News and events

After many years working almost exclusively on stained glass in Wales, I am beginning a new project that will start to catalogue stained glass in the north-west of England. Beginning in the area around Chester, the Wirral, and Liverpool, I will be recording stained glass from all kinds of buildings. Complementing this work, I will also be adding many more windows to the online 'Stained Glass in Wales' catalogue, particularly across the border in Flintshire and Denbighshire, and in and around Cardiff. This will be the foundation for comparative studies between Liverpool and Cardiff, and across the border from north Wales into Cheshire.

A new website cataloguing work associated with the teaching and making of stained glass in Swansea is now available. Addition of work to the website for the Swansea Stained Glass Archive was funded by the Colwinston Trust, building on pilot work funded by the University of Wales Trinity St David, working with the stained glass artist Christian Ryan. The archive of student work at Swansea College of Art includes hundreds of panels and many works on paper. The website also includes listings of some of the works on paper made by Marilyn Griffiths, and surviving cartoons from Glantawe Studios.

Recent talks include an evening lecture for the Biblical Landscapes event in Bangor in June, and a further lecture in Bangor for the Deiniol a Diwylliant symposium at the cathedral in September.

The following week I contributed to conferences in Münster (on cataloguing stained glass) and Aberystwyth. The Gorwelion (Horizons) conference in Aberystwyth celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, where I have been based for most of the last twenty-six years.

A second edition of Jonathan Cooke's guide for glass painting, Time and Temperature, was published in August by Sulien Books, with copies available from the artist's website. I also worked with my colleague Mary-Ann Constantine on a booklet for Whitford church, published in October.

In the summer I recorded segments in churches in north Wales for an episode focused on stained glass of 'Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol', which was broadcast on S4C in October 2025, and remains available on iPlayer until January. Recording took place at Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch, where the famous medieval Tree of Jesse window is found, and at Llandyrnog, where there is a more fragmentary window consisting mainly of medieval glass. Gareth Morgan takes up the story at Christchurch near Newport in the second half of the programme, where he talks about the window that he made for the church.

The summer also saw completion of a website that I designed and built for the Lampeter Ministry Area. The Teifi Faith Trail includes 22 churches in the vicinity of the Upper Teifi Valley, in south-east Ceredigion and north-west Carmarthenshire. I provided all of the photography for the website, and helped with texts for some of the churches and the themes explored on the site, such as stained glass, the early medieval inscribed stones, and the saints chosen as patrons of the churches. Some of these saints, such as Gartheli, Bledrws and Gwenog, are especially obscure!

 

New publications by Sulien Books

Two new books on stained glass were published by Sulien Books in the spring of 2025. One describes the stained glass at the Church of St John the Evangelist at Porthmadog, and the other is the first publication by Sulien Books on a church outside Wales – on the stained glass at Holy Trinity Church, Ashford-in-the-Water, in Derbyshire. It was researched and written by Ian Pykett, with photography by Martin Crampin. This is the first publication by Sulien Books for a church outside of Wales, hopefully the first of many! The six windows at Ashford-in-the Water are all by different makers, including a west window by Morris & Co, with figures designed by Edward Burne-Jones, one of which is featured on the cover. At Porthmadog, about half of the windows can be attributed to Lavers & Westlake, and a couple of windows commemorate managers of the Ffestiniog Railway.

 

More work for the Curious Travellers Project

In April 2024 I designed a book with colleagues at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies for the Curious Travellers project. This accompanies an exhibition, which I also designed the information panels for, at Greenfield Valley Heritage Park near Holywell.

Around the same time I set up a website for Whitford church as part of a strategy to make it into a Heritage Hub for the area, and am writing a booklet on the church with my colleague Mary-Ann Constantine. I also designed explanatory panels and a booklet for a further project exhibition at Gilbert White's House in Selborne, Hampshire, in spring 2025, working with colleagues from the Natural History Museum and the University of Cambridge.

 

Capturing the Moment Symposium, Swansea

A day symposium at Swansea College of Art was held on 25 November 2023 to reflect on the stained glass archives in Swansea College of Art and elsewhere in Wales. Speakers included Dr Jasmine Allen (Stained Glass Museum, Ely), Dr Reinhard Köpf (Heritage Department, Mönchengladbach) and some of the major figures in British architectural stained glass artists who trained or taught on the Stained Glass course in Swansea.

Alexander Beleschenko, Amber Hiscott and Rodney Bender recalled their time in Swansea College of Art in a panel discussion, as well as the German artists who were invited over to Swansea by Tim Lewis, head of the stained glass course from 1972 until 1995.

A visit to see the stained glass at Coychurch Crematorium took place on the following day, when Roger Hayman, Rodney Bender, Alex Beleschenko and Christian Ryan spoke about their work for the crematorium. I have been working on a book about the stained glass at Coychurch Crematorium that I hope wil be published in 2025.

 

 

Previous news and events    Recent talks