'Art treasure destroyed’

Press, 12 February 1982, Page 3

'Art treasure destroyed’

Two rare and irreplaceable stained glass lattice windows were among the $40,000 worth of windows destroyed when a man wielding an iron bar attacked St Barnabas’ Church in Fendaiton Road early yesterday morning. The two windows had been made 56 years ago by the world-renowned Whitefriars C hapel, in the English Midlands, which was itself bombed out of existence in the German “blitz.” “Whitefriars were the Rolls-Royce of stained glass window said the

vicar of St Barnabas, Canon R. A. Lowe, yesterday. “I have been told that the two windows we had were among the loveliest in the land. An art treasure has been destroyed,” he said. Canon Lowe said that his son had been wakened by the sound of breaking glass just after 3 a.m. as the man systematically worked ho way around the walls of the church. The police arrested a man, aged 26. He appeared in the District Court yesterday charged with wilful damage, and was remanded to Sunny-

side Hospital. Canon Lowe said that a total of 58 clear and stained glass “lights” in the lattice windows of the church had been smashed. Some of the stained glass windows destroyed represented “the living history of Christchurch.” They included the big West Window given by Kate Gerard at the end of the First World War, the Hamilton Window, the Hanmer Window, the Old Scholars of Fendalton School Window, and the Janet’Heygate Window.

All of the windows had just been cleaned after restoration work on the interior of the church. Canon Lowe said ther had been plenty of volunteers to help clean up the mess and board up the broken windows to keep the weather out. A Christchurch stained glass window maker, Mr Graham Stewart, had offered to repair the leadlight windows, but it was not known ho long the restoration work would take. “We are all praying fro the man who did it,” said Canon Lowe.