'Eight Titles of Mary', St Mary's, Bourne Street, Chelsea by Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope (Tor).

(I have just discovered that this lady was educated at my first school ....... so of course I will now make a point of looking for her work).

The Rose Window depicting eight titles of Our Lady is a memorial to Fr Humphrey Whitby, Vicar of St Mary’s from 1916-46. It replaced a window destroyed by bombing during World War Two.

Clockwise. Turris eburnea - Tower of ivory Stella matutine - Star of the morning Foederis arca - Ark of the covenant Speculum justitiae - Mirror of righteousness Janua coeli - Gate of heaven Vas honorabile - Vessel of honour Domus aurea - House of Gold Rosa mystica - Mystic rose

The window was designed by Margaret Edith Rope (1891–1988). Rope studied under Alfred Drury at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and went on to work at Lowndes & Drury, the firm he founded with Mary Lowndes (who designed the west window). She was a friend of the architect J Harold Gibbons through whom she obtained a number of commissions and who designed the font.

To distinguish herself from a cousin of the same name, also a stained glass artist, she used the professional name ME Aldrich Rope but was known to her family as 'Tor', short for tortoise. Some of her work is signed with this creature although, alas, not at St Mary's.

The two stained glass artists named Margaret Rope were first cousins, granddaughters of George Rope of Grove Farm, Blaxhall, Suffolk (1814-1912) and his wife Anne (née Pope) (29/3/1821-1/10/1882). Neither married: both were baptised Anglicans but died Roman Catholics.

The younger Margaret was the 5th child of Arthur Mingay Rope (himself George and Anne's 5th child: 1850-1945) and Agnes Maud (née Aldrich: 1855-1943). She was born on 29th July 1891 and christened Margaret Edith at St Margaret's Church, Leiston, Suffolk on 25th August. She died in March 1988.

Born into a farming family at Leiston on the Suffolk coast, Margaret Edith Rope found herself among artistic relatives at Leiston and Blaxhall, Suffolk: her uncle, George Thomas Rope, landscape painter and Royal Academician; her aunt Ellen Mary, sculptor; sister Dorothy, also a sculptor. In the family, her nickname was "Tor", for tortoise. She was later to use a tortoise to sign some of her windows.