House lights down.
Every chandelier is first seen like this: in the dark, by one taper. Move yours across the glass. What answers is the room, turned upside down in four thousand facets.
Chandelier makers Stourbridge Glass Quarter Since 1868
The dark,
cut into colour.
Nocturne & Vale make crystal chandeliers to commission. Full lead glass, cut and pinned by hand, hung over ballrooms, opera houses and the occasional brave dining room.
Move the taper. Scroll to dim the house.
Act I First light
First light
One flame.
The lamplighter starts on the lowest tier, on the side nearest the door. A single flame is enough to find every crystal that faces it.
It catches.
The flame walks round the ring and climbs. Each tier is hung a hand wider than the one above, so the light seems to pour downwards as it rises.
Full blaze.
Now the walls join in. Each prism throws its own small spectrum, and together they drift across the plaster like weather.
Candles lit0/ 36
Act II Through the prisms
Through the prisms
Thirty per cent lead.
Lead makes glass heavy, soft enough to cut deep, and slow. Light takes a third longer to cross it, and every colour takes a slightly different road.
The fire.
That difference is what cutters call fire. A white flame goes in and leaves as red, gold and violet. We cut to push those roads as far apart as the glass allows.
Pinned, never glued.
Every octagon is joined to the next by a brass pin bent by hand. A five-tier piece carries about nine thousand of them, and each can be undone.
Act III Anatomy
Anatomy
Taken apart.
Once every twenty-five years a chandelier comes down and comes to pieces. This is No. 417 on the bench: the gilt frame up the middle, the glass laid out round it by kind.
And counted.
| Octagons | 0 |
|---|---|
| Spear prisms | 0 |
| Pendalogues | 0 |
| Spheres | 0 |
| Gilt frame parts | 0 |
And back.
Re-pinning takes two people nine days. Every crystal goes home to the hook it left. Nothing is left over at the end. We check.
Act IV The cut
The cut
The gather.
An iron goes into the pot at twelve hundred degrees and comes out with a kilo of glass the colour of a low sun. It has about ninety seconds of life in it.
The blank.
Blocked, pressed and left for a day and a half to cool evenly. It comes out of the lehr clear, grey and dull as a beach pebble.
The cut.
Fifty-eight facets, each held against a stone wheel by hand and by eye. There is no jig. The cutter counts under their breath.
The polish.
Felt, pumice, then tin oxide. The surface goes from frost to water, and the light finally gets in and cannot find the way out.
Glass1,240°CFacets0/ 58
Act V Four centuries
The same glass,
four silhouettes.
Fashions in chandeliers move slowly, about once a lifetime. We restore all four of these and still make them new. Keep scrolling: the crystals know where to go.
Sideways from here
1765
The Georgian
Glass arms, an urn stem and swags worn like a necklace. Light enough to hang from a single joist, and happiest over a long table.
- Light
- 16 candles
- Made new
- from £38,000
1810
Tent and bag
A tent of chains above a gilt hoop, a bag of chains beneath it. The Regency answer to a very tall room and a great many guests.
- Light
- 24 candles
- Made new
- from £72,000
1928
The waterfall
Stepped curtains of prisms, each ring longer than the last. Drawn for cinema foyers and ocean liners, and lit from inside.
- Light
- Concealed lamps
- Made new
- from £54,000
1966
The starburst
Rods thrown out from a core, every tip a spray of prisms. The opera house favourite of its decade, and a devil to dust.
- Light
- 46 points
- Made new
- from £61,000
Act VI The room
The room
House lights up.
Four metres of glass and a third of a tonne, on one hook. A chandelier is never finished on the bench. It is finished by the room it hangs in.
The floor does the rest.
A polished floor doubles the piece and hands the colour back to the ceiling. We survey the room before we draw a single line.
Your turn Compose a piece
Draw one for your room.
- Pieces
- 0
- Drop
- 0 m
- Across
- 0 m
- Weight
- 0 kg
- Bench time
- 0 months
- Guide
- £0
Drag the room to walk round it
Interval Someone has opened a door
Now ring it.
Sweep across the glass and the drops will swing. Each is cut to a length, and every length has a note. Turn the sound on to hear them.
0notes rung
Finale Encore
Encore
Every colour at once.
For gala nights we lamp the piece so it can run the whole spectrum. Nobody needs this. Everybody asks for it.
Then let go.
Four thousand crystals, no hooks. What a chandelier would do if the pins were only a suggestion.
Somewhere it is always night.
Which is when our work is seen. Every piece is numbered and logged, and we know where each of them is hanging.
The house Commissions
What we make,
mend and mind.
- 01
The Nocturne
Our tiered chandelier, two to five tiers, drawn for your room and numbered. Survey, drawing, making and hanging.
from £48,000
- 02
Vale lanterns and wall lights
Hall lanterns, sconces and girandoles cut to match a main piece, or to stand in for one on a low ceiling.
from £6,400
- 03
Period restoration
Taken down, stripped, re-pinned, re-gilt and rewired, with missing glass cut new to the old pattern.
from £9,800
- 04
The annual clean
Two of us, one day, white gloves and a tower. Every crystal washed in place and every pin checked.
£1,450 a visit
- 05
Stage and hire
Pieces on loan to productions, with a rigger who knows how they fly. The second act of several operas is ours.
from £2,200 a week
The house How a commission goes
Eleven months,
five visits.
- i
Survey
We measure the room, the ceiling and what is above it, and sit in the dark with a candle.
- ii
Drawing
A full-size drawing on linen, then a card model you can hang and live under for a fortnight.
- iii
The cut
Glass is gathered, pressed and cut while the frame is cast, chased and gilt next door.
- iv
Pinning
The piece is dressed in the workshop, lit, photographed, undressed and packed by tier.
- v
Hanging
Three days on site. We leave when the last drop hangs true and the first candle is lit.
The small print
- 1868The year Ada Nocturne and Josiah Vale lit their first pot
- 30per centLead oxide in every melt
- 417Numbered pieces hanging today
- 14Cutters, pinners and gilders on the floor
- 58Facets on a single pendalogue
- 25yrsOur re-pinning promise on every commission
Enquire No obligation, some tea
Tell us about the room.
Thank you
We would have written back by Thursday.
Nocturne & Vale is a fictional company, so nothing has been sent. If it were real, a drawing on linen would be on its way.