Through a glass brightly

What do footballs, Ford Fiestas, Thomas the Tank Engine and Sainsbury’s have in common? They can be found in modern stained-glass windows throughout the land, reveals Harry Wallop

Footballs, Ford Fiestas and Sains- bury’s all feature in stained-glass windows, reveals Harry Wallop

LAst year, a pair of majestic, contemporary stained-glass windows were unveiled at Leicester Cathedral. Created by the celebrated stained-glass artist tom Denny, they commemorate the life of Richard III, now interred at the cathedral. they are a mostly abstract sea of red and blue, with the occasional sketchy figure depicting the life of the king whose life ended at the Battle of Bosworth.

However, in the corner of one of the panes is a tiny picture of a football, nestled among some grass in the grounds of Kirby Muxloe Castle. this is Mr Denny’s tribute to Leicester City’s unexpected triumph in the Premier League season of 2015/16. It’s become quite a thing for visitors to see, if they can spot the strangely modern object amid the abstract trees and smoke of the windows. When they do, it brings a smile to their face just as much as noticing the owls dotted around Wells Cathedral.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only depiction of a football in an English church’s stained glass. there’s the tribute to Duncan Edwards, one of the ‘Busby Babes’ killed in the 1958 Munich air disaster, at his local church in Dudley, West Midlands. Aged just 21 when he died, he is captured in his Manchester United kit, with the inscription from Chronicles: ‘God is with us for our Captain.’

there is also the boy clutching a ball in the parish church of West Runton, Norfolk, who’s part of a 1959 family scene, including his father in a modern suit with turn-ups and his mother in a cocktail dress. He was captured by Harry stammers, one of the finest postwar stained-glass artists, who revelled in depicting stylised but detailed scenes of modern life: a miner in Yorkshire, a housewife in Bristol.

there is something delightfully incongruous about the touches of modernity captured by stammers, who died in 2011. New stained-glass works tend to shy away from figurative scenes—and certainly from ones that capture the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. As sir Paul Britton, vice chair of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission, explains: ‘the really big commissions go to a relatively small number of artists, most of whom are abstract artists.’ However, if you hunt hard enough, they exist—and, when you find them, they’re a joy.

In st Andrew’s, Hornchurch, there’s a red Ford Fiesta, a tribute to the car company’s Dagenham factory in the parish. In the same window, there’s a woman tapping away at a computer made by Amstrad, the headquarters of which are also nearby. One likely to appeal to children is the memorial window in st Mary Magdalene, Rodborough, Gloucestershire, dedicated to its former vicar, Wilbert Awdry—better known as the author of the ‘thomas the tank Engine’ books. the 1998 widow features thomas himself looking rather mournful.

sir Paul isn’t a fan of many of these examples: ‘I regard most of these as aesthetically worthless, I don’t pay much attention to them. too often the drawing is feeble and they are sentimental, they don’t have any force.’ However, even he admits there are exceptions: glass that manages not just to capture modern life, but elevates it to such extent that the temporal becomes spiritual.

the most spectacular is a set of windows in London’s Christ Church, southwark, which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe during the second World War. Rebuilt and rededicated in 1959, the windows capture scenes from the parish throughout its long history and up to the present. there is a housing estate; a civil-service office with a manager leaning on a filing cabinet, giving dictation to a secretary; some char ladies mopping a floor, with a Bakelite telephone on a dresser; Bankside power station (now tate Modern); and three women—one clutching a shopping basket with loaves and what could be fish— waiting at the bus stop outside the church, still there and still serving the 45 bus route. In 1984, the church commissioned some more. these feature a sainsbury’s supermarket—the company’s headquarters were in the parish at the time—and perhaps the only example of Brutalist architecture captured in stained glass: sampson House, a late1970s building designed to house the Lloyds Bank servers.

the current rector, Jonathan Coore, loves them. ‘the whole point of the church—indeed, of the Church of England—is that it’s meant to be part of the congregation it serves, not separate to it,’ he enthuses. ‘It should be embedded in the community and these windows are a wonderful reminder of that. they celebrate the diversity of the area.’

He’s right. this church is both an oasis of quiet from the traffic of Blackfriars Road and a celebration of the city and its workers, whose labours are as much worth honouring as the goldsmiths, bakers and tailors captured in the guild windows of medieval England. seek them out if you have a chance.

‘The glass elevates modern life so that the temporal becomes the spiritual’