A MAJOR restoration of a unique stained-glass window at St Helier Town Church has been taking place – after being shattered by an egg being thrown.
Neil Mackenzie has been specialising in restoring and creating real stained-glass for four decades.
Given how difficult it can be to exactly match up shattered pieces with the intricate designs on church windows, great care is taken to maintain them.
But, one casual egg toss destroyed the design that had been in place for more than a century-and-a-half.
Mr Mackenzie said: “In forty years, I have never seen anything like it. Half of the egg shell was still attached when it was found.”
He explained that the glass the windows are made from is usually only 3mm thick.
“This window was 160 years old- but we are fixing it to hopefully last another 160. The two big windows at the back of the church are very important.
“I have painted faces on to a lot of figures on the glass panels. So, if it’s broken, I take a tracing of it and put it all together in the studio. The glass gets fired at up to 650 degrees in the kiln”, he added.
Mr Mackenzie works from his own studio – Visionary Fine Arts – which he set up independently in 1986 shortly after training at Teesside College of Art and Design.
He has completed and supported lots of projects throughout his career- including winning the JJ Fox competition with his painting ‘Flowers in a Vase’ while one of his other works – of the Red Arrows flying over Elizabeth Castle – is on permanent display in Jersey Airport.
He has also put stained-glass windows in nearly 18 churches across France and several murals in Jersey. He is travelling to Paris next week to install a small window in a district of the city.
He added: “The last funny project I did was when a chap wanted the Michelin man on the panels in his front door. So I did that, and even created a ‘Michelin man dog’ for one of the panels.”
He has previously worked on stained-glass windows in St John’s Church, Rozel Manor, and Georgetown Methodist Church among others in the Island.
