Most modern stained glass is so abstracted, so generally formless, that they usually leave the viewer reaching for a guide pamphlet to puzzle out what the artist was trying, and failing, to portray. Swerving lead cames snake across vast expanses of colored glass, all of it trying to look very modern. Young children could do a better job portraying saints, or landscapes, or champions.

Ann Sotheran is a real artist, someone who captured the spirit of late Victorian stained glass design, from the intricate borders to the style of the portraits. Her other creations demonstrate the windows she designs are unexpected, always inventive, and they fit seamlessly into spaces for which they were created. Give yourself the pleasure of looking at her other work.

We need to take up a collection and commission more windows from her!

Thanks for making me laugh on a dreary Sunday.

GA, thank you for sharing your jaunt to the West End and your visit to the Champion Pub. I guess I assumed that the art of making stained glass was a thing of the past – hey, thirty years ago is not that long. Such an undertaking must have been quite an expensive investment for the proprietor. Charming…

“Golly!!!!??!”.

Beautiful, colorful, unique, distinctive, evocative, engaging illustrations, which just happen to be
rendered in glass. Well-done!

Loved the prize fighter and the throng in the background.
GA, has anyone ever told you the story of the famous/historic prize fight that happened right here in little Ancram, NY? Oh yes. Its part of our history. Makes me think we might need a stained glass window at our town hall.

Like the channel crossing, it was a challenge involving a stretch of water separating two nations: Canada and the US. But it was also a challenge observers described as “suicidal.”

Strangely, even Webb, by this time 35, seemed aware of how dangerous it was.
In a newspaper interview he acknowledged it was “one of the angriest bits of water in the world.”

But despite having so much to lose he was determined to complete the feat and regain his public status.

Wearing the same red bathing suit he’d donned when he crossed the channel, he was taken to the centre of the river by ferryman John McCloy, who asked his passenger if he made much money from the Channel swim.

“Most of it is gone,” Webb is said to have answered. “Well,” said McCloy, “if I was you I’d go ashore and keep the rest.”

Webb did nothing but smile and wave at him as he went over the side. Initially he swam well, but he cried out as a huge wave caught him and he was sucked into a whirlpool.

There was no defying death this time.

His body was found four days later, washed up downstream. An autopsy revealed he hadn’t drowned – his whole body had been crushed by the sheer pressure of the water in the whirlpool.

I have visited The Whirlpool Rapids which are about half mile below the actual Falls – it’s a terrifying mass of heaving water. Interesting that he died of water pressure rather than actually drowning.

Co-incidentally I live in Dawley, (Telford) where he was born – and I’ve handled his swimsuit which is now in care of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
Dave Hunt