~ Crichton Memorial Church, Dumfries ~

In 2013, Rab MacInnes and myself restored this huge, very unusual monochromatic leaded glass window (designed by Oscar Paterson) from the Crichton Memorial Church in Dumfries.

It was a particularly cold winter.

The delicate windows were set in soft sandstone using portland cement to point them in. As the building moved, the glass took the strain, and many of the pieces of glass next to the stone were broken and had to be replaced.

New Stonework was cut to replace the old flaky sandstone.

New non-ferrous “T” bars were made to replace the rusting and expanded iron bars, which had played a significant part in destroying the original stonework.

During the duration of the work we were given an old ward in the Sanatorium nearby, to use as a temporary base. It was not the easiest job to work on: on a cold winter’s evening you could almost hear the previous occupants cry out.

With thanks to Maurice Jackson for helping us with this project.