Recclesia Stained Glass has been appointed to provide stained glass consultancy services to Birmingham Cathedral as part of the Divine Beauty project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Working alongside conservation architects Nick Cox and Kathryn Harris, we will be undertaking extensive close-quarters survey work of the four tremendous Edward Burne-Jones stained glass windows to the East and West ends of the Cathedral. Widely regarded as some of the finest examples of Victorian stained glass in the world, the windows are also considered to be of exceptional significance within the context of Burne-Jones works of art as a whole. The windows were made by the William Morris studio, later Morris & Co, between 1887 and 1897, and survived the wartime bombing of the church thanks to being removed and stored in a Welsh mine shortly before the fire bombs hit the city.
Conservators from the Recclesia conservation studio including Jamie Moore, Lee Bilson, Kat Walton and Carlotta Cammelli, will be working alongside the wider project team to put access in place to survey the stained glass and provide a detailed condition report with recommendations for remedial conservation work, alongside a detailed study to reassess the historic significance of the stained glass within the context of Burne-Jones' work and the wider canon of Victorian stained glass.