Muswell Hill Methodist Church, London N10
Address
Muswell Hill Methodist Church, 28 Page Lane, Muswell Hill, London, N10 1PPRecommended by
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North nave windowArtist, maker and date
Nora Yoxall, Elsie Whitford, 1937, adapted and relocated in 1980Reason for highlighting
An interesting and effective reuse of trefoil-headed windows transferred to a new modern building.
A series of six two-light windows had been produced for the nave of the churches former home in Colney Hatch Lane, depicting Childhood, Home Life, Christian Worship, etc. When the church moved to a new building in Page Lane in 1980, the trefoil-headed lights had blue glass added to form a dozen rectangular panels. They were then fitted into a window opening in the new church in the form of a cross with the addition of plain glass surrounds.
Artist/maker notes
Elsie Mable Whitford (1897-1994) was born and brought up in Birmingham and entered the Birmingham School of Art in 1915.
Alice Nora Yoxall (1892-1998) was born in West Bromwich into a Methodist family. After Edgbaston High School she enrolled at the Birmingham School of Art in 1912.
The two long term collaborators met at the School in a book illustration class, which they had considered making their specialism. However, the experience of working on the Church of St Peter, Handsworth, while at the School, appears to have fired an interest in stained glass.
The stained glass of the partnership can be divided into pre- and post-war work. In the pre-war period they designed and made windows with coloured backgrounds for a number of Methodist Churches, while post-war their windows are characterised by having the images set in plain glass. A move away from the style of earlier Birmingham School of Art artists, who generally used painted quarries in the background. In addition to stained glass, Yoxall and Whitford also produced a body of work in watercolours, oils and pen and ink and continued working into the mid-1970s.
Source: Stained Glass Window Makers of Birmingham School of Art by Roy Albutt, 2013
Other comments
Additional windows from the former church, by the same makers, were also relocated to the new building.