Sketch Crawl : St Thomas's Church, Newcastle

George Cross Island Assoc. Window

(Black marker and coloured pencil in A5 sketchbook)

On Saturday, the Tyne & Wear Urban Sketchers met up in St Thomas's Church in the Haymarket. I was a little late in getting there and some of the sketchers were already thinking of moving on to McKenna's Cafe at Northern Stage. 

I'd never been in St Thom's before and was surprised at how small it seemed inside: bigger on the outside than inside, a sort of inverse Tardis.

Maybe because I've been painting figures recently, I was attracted to a stained glass window commemorating the Siege of Malta and sat down in a pew to draw part of it.

I was interested enough in the window to look it up online later. It was designed by Helen Whittaker of Barley Studio in York and it's interesting to note that Barley Studio were responsible for making and installing the new window in Westminster Abbey, designed by David Hockney.

William Morris at Cragside

It's some years since I was last at Cragside, the house and estate built by Lord Armstrong in the 19th century. Now owned by the National Trust, the house is a fascinating place to visit, full of labour-saving devices invented by Armstrong himself, including a hydraulic lift, automatically-turned spits, and the Library which was the first room in the world to be lit by Joseph Swan’s newly invented filament light bulbs. 

With our good friends Roy and Kathleen, Pat and I went to Cragside last week. The weather was excellent, the food in the Visitor Centre well made and delicious and the walk round the house made more interesting by the helpful attendants.

In one of the rooms, on either side of the chimney breast, are these four stained glass windows designed by William Morris.