Relhan Collection : 319 Trumpington church. Window with ancient stained glass

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Lysons 1808</p><p>Relhan seems to have copied the window that Samuel Lysons drew and published, and added colour. The earliest surviving stained glass in Cambs is in Trumpington church, but it has been put together and re-set from fragments. It includes a trefoil containing 3 leopards joined in one head (the device of Edmund Crouchback, brother of Edward I) with stylised foliage, the faces of 2 lions/leopards with lolling tongues, and a grisaille foliage background. It is surprising this survived in Relhan’s time, but the secular nature of the design probably saved the window from Dowsing and other Puritans although it was not so lucky during C19 restorations. Bell 1883 records ‘<i>considerable remains of old stained glass</i>’ and illustrates and describes the blue border, oak leaves, figures of Peter and Paul, and a shield with 3 leopards. Fragments can still be recognised in the present Peter and Paul window, including the lions/leopards and plenty of grisaille foliage. The trefoil of leopards now has one damaged animal, repaired with grisaille pieces. In a stolen panel there was a tiny lion/leopard that could be the central head of the triple-bodied leopard or similar golden heads in the borders, as well as more background foliage. When the E Window was reglazed 1991/2 mediaeval glass was removed from the central pane and put into the window behind the Vicar’s Stall and the small window opposite. Fragments found in 2009 in the Vicarage attic were conserved at York and fitted as panels inside a window in the S Aisle in 2015, but the central portion of this was stolen 2016 and just the three top pieces of glass remain. </p><p>Beddow in Hicks 1997; Bell 2013; Bradley and Pevsner 2014; Lysons 1808; Palmer 1932; RCHME 1959; Edmund Brooke, churchwarden pers comm </p></p>