Joan Glass

Her father, was a senior partner and later chairman of James Templeton & Co, then one of the leading makers of carpets in Britain.

During the war Glass joined the Women's Royal Naval Service and worked in military censorship.

The Bardfield art community fragmented in the early 1960s and Glass and her family (which now included four sons) briefly moved to London before relocating to (15th century) Little Baddow Hall, near Chelmsford, Essex.

Musicians and artists attracted to the centre included Howard Shelly, the Medici Quartet, John Miller and Andy Warhol, as well as prominent local artists Geoffrey Burnand, John Doubleday and Humphrey Spender.

According to her obituary, the Arts Centre’s ‘enormous popularity was due in no part to Joan’s own stamp of style and sophistication, combined with a welcoming lack of pretension.'