The Blake Memorial Window

In 2011 a stained-glass window commemorating Blake’s three-year residence on the Sussex coast was consecrated in the parish church of St. Mary’s, Felpham. A Norman building dating to c. 1100, St. Mary’s is a short walk from the thatched cottage that Blake and Catherine occupied between 1800 and 1803. The Blake memorial window was commissioned by St. Mary’s parish council in 2007 and was funded by the generous contributions of Felpham parishioners and Blake enthusiasts and by donations raised through local charitable events celebrating the 250th anniversary of Blake’s birth. The window was designed by the artist Meg Lawrence, whose work also includes painting with an egg-based tempera medium on wood panels, a medium similar to the one that Blake used, with animal glue and gum Arabic as the binding agents instead of egg, for some of his 1799 illustrations of the Bible.