01 April 2011

Stained Glass Window


One of the first things you see on entering the Cathedral is the beautiful stained glass window. On closer inspection of the glass you notice that the stained glass does not form any particular picture, the windows although very pretty just appear to be a mosaic of colours

There is a reason for this - The original panes were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's forces following the English Civil War in 1642, broken with the bones of old kings as mentioned in another post! The broken glass was kept though and in 1660 after the restoration of the monarchy the stained glass was re-assembled randomly, as we see here today.

7 comments:

  1. !! What an ever-present reminder of those violent times!
    May your window never again be broken to pieces.

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  2. Glass was quite expensive and I guess this was quite a simple solution. Also as Dina said it is a very pertinent reminder.

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  3. What I love most about old Cathedrals is the stained glass!

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  4. It's great that they kept all the pieces for so long - as Paul says, glass was no doubt very valuable

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  5. In addition to the great window, I love the lighting too...
    :)

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  6. I rather like it like that, it's different from all the other cathedral windows that you see.

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  7. Stained glass windows create such atmosphere and this one has so much history. What stories those fragments of colored glass could tell.

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