H.E. Bulstrode

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A Stained Glass Mystery

Whilst writing Agnes of Grimstone Peverell, a festive ghost story with ecclesiastical connections, I was searching around for an authentic late-nineteenth-century stained glass artist whom I could cite as being the creator of a particular window featured in the story. Having carried out a Google image search, I happened upon a picture of window that greatly appealed to me, and so clicked on the link to discover more about it (the image can be accessed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/47859152@N05/5187150203). Before doing so, I had already decided that providing the name of the artist in question could been ascertained, then he or she would be the one that I chose as the creator of my fictional window. The name was provided – Christopher Whall.  

The window, situated in St Oswald’s Parish Church, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was – like the one in my story – a commemorative piece, but what struck me, given that I had already fixed upon the name of my fictitious minster as ‘Grimstone Peverell,’  was the double-barrelled surname of the family which had donated the window to the church: Peveril Turnbull. A far from common surname. It commemorates the death of their two daughters who died in a fire in 1901.  

I then moved on to reading a little more about Christopher Whall and his works, and discovered that only one commission was listed as having been carried out by him in the county of Dorset. This was a window that he created for the new church in the parish of Bothenhampton, a building constructed in accordance with the principles of the English Arts and Crafts Movement in 1890, although the date of the window itself was 1895. What struck me about the year was that this was the same one that I had designated for the commissioning and installation of my fictitious ‘Beke Window.’ How convenient that my chosen artist should actually have been active in Dorset in that very year!  

It seemed rather appropriate that my research for a ghost story should result in such unusual coincidences. As for the identity of the windows portrayed on the cover of Agnes of Grimstone Peverell, and their artist, I shall leave that for readers to puzzle over.

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