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Stained Glass in Wales

The Stained Glass in Wales Project ran from 2009 until 2011 at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. The medium is commonly found across the country in churches large and small, present in almost every community in Wales. As in England, stained glass has received relatively little attention from art and religious historians, and the new online Stained Glass in Wales Catalogue is among the largest searchable catalogues of stained glass published anywhere in the world.

The project drew initially on the biblical stained glass of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, recorded while I was working on the Imaging the Bible in Wales Project between 2005 and 2008. I undertook much new fieldwork from places all around Wales, and my archive now contains well over 10,000 photographs of stained glass in Wales, mainly from places of worship. There are over 6,000 photographs on the Stained Glass in Wales Catalogue, including context and exterior views of churches.

The Virgin Mary, from the fifteenth century Crucifixion at the Church of St Cadwaladr, Llangadwaladr, Angelsey		Joan Howson, St Michael, 1958, Church of St Michael, Llanfihangel-y-traethau

The catalogue is available via the servers of the National Library of Wales. I am very grateful to Nigel Callaghan of Technoleg Taliesin for his creative technical help in realising the project, as well as those who helped to fund the project: the University of Wales Welsh Industries Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Trustees of the Friends of Friendless Churches.

After the end of the funding for this project, I have continued to research stained glass in Wales and monitor the online catalogue on a voluntary basis, occasionally adding further photography as time permits. Since about 2011, I commenced work on a history of stained glass in Wales, and this book, Stained Glass from Welsh Churches, was published in June 2014.

I have also written and designed guides to the stained glass in two churches in Wales, Llanfihangel Genau'r Glyn (2013) and the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tenby (2014). I welcome commissions from churches to publish books and leaflets about their stained glass.

For an overview of stained glass in Wales please see my Feature article in Vidimus

Stained Glass in Wales Catalogue

Stained Glass from Welsh Churches