The artists were allowed to exercise their own interpretations beyond that. The requirement was for ten high lights which posed a significant technical challenge for Lee. He enlisted two former students; Geoffrey Clarke and Keith New, to collaborate on the designs. They worked individually on three each and together on the tenth, using the mural studio of the Victoria and Albert Museum adjacent to the RCA. They treated the windows as pairs, Lawrence designing the red and gold, symbolic of early manhood. Jane Gray, Lee's assistant at this time, also worked on the project with him. The whole project took six years. After four years, in 1960, the first six windows completed were assembled for the first time and exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum where they drew a lot of attention. They were then stored until the consecration of the cathedral in 1962. Coventry established Lawrence's reputation, and with it came greater acceptance of a more modern, abstract style which Lee was able to develop through the 1960s. Whilst the Coventry project was in progress, Lee also worked on smaller commissions. Lee created three small windows for the Unitarian Church, Croydon in 1959. Lee's large three-light window in the retrochoir of Southwark Cathedral, completed in 1959, depicts a dove in the top light, the Virgin with the child Jesus carrying a set-square in the centre and, in the lower light, stonemasons, carpenters and a glazier on a ladder commemorating the donation of the widow by the family of Thomas Rider whose firm had rebuilt the cathedral's nave in 1895. The dove representing the Holy Spirit was a recurring theme in many of Lee's works. Lee's knowledge of bird anatomy assisted in this. Lee is alleged to have insisted to his RCA students that "doves representing the Holy Spirit should not resemble stuffed pigeons". The success of Coventry led to another large commission for 10 clerestory windows for the Church of St Andrew and St Paul in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the early 1960s. Other commissions came from across the UK, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A few examples are of Lee's work through the following three decades are given below. In 1967 Lee created an east window for St James Church, Abinger, Surrey, comprising three lights depicting a cross as a living tree, riven by lightning & distorted. Ian Nairn, architect and critic, described it as "much the best modern glass in the county". Major refurbishment of headquarters of the Chemical Society (now the Royal Society of Chemistry), Burlington House, London, in 1967–68 allowed Lee to undertake one of his relatively few secular works.