Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews, Fife
Address
Holy Trinity Church, South Street, St Andrews KY16 9NLRecommended by
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East window ‘Te Deum’Artist, maker and date
Douglas Strachan, 1910Reason for highlighting
One of 11 windows by Strachan installed following the major restoration of this medieval church by Macgregor Chalmers in 1909. It was particularly admired by William Wilson, whose own War Memorial window was installed in the Hunter aisle in 1950.
Artist/maker notes
Robert Douglas Strachan (1875-1950) was born in Aberdeen and initially trained as an artist. Indeed Strachan admitted later in life that he had been slow to realise that stained glass would be the best outlet for his artistic vision. It was a vision that enable him to become the foremost British stained glass artists of the generation after Christopher Whall. From 1909 to 1911 he was head of the School of Design and Crafts at the Edinburgh College of Art, before handing over to his brother, Alexander, due to pressure of work. His windows are found throughout Scotland and England, and are recognisable for their bold use of colour, and strong sculptural design and use of lead. Overseas he is renown for his windows for the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Sources:
In Praise of Douglas Strachan by Peter Cormack, Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XXX, 2006
Arts & Crafts Stained Glass by Peter Cormack (Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2015)
ECA Glass Alumni Exhibition Catalogue, pages 11-12
Other comments
The work of Douglas Strachan is complimented by that of his brother, Alexander, who made 17 World War One Memorial Windows of regimental badges for the clerestory and a window of St Paul and Daniel for the Session House.
Within the church’s fine collection of stained glass windows particular attention should also be paid to the Hunter Memorial Chapel, which has a set of four windows illustrating ‘Scenes from the Life of Christ’ by Louis Davis, 1911, along with the William Wilson window mentioned earlier, and the South Transept, which contains a large south window by Reginald Hallward, c.1912, and high up on the west wall, two lovely small windows by Sax Shaw, 1968, and a typical example of the work of Herbert Hendrie c.1928.
The only window to survive from the former church is by A Ballantine & Son of c.1890.