London Ontario's Stained Glass Heritage

Image from tedgooddennstainedglass.com

Tonight I attended my second meeting of the London Middlesex Historical Society. I've been meaning to join for eons, and finally did it tonight.

Ted Goodden, local stained glass artist and restoration expert, made a presentation about London's unique stained glass heritage. He's an expert all right -- he learned his craft in England and has traveled all over Canada. It's his opinion that London, Ontario has the densest amount of domestic stained glass in the country -- and after my walk home, I have to agree.

I have never before noticed how much stained glass is in our city! It's true -- I just assumed that in every city, old houses had stained glass, but I guess it just isn't the case. I grew up with the understanding that stained glass was something very desirable to have in your home, that it sort've indicated that your place was of "good stock." My husband and I dream about getting our small side windows filled by Mr. Goodden, perhaps commissioning work from him someday if we can afford it. If only our house came with London's signature stained glass!

Turns out, London had a very successful stained glass entrepreneur between the 1890s and 1920s named Col. Thomas Hobbs, who ran a huge hardware chain and had a giant factory on the block surrounded by Ridout, York, Talbot and the tracks. He made affordable stained glass and worked with builders during the boom of that period to put stained glass in all the downtown houses that he could -- he was a smart businessman. This is why so many of our century homes have windows specifically designed to hold stained glass pieces. Sure, lots of heritage homes in lots of cities have stained glass, but it's true that London has more! As I walked home through Blackfriars, almost every home I passed had a stained glass transom or keyhole window. This was something I had never appreciated in the past.

The picture I found online for this post shows the detailed patterned glass of the kind Hobbs had shipped in from Europe for Londoners' homes. There's a huge variety of windows, from very affordable to super expensive and ornate, in both the downtown and London's east end. Hobbs used his fortune to build a huge estate in Hyde Park (available for rent in the summer, I understand) with elaborate gardens and lots and lots of stained glass windows. His company also made leaded windows, many of which you can see in Old North, including my grandma's house on Cheapside Street.

If you've had dinner at Ben Thanh, and you've used the bathroom, you've walked through some of the remaining basement structures of Hobbs' original factory. Now it smells like fish and cleaning supplies. Who knows what it smelled like back then?

At any rate, I know some people think the Historical Society is for fuddy-duddies, but it's super fantastic. If your interested, you can find out more at the London Heritage website. It's only $20 for the year, and I think I'm going to be very glad I joined. And, oh yeah, I'm presenting there in May on Hotel London.