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Stained glass windows

STAINED GLASS WINDOWS

Stained glass making began life as a Christian art form a very long time ago. The instructions that the monk Theophilus wrote in 1100 AD have changed little over the previous 900 years. Most of the glass in St Clement owes its origin to the Gothic Revival that swept Britain in the nineteenth century, and although the history of the windows is interesting, the purpose of this guide is more “to illumine men’s minds so they may travel through it to an apprehension of God’s light”, as one medieval French abbot put it.

Stained glass was originally intended to convey Bible stories and messages to the illiterate, and although we now live in a time when most people can read, it has lost none of its power to inspire, as we hope you will soon discover.