John Robert Clayton and Alfred Bell

Clayton and Bell were among the finest and most successful stained-glass firms of the 19th Century. Clayton and Bell’s commissions included such sites as Rosslyn Chapel, Kings College Chapel in Cambridge and Lincoln Cathedral where they worked with many of those Makers involved with Two Temple Place.

The Two Temple Place Staircase ceiling is a stained-glass skylight with the date of completion, 1895, at its centre. Like many others involved at Two Temple Place they were long-time associates of John Loughborough Pearson and near the end of their careers (Bell died in 1895). They also worked at Cliveden, the Fitzrovia chapel and at Hever where they produced a trademark Astor project, recreating the coats of arms of all the previous owners in stained glass.

Clayton and Bell produced the Great Hall East and West Windows. They represent a Swiss landscape at ‘Sunrise’ and a more Italian landscape at ‘Sunset’. Clayton, the principal designer, treated the whole area of glass as one view, rather than as separate compartments, creating two picture windows – an unconventional approach for their time and one which follows German tradition from earlier in the 19th Century like that of Ainmiller. WWA would surely have known this tradition given his German education and travels.