Devlin Plummer were commissioned to conserve the Royal Coat of Arms in St. Albans Church in Copenhagen.
Devlin Plummer were commissioned to conserve the Royal Coat of Arms in St. Albans Church in Copenhagen..
ST. ALBAN'S, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
One of our recent contracts was to St. Alban's Church, Copenhagen. This evolved from an initial request to estimate for the re-painting of five small panes of early 19th century glass.
Following on from that small but interesting contract we were instructed by the Danish church council to provide a full condition report on all the Victorian Stained Glass windows within the church with a view to a full restoration to be completed before the 125th anniversary of the building.
This project necessitated the production of a unique logistical program involving our team of specialist conservators traveling to Denmark by ferry, road and air over a two year period, removing individual windows in a pre-determined sequence such that the church could operate without disruption. Boarding-up the openings, such that they would be weather proof to the extreme elements of the Scandinavian climate, and then shipping the windows back to the UK.
Following conservation of the windows in our Norfolk Studios the process was reversed with our team returning to Copenhagen to re-fit the newly conserved windows, remove the next batch and return to the UK until the successful conclusion of the contract.
Whilst preparing the condition report to the church we noted that United Kingdom Royal Coat of Arms that form the cinquefoil to this window was incorrectly formed.
These two images show the original layout and the newly conserved section conforming with the 1837 convention which states that the three "Lion's Passant' representing England should be in quadrant (i) upper left and (iv) lower right; the 'Lion Rampant' representing Scotland in quadrant (ii) upper right, and the 'Harp' representing Northern Ireland in Quadrant (iii) lower left.