THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

THE OLD CHURCHES OF WIRRAL
the various pieces of glass together, were
very narrow, not more than ^\ of an
inch in width, and very different in this
respect from the leads in use up to within
a comparatively recent date.
The beauty of stained glass is not, of
course, destroyed by the presence of these
black lines of lead and iron, on the con-
trary it gains enormously, for large pieces
of unrelieved colour are trying to the eye,
and the continual contrast of the metal
work enables one to appreciate the
brilliance and colour of the glass.
" All the early coloured glass with the
exception of ruby," says Philip Nelson,
*' was formed of pot-metal glass, i.e. glass
coloured throughout its substance by the
addition to clear white glass of various
mineral oxides. Ruby glass, upon the
'
other hand, was merely a coated glass,'
thickness of
i.e. clear glass with a varying
ruby glass superimposed, and was produced
after the following fashion :— the
workman, first having formed thereon a
suitable mass, he then dipped it into a pot
of ruby, and proceeded to blow the glass
and spread it out into a sheet in the usual
manner. By this means a sheet was pro-
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