Editorial

Welcome to our August edition. We are delighted to be able to provide a range of fascinating material for anyone looking for late holiday reading.

Our first feature is by Iona Hart, who recently completed her Masters Degree at the University of York. It explores the provenance, glazing history and recusant nature of the chapel window at Burton Constable Hall in the East Riding of Yorkshire. This was installed in the 1840s, following the relocation of the Clifford-Constable family from Tixall in Staffordshire. Iona argues that the window is highly likely to have first been installed in a Berkshire parish church in 1526, before being reglazed by William Price the younger, installed in Tixall Chapel in 1828 and then finally relocated to the house chapel at Burton Constable Hall in 1844.

Our second feature is by Angela Phippen, from Sydney, Australia. Angela discusses the life and work of the 19th-century architect and stained glass artist John Pike Hedgeland. Hedgeland worked on the important medieval windows at St Neots Church in Cornwall from 1826-29, but is most famous for his often-criticised work on the windows of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, between 1841-49.

Continuing the Australian theme, Dr Penny Hebgin-Barnes reviews Michael Strong’s Glorious Glass: Stained Glass in the Abbey Museum Collection published in 2020. This catalogue is important as it relates to a major collection at the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology in Caboolture, Queensland.

Finally, following on from his review article about Carole Rawcliffe’s edition of the Norwich Chamberlains’ Accounts in our May edition, in another very valuable article David King discusses The Fabric Accounts of St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster 1292-1396, edited by Tim Ayers and transcribed and translated by Maureen Jurkowski. David’s review outlines the significance of this edition, and explains what the accounts tell us about the craft of stained glass in the second half of the 14th century.

Just one house-keeping note. A very small number of readers when accessing vidimus.org may get a message asking if they are a robot, then requesting them to do a simple task. We are advised that this is nothing to worry about, it is just a safety feature of the server which is activated by a few web browsers. If it does affect you, you might prefer to try another web browser. We do apologise for any inconvenience.

Dr Anya Heilpern and Christopher Parkinson

 Co-editors

 August 2021