York Minster’s Great East Window is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the country, a masterpiece in glass and stone depicting the beginning and end of all things.

(2012-2018)

In 2012, the National Lottery Fund made a transformational grant of £10.5 million to enable us to undertake York Minster Revealed, a £20 million major research and conservation project at York Minster that was completed in 2018. Central to the project was conserving and reinstating the 600-year-old Great East Window, the largest single expanse of medieval stained glass in Britain.

The window is the masterpiece of Coventry glazier John Thornton and was commissioned in 1405.  it took three years to complete, according to information gleaned from 17th-century copies of the medieval contract, which has long been lost.  The window was a work of immense ambition, depicting the beginning and end of all things, from the creation of the world as described in the book of Genesis, to the events that will presage the end of the world and the second coming of Christ as told in the visionary Book of Revelation, known in the Middle Ages as the Apocalypse. 

The project was not just about conservation; it provided apprenticeships in craft skills; it transformed the visitor experience through the provision of new facilities to improve access and the creation of York Minster’s state-of-the-art interactive Undercroft Museum, and digital displays to support interpretation of the Great East Window. In addition it enabled a new audience development plan and development of a learning programme to engage with new and existing audiences.

Craftsmanship

All 311 stained glass panels were removed from the 15th-century window, which is the size of a tennis court, in 2008 so York Glaziers Trust could begin the mammoth task of restoring the fragile masterpiece.

The project, which also involved the conservation or replacement of nearly 2,500 stones by York Minster’s stonemasons, was part of the cathedral’s £15m York Minster Revealed project, which ran from 2011 to 2016.

The project has involved the installation of state-of-the-art UV resistant protective glazing, which was the first time the material had been used in the UK and the largest worldwide use to date.

During the first phase of the project (2012-2016), the 157 panels narrating the Apocalypse were removed and painstakingly conserved at the York Glazier’s Trust Studios. In the second phase (2016-2018), the conservation of the remaining 154 panels was carried out. The panels were returned to the Minster following parallel work on the masonry at the East End, which involved the conserving or replacing of nearly 2,500 stones.

Previous protective glazing had acted as a weather shield, keeping pigments, lead, conservation materials and the original glass dry; however, it had not been an adequate barrier to ultraviolet radiation, which reacts with any epoxy resin used in the conservation of the stained glass, leading to a yellowing discolouration of that resin after prolonged exposure. For the York Minster Revealed project, a layer of new, state-of-the-art restauro®UV glass was added, so that each panel is now protected by this revolutionary external glazing incorporating UV-resistance within the structure of the glass itself. This was the first time this glass had been used in the UK.

It is reassuring to know that we are now able to offer total environmental protection for all aspects of the conserved window.

– Sarah Brown, former Director of York Glazier’s Trust

Fundraising

Although the Great East Window project is now complete, our work to protect our irreplaceable medieval glass is far from finished. The cathedral has launched an £11m, 20-year project with York Glaziers Trust to add environmental protective glazing to more than 70 of its unprotected windows, buying time for much needed conservative work.

The project is supported by an innovative fundraising campaign organised by the York Minster Fund (YMF) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). This involves a National Lottery grant of up to £1m from the HLF to match every pound raised by the public and YMF, which will be used to establish an endowment fund to help pay for the £11m project.

This means that for as little as £1, you can help us to protect our medieval masterpieces for future generations. If you’d like to support the campaign, you can donate online.