Hilton Marlton

Research project

Mouth-blown clear window glass of the long 18th and 19th centuries and its perception and value within UK heritage management and conservation practice.

Supervisors: Louise Cooke and Ashley Lingle

Summary of research project:

The lively, visual quality of historic window glass is frequently only appreciated once glazing is replaced. Historic window glass has distinctive transparency and its individual visual distortions and reflective qualities are characteristic of now extinct crown and cylinder-glass mass-production methods in the UK. More than 90% of UK historic window glass has been lost in the past four decades. Responding to this now critically endangered traditional building material, my research aims to map UK heritage planners and conservation practitioners to historic landscapes, and to gain an understand how they perceive and value surviving material.

It could be argued that contemporary Values Based approaches to conservation have generally succeeded in quantifying the significance of natural materials like timber and stone, but this approach seems to have failed historic window glass, which is a unique and finite resource. My project aims to include an examination of aesthetic responses and the ethics of authenticity within heritage management and conservation in the UK.