Glass treasure trove found in Abbey attic

SHARDS of stained glass found in the attic of Westminster Abbey are to be recycled into new windows.

Some of the glass dates back to the 13th-century and was found during a clearout of the medieval triforium, 70ft above the floor of the Abbey.

The area, which has been a storage space for hundreds of years, is being cleared to prepare the way for a new museum set to open next year.

Warwick Rodwell, consultant archaeologist to the Abbey, told the Guardian: “Once I saw the glass, the penny dropped. I realised this was treasure, not rubbish, and we would have to go through every inch of it. The workmen thought I was mad,” he said.

He ordered dust and soot from the attic space to be brought down to ground level in buckets and handsorted by archaeologists. They found 30,000 separate piece of glass, some as small as fingernails.

The finds are all medieval, apart from one piece of Victorian glass, and the best pieces include an image of a weeping Virgin Mary dating from the 15th-century, and a painted head of a prophet which the experts believe is made by the same craftsman who created a window at Canterbury Cathedral. The oldest pieces are believed to date back to windows created for Henry III in the 13th-century, and the archaeologists even managed to match a 14th-century griffin’s head and tail.

As well as the glass, the experts also found invitations to the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702, scraps of animal bone from workmen’s lunches, a medieval leather knife sheath and a 17th-century playing card.

Canterbury’s stained glass studio is now working on sorting the items, which are to be matched by shape and colour and fitted into new glass frames

‘Once I saw the glass, the penny dropped. I realised that this was treasure, not rubbish’

which will be installed in the tower before the new area opens next June.

The new museum will mark the first time the public has ever been admitted to the space, which is reached by a spiral staircase of 78 steps, and means that visitors will be able to see the Abbey from a bird’s eye view for the first time.

Mr Rodwell added that the find was a cautionary tale to other historic buildings: “Heaven alone knows what treasures we have lost, but at least what we have done here will serve as a warning to other places to not just bin the lot.”