I Hate Monday Dining

A leaded sign does not fail the way a printed one fails. The colour is in the body of the glass rather than on its surface, so it does not fade in sunlight and cannot peel; the only part that ages is the solder, and solder can be reworked.

If one bay breaks it comes out on its own: the seam around every piece is where the panel opens without disturbing its neighbours. A leaded sign is repaired rather than replaced, and it usually outlives the next refit of the room it hangs in.

Five bays of glass hanging in a steel frame directly above the counter. The frame was there before the glass was, so the sign had to follow it rather than the other way round. That is also why it could not have come from any stock pattern.

The top edge of the frame is not level — it rises toward the middle — so the lettering could not be divided evenly. The drawing had to solve that first: every bay a different width, and every word falling in the right place inside its own bay.

The glass was cut at the workshop and numbered against the drawing, because five bays fitted in the wrong order spell nothing. The letters are black glass on white textured glass — each stroke its own piece with a seam around it, so an 'o' takes two pieces rather than one.

Fitting meant lifting each bay up the scaffold into a steel frame already hanging on site. The frame went up first, so the glass had to be more accurate than the steel.