Welcome to Christ Church Cathedral's 'How Did They Do That?' Family Trail

Welcome to Christ Church Cathedral’s ‘How Did They Do That?’ Family Trail Christ Church has teamed up with local makers to create a fascinating self-guided trail which explores the huge amount of work and the many materials and methods that were used to create the Cathedral building and its priceless collection of artefacts. Ever wondered how to make stone look like fur, how to carve wood or the secret to making coloured glass? Here’s your chance to find out, with help from the ex- perts. You can follow this trail in any order you like around the Cathedral. Directions to each object can be found at the start of each section. Where to find Chapel of St things... Laud North Quire South Transept Transept Crypt Entrance Carved pulpit Strongbow’s Entrance Tomb Baptistery Welcome Desk Stained Glass Windows These can be found all over the Cathedral — just look up! Stained glass windows tell stories. They were originally used to teach people who couldn’t read about the Bible. With sunlight shining through them, casting bright colours around the Cathedral, they provided quite a show. Almost like an early form of cinema, before films were even thought of… What is glass and how is it made? Glass is basically molten sand (silica). As obsidian it occurs naturally in volcanos. About 7,000 years ago people discovered that by adding soda ash or potash and lime to sand they could melt it themselves at a much lower temperature. How can you make different coloured glass? Coloured glass is produced by adding min- erals or metal oxides to the glass mix. Cop- per oxide for example gives blue and green, and cobalt makes blue-purple. The most expensive colour is red because you have to add pure gold to achieve a ruby red. This was a highly guarded secret. How do you make a leaded stained glass window? To make a large stained glass window a whole team of highly skilled craftspeople are involved. First a sketch is drawn to de- pict a biblical scene or a saint and coloured in. Then the cartoon is made, a full-size sketch, drawn on timber or card board, showing all the lead lines. This is copied onto paper and then cut out to get the patterns for all the individual pieces of glass. Then the glass is painted. The traditional method uses pigments mixed with gum arabic and water. This is applied in a thin layer to the whole surface of the glass. When dry, fine brushes are used to reveal the glass colour underneath again in places. This is called matting. The painted glass is then fired in a kiln to make the colours permanent. Incredibly fine lines, textures and shading can be achieved with this paint. Just look at the saints – you can almost count the hairs in their beards! Sometimes details are also etched. A glass piece, coloured on one side, is dipped into melted wax. When the wax is hard, the areas to be etched are scraped away on the coloured side of the glass. Then it is im- mersed in acid which eats away the exposed glass. To assemble all the glass pieces, long lead channels (cames) are used. The cross section looks like an H so the glass can slot in on each side. The cames are draped around all the glass pieces and cut to size. They are needed to hold all the pieces of the puzzle in place. Then the window is soldered together. To prepare for soldering all the lead joints are cleaned with steel wool and then rubbed with animal fat. This lets the solder, which is a mixture of tin and lead, flow more easily. This is a difficult job as too much heat melts away the lead cames or cracks the glass! As the glass pieces have different thicknesses the window is still wobbly after soldering and would let wind and rain through. So finally, all the tiny spaces and gaps have to be filled with a leaded cement and are then cleaned and pol- ished. The Stained Glass window is now finished and can be put in place! All the windows in Christ Church, apart from one, were designed by the architect George Ed- mund Street, when he restored the Cathedral in the 1870s. He selected three English stained glass firms to make the windows and gave them precise guidelines to paint them in the original thirteenth-century style. Contribution by glass artist Gerlinde Kugler www.gerlinde.ie Silverware - William III Plate Go downstairs to the crypt and find the showcase full of large candle- sticks, bowls and plates towards the back. This incredible collection of objects was given to the Cathedral by King William III of England (better known as William of Orange) to celebrate his victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. At this time the Cathedral also functioned as his personal chapel , when he was in Ireland, and this amazing altar-ware would have been used on special occasions, when he was here. These items were made using the techniques of Chasing and Repoussé. These terms are often confused and not without good reason since the two techniques are often used together We might as well think of slipping and sliding to realise how difficult it is to establish a clear definition, particular to each process. In general, repoussé is mainly a 3D or relief method and chasing is more often a 2D or linear technique. Another useful division is to think of repoussé as a process that creates relief without significantly altering the thickness of the starting sheet. The metal is pushed and pulled but its thickness remains the same. This differs from chasing where the ability of metal to compress is used to create relief. Some areas remain at their original height while other areas are compacted to make them lower. These techniques share several properties. pieces or large sculptural pieces. They can be worked on tiny jewelry In both cases hammers are used to press pencil-like steel tools against metal, forming or compressing it, or both. Both repoussé and chasing can be worked on all the High karat gold, fine silver and copper jewellery metals with ease. while pale brass, nickel silver and steel respond very well, require greater effort. This is the back of the large plate, showing an example of repoussé. You can see how the shapes have been hammered out. This is the right side of the plate showing both techniques. Repoussé and chasing both require that the metal be well anchored on a resistant surface for working. In both cases a material called jew- ellers pitch does the job. It consists of three principle ingredients: 3 parts Pitch - originally a residue derived from tree resins, but now produced from petrol . 2 parts Binder - brick dust or dry plaster are added to give the pitch more body. 1 part Lubricant - linseed oil, beeswax, or tallow are added to make the pitch softer. These ingredients are blended in a pot at a low heat and stirred with a stick until well blended. It is possible for pitch to catch fire if it gets too hot so you must watch the pot at all times! Remember those torches in Frankenstein movies? RememberThey were thosemade torches of pitch... in Frankenstein movies? They were made of pitch... Contribution by silversmith Edward Cook www.waylandsforge.com Wood Carving Make your way to the Quire in the centre of the Cathedral Take a good look at the intricately carved stalls where the famous Christ Church Cathedral choir sing and the impressive chair or ‘Cathedra’ where the Archbishop of Dublin sits when he is in the Cathedral. All this carving dates from the 1870s when the Cathedral was restored. The Craftsmen who worked on Christ Cathedral would have had a deep under- standing of the materials they were using. They would have been appren- ticed to a Master Wood- carver for at least 7 years before they qualified as working tradesmen. The apprentice would have learned many things in the workshop before he even touched a piece of wood - how to sharpen tools, the properties of wood and of course learn- ing how to draw and read drawings. The study of drawing is es- sential to woodcarving. If you don’t have the ability to draw a certain design, you will probably not be able to carve it. Sometimes the preparatory drawings made by woodcarvers are works of art in their own right. Drawing is 2 dimensional and woodcarving is 3 dimensional. To help the apprentice with the under- standing of 3 dimensions, modeling in clay was used for practice. A high level of self-discipline was required as a carver could spend anything from 8 to 10 hours a day at his bench under instruc- tion from the Master Carver. When searching for inspiration for their designs, woodcarvers often looked to nature. Oak and Agapanthus leaves were par- ticularly popular for their beautiful shapes. Fruit and flowers also make regular appearances. Agapanthus leaves Oak leaves Grapes What inspired the Christ Church Carv- ers? See how many different plants, fruit and flowers you can spot... Chisels and gouges are the tools used by woodcarvers. A carver may have up to 300 gouges. Tools were made in the workshop on demand by the carvers themselves. If a particular job needed a certain tool to get into a difficult area then it was To cut wood efficient- specially made.

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