falklands Stillhouse Window - Section of the 10-metre fused glass artwork with copper stills in the background

Falklands War Memorial

Pangbourne College Chapel, Pangbourne, Berkshire

Pangbourne, GB, 2000

The Project

The Commission

Falklands War Memorial Window

Commissioned 1999 — 4.2 × 4.2 metres

Water, sky and earth — a journey of 8,000 miles, rendered in light and glass.

The Commission

Pangbourne College has strong naval traditions, and its chapel serves a dual purpose — as a national shrine to those who fell in the Falklands conflict, and as the daily chapel of the college. The brief was precise in some respects and open in others. The colours of the islands were specified — blues of sea and sky, greens of the land contrasting with dark rocks. Ships, figures, crests, and insignia were explicitly excluded. The window should reflect the Falklands War, memorialise the dead, invoke the deity, and arrive at peace out of chaos.

When invited previously to design the Lockerbie Window, the artist was asked to create a memorial and not a reminder. The same precept guided this work.

John Kenneth Clark standing in front of the 10-metre falklands Still House Window

The Composition

The design is built from three natural elements — water, sky, and earth — which carry a deliberate military resonance: the Navy and Submariners, the Air Force, and the Army and SAS who all participated in the conflict. Together they trace the journey of the Task Force — 44 warships and over 70 support vessels — almost 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic and back.

The composition moves from turbulent sea at the base, through the green islands emerging from the water, to the crystal clarity of the Falklands sky at the top. Horizontal perspective conveys both the distance travelled and the isolation of these small islands far from home.

At the centre lies a subtle cross — a symbol of sacrifice, woven into the landscape rather than imposed upon it. The horizontal arm suggests the islands and the still waters of San Carlos, their inlets and anchorages rendered with the reflective quality of lament. The vertical arm divides the sea into the outward and homeward journey, and honours the extraordinary feat of the Parachute regiments and 45 Commando who crossed the islands on foot — liberating Goose Green, Darwin, and the mountains surrounding Stanley before the final liberation of Stanley itself.

The angled architecture of the chapel embraces the window from both sides, the light reaching it from two directions simultaneously, shifting through the day.

the angel share scents and flavours in as glass jewels

maturation of the whisky and development of flavours

Symbolism

The sea carries its ancient meaning — the primordial waters, chaos, formlessness, the source of all life and all possibility. The sky above speaks of transcendence, infinity, and order in the universe. The rock and earth of the islands beneath represent permanence, stability, and endurance.

The cross at the centre holds all three together — emerging from the landscape itself, present but not proclaimed.

Method

The window comprises approximately one hundred individual panels, each approximately 450 mm square — a self-contained sealed double-glazed unit with the stained glass as the inner layer and a sandblasted float glass outer face, which diffuses natural and supplemental light evenly across the surface.

The sea and sky panels are worked entirely in acid-etched flashed glass — a thin layer of colour bonded to a paler base, selectively removed by etching to achieve the full tonal range of the South Atlantic light. A technique with a lineage stretching back to the fourteenth century.

The panels within the cross receive additional treatment — glass painting in traditional black glass paint to deepen colour and reinforce form, and silver staining fired into the surface of the glass, which transforms clear glass to amber and blue glass to green. It is this combination of three techniques that gives the cross its particular luminosity — felt before it is fully understood.