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Red House Cone |
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1845 turned out to be an eventful year in the glass industry. Not only was the excise lifted, but the most famous piece of glassware in existence - the Portand Vase - was smashed by a drunken artist in the British Museum.
The Wordsley glaziers therefore embarked on what turned out to be the biggest publicity coup the industry had ever seen, and one that guaranteed the reputation of the Black Country glassworks for years to come. They would produce an exact copy of the Roman original, recreating a technique of glass-making lost for 2,000 years.
Stourbridge glassmaker who reproduced of the Portland Vase in the 1870s
© Broadfield House Glass Museum |
Not only did the Portland Vase contain three different colours of glass, fused together, it also required a skilled artist to carve the surface figures and decoration by hand.
The challenge took almost 30 years, but Wordsley produced not one, but two vases. The first (carved by John Northwood) cracked whilst it was being boxed for shipment to the British Museum. The second, commissioned by Benjamin Richardson and carved by John Locke of the Redhouse, was completed in 1878 and won a gold medal at the Paris exhibition. The reproduction triggered a huge demand for cameo glass from Wordsley.
With alternative sources of heat, the glasshouse cone has long ceased to be vital to the process of glass-making. The Red House Cone closed in 1936, when Stuart Crystal moved their operations across the road to Vine Street, bring to an end 150 years of glass-making within.
Stuart Crystal itself shut up shop in 2001. Luckily for the heritage and history of the area, it is rather easier to close a factory than it is to demolish a glasshouse, and the Red House Cone still stands as a powerful reminder of an industry that made the Black Country what it was, a place of toil, sweat and strange beauty.
Words: Chris Upton
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