Many stained-glass windows have pictures of saints, or of scenes from the Bible. But you may find windows with abstract designs like this one on the left, which is at Pudsey Unitarian Church, near Leeds.
Many stained-glass windows have pictures of saints, or of scenes from the Bible. But you may find windows with abstract designs like this one on the left, which is at Pudsey Unitarian Church, near Leeds.
One of the most modern windows can be seen in the chapel at Windsor Castle. It was designed by Joseph Nuttgens to recall the fire that ravaged the Castle.
Some of the oldest stained glass in England is in York Minster.
On the right you can see a section from the fifteenth century St William window. Here a wax taper, perhaps offered first at St William's shrine, is to be bound round a diseased limb to assist a cure. We can learn something about the way of life, and practices, of earlier periods from such stained-glass images.
Again on the right is another picture from the same window. This shows the shrine of St William with a man kneeling with a wax model of a leg, offering it to the saint in the hope of a cure. Other wax images hang behind him.
Elsewhere in Norwich, at the church of St Peter Mancroft, you can see how fragments of medieval stained glass have been pieced together.
Sometimes a stained glass panel is placed in an otherwise plain window of clear glass. Here at Underbank Chapel, Stannington, is a simple design of flowers.It has an appropriate text: Blessed are the meek.
Visitors to Bolton Priory in the Yorkshire Dales can see magnificent windows designed for this ancient church in 1843 by Pugin.
Perhaps you know the poem by Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen, which was written to commemorate those who died in battle in the First World War. This pair of windows, at Flowery Field Free Christian Church, Hyde, depicts some of the lines from that poem:
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
The windows are modern ones which were designed by member of the congregation, Vanessa Brooks. Sadly one was damaged during a break-in but has been skilfully repaired by Peter Gill of Droylsden
Sadly much stained glass was damaged in the second world war.The windows at Southampton Unitarian Church were restored in 1959 and then removed to the new church in 1990. You can see them here
One of the most striking twenty-first century stained-glass windows is in Oriel College, Oxford. It commemorates John Henry Newman, one of the founders of the Oxford Movement, who was a fellow of the college from 1825-1845. The Newman window has fourteen leaded lights and is almost 150 square feet in size.
The stained glass at Flagg Chapel
The Good Samaritan window at Heptonstall Methodist chapel
The Kiss, a window at St Martin's Emmaus, Dover
You may know of some particularly interesting stained glass.Please tell us about it