Friday 28 June 2013

Stained Glass in St Giles

I've been in St Giles Cathedral on numerous occasions over the years, they have music in there sometimes and some great stained glass. They also have a photography policy founded on some fine Scottish principals so, while passing by last week, I parted with the required £2, after which I was allowed to snap away to my hearts content.

Probably the newest window in the church and certainly one of the hardest to miss is right over the door as you go in. It is the 1985 Robert Burns window by Icelandic artist Leifur Breidfjord. He is responsible for the decorative porch around the front door too which was built in 2010. I didn't take any photos of it but it can be seen quite clearly under his window in this photograph.



A window designed by Burne-Jones.



In the North wall is this quite spectacular window by Douglas Strachan.





 Ballantine and Sons of Edinburgh were responsible for making more of the windows in St Giles than anyone else. As far as I can see these were put in between 1872 and 1883.



This window by Karl Parsons features four Scottish (or at least Scottish connected) saints - Saint Columba, Saint Andrew, Saint Mund (Mungo)
 


Although Karl Parsons is not perhaps a household, his work did feature on the Christmas stamps of 1992 which may be familiar.


 There are a series of windows high up in the church, according to this page some are also by Douglas Strachan including this one......


.....and this image of St Giles.  As patron saint of the church (indeed the city) he carries a model of the building in his arms.


Though not quite up in the heavens of the church, this window is certainly not in a place where it catches the eye easily. It bears the badge of the Black Watch regiment and for all there's no sign of a signature (it could be obscured by the ledge) it has the style of William Wilson whose work I seem to be seeing quite a lot of these days (see this blog)


This window features the royal coat of arms from the Thistle Chapel which is a blog all to itself.


4 comments:

Poppy (aka Val) said...

Wow Sandy, these stained glass windows are wonderful, I need to go and see them for myself....! Thank you so much for sharing, I think I will be back for another look very soon :D

The Glebe Blog said...

Should you ever decide to pack in being a chemist Sandy, you must have an amazing portfolio of stained glass windows to start you on a new career.
Have you been to the museum at Ely Cathedral yet?


Sandy's witterings said...

Val, There's lots in Edinburgh well worth a look. I'm there with some regularity and haven't got bored with it yet.

It has to be said my photo folders do have a fairly heavy percentage of stained glass - not quite sure I could turn it into enough pennies to keep the wolf from the door. (looking at window by day and playing tunes by night - what a living)
Ely has evaded me so far - I more than likely will happen on it at some point.

Shundo said...

Amazing collection of different styles and colours. The lion sticking its tongue out in the last shot is a stand-out - I look forward to to the post on the coat of arms.