The Te Deum stained glass window in the south transept of Sherborne Abbey was designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) and made in 1851-2 by John Hardman & Co.[1] The window was one of a number commissioned from Hardman & Co. by the architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812-1855) for his restoration of the Abbey.
Sherborne’s Te Deum window takes its name from the Latin text ‘Te Deum laudaumus’ – ‘We praise thee, O God’. The words of this text are written on scrolls held by the 96 figures of men and women depicted in the window, which include kings and queens, apostles, saints and martyrs.
In his 1858 Handbook to the Abbey Church of S. Mary, Sherborne, the Rev. Edward Harston describes the Te Deum window as ‘having eight lights in a row, and two tiers with a transom between, the whole being filled with stained glass by Hardman. This window is considered an exquisite piece of work and was manufactured after a design of the late A.W. Pugin. The subject is the Te Deum. In the upper tracery are represented angels, with cherubim and seraphim, and below are pairs of figures grouped together in colours that harmonize admirably – apostles, prophets, martyrs, and confessors, with kings, bishops, and every conceivable variety of representation, designed to illustrate “the holy Church throughout all the world.” Every countenance is rapt in adoration and lit up as by a common sentiment of joyful praise, and all are raised in the same direction to the place where Christ the King of Glory is imagined to be seated in heaven. Each pair of figures hold a scroll, on which a portion of the Te Deum inscribed. The window is best seen on a dark day, or towards dusk.’[2]
Although the window is still magnificent, it has suffered some paint loss – the result of borax having been added to the glass paint during the firing process which, it was later discovered, made the paint soluble in water.[3] Over time this has caused some of the faces to disappear, but thankfully not all, and the faces of several women still remain visible.
Rachel Hassall
Footnotes:
[1] M. Hill, J. Newman, N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Dorset (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2018), p.532.
[2] E. Harston, Handbook to the Abbey Church of S. Mary, Sherborne (London: John Henry & James Parker, 1858), pp.11-12.
[3] A. Gilchrist. ‘‘The tears wept by our windows’: severe paint loss from stained glass windows of the mid-nineteenth century’, Vidimus https://www.vidimus.org/issues/issue-64/feature/ [accessed 28 December 2024]