her favourites because she said it reflected her belief in the importance of leading as part of the overall design as well as her love of lettering. For the last fifteen years of her life she lived in Farnham and worshipped at the local Catholic church, for which she also completed a complete scheme of 14 windows.
Sources:
Moira Forsyth on Wikipedia
And then the heaven espy: The windows of Norwich Cathedral by Dr Gudrun Warren (The Fitzwalter Press, 2017)
Lowndes & Drury was formed in 1897, by the artist Mary Lowndes (1857-1929) and the craftsman Alfred John Drury (1868-1940), with the aim of providing facilities for independent artists to design and make stained glass windows. They moved from cramped conditions in Chelsea to newly purpose-built premises, The Glass House, Fulham in 1906. The firm continued after the founders’ deaths, under Alfred Drury’s son, Victor, until he retired in the early 1970s. However, The Glass House premises continued in use under Carl Edwards and subsequently his daughter, Caroline Benyon, until she moved her studio to Hampton in 1992.
Source: The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XLI, 2017