John and Erika had a useful and interesting Zoom Meeting with the Rev Dr Jarrod Longbons in May 2022.
We were told that there is a rich archive of documents at the church, detailing the progress of the work. This includes some exchanges of letters where some disatisfaction is expressed with the way the Windows are being made.
By the end of the war, work was resumed on the windows for Peachtree Church,
The Church was modeled after Melrose Abbey in Scotland, designed by Charles H. Hopson in 1928.
Dulcima had joined her elder sister, and several of the later windows are signed by both of them. In 1946 the sisters and their mother moved to Sunnyside, Upper Station Road, Henfield, Sussex, where they remained until they retired. In the following years the sisters completed the set of large windows for the nave clerestory and all but one of the Parables scenes for the aisles.
In the Collins’ archive there is a Schedule of costs, dated 31st March 1947, for the Moses Window at Atlanta. The total amount is for £458.3.10, with £101 15. 0 paid to Mr Blackford for Sketches and cartoons. Carriage was also £110.4.9 and labour at £101.5.10.
There is also a letter from The Glass House, Lowndes & Drury, dated 25 June 1945 where there appears to be a problem with the delivery of a broken window.
These documents in the Collins' archive are poor photocopies of originals. Once the COVID-19 lockdown is lifted we may be able to examine the archives in the Henfield Museum and the originals may be there.
The Henfield Museum has an archive of sketches for the Peachtree commission and has tracings for the leaded Windows. We have worked on this archive and scanned the tracings and sketches. Blogs are written on each of the 12 Folders of sketches.
In a Zoom call with Dr Longbons at Peachtree Church we discovered that the Minister made trips to England to monitor the progress of the work, and there were concerns about the quality of the work.
George Blau provided this modern image of the Windows:
(c) 2022 George Blau
By the time of the final entry in the Lowndes Drury account book (late 1953) the sisters had moved again to a smaller house in Brighton Road, Henfield, their mother Constance having died earlier that year at the age of ninety-one.
The remaining glass for Peachtree Church, which included one aisle window, the seven-light West window and numerous windows in the narthex was undertaken by H. Vernon Spreadbury of Stratford upon Avon between 1954 and 1957.
In the Collins' archive there are copies of two publications from the Peachtree Church detailing the Windows.
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