[70163] Edinburgh Castle : Scottish National War Memorial Window

Edinburgh Castle.

Scottish National War Memorial, 1923-27.

Hall of Honour.

Womens' Services Window by Douglas Strachan (1875-1950).

 

This building was opened on 14th July 1927 as a memorial to the Scottish dead of the First World War 1914-18 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII).

 

In the Middle Ages St Mary's Church stood on this site. In 1540 it was converted into a munition house then demolished in 1755 to make room for the North Barracks. The building was improved in 1863 by Robert Billings to give it a more picturesque appearance.

 

The army vacated the building in 1923 and Sir Robert Lorimer adapted it as the National Shrine. The building also commemorates the men who fell in the Second World War 1939-45.

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Born in Aberdeen in 1875 and educated at Robert Gordon’s, Douglas Strachan attended evening classes at Gray’s School of Art while working as an apprentice lithographer, then studied at the Life School of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in 1894-95.

 

After a stint as a political cartoonist on the Manchester Evening Chronicle in 1895-97, Strachan returned to Aberdeen as a mural and portrait painter before finding his passion for stained glass in a commission for St Mary’s Chapel of the historic Parish Kirk of St Nicholas.

 

By 1929 Strachan had gained an international reputation through the publicity surrounding his four huge windows of 1911-13 at the Peace Palace in The Hague. He also had significant experience of designing complete schemes, such as the war memorial windows of 1923-27 for the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle.

 

Strachan worked from his house, Pittendreich, in Lasswade, Midlothian, which had been designed by David Bryce in 1857 and specially adapted by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1928-29 to accommodate Strachan’s glass studio and kilns.

 

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