For nearly 90 years, thousands of broken pieces from Coventry Cathedral’s 15th-century stained glass windows remained hidden away in 30 wooden crates in a cellar. The colorful windows had survived centuries of damage, including the Reformation and the bombing of the cathedral in 1940 during the Second World War. Now, after a major project to photograph and catalogue the fragments, people can explore this rare collection online for the first time.
The original windows were made by John Thornton, a master glassmaker from Coventry. Conservator Laura Atkinson, who led the project, described the artwork as stunning. The surviving pieces show biblical scenes, praying donors, whimsical beasts, and human faces. Atkinson noted that medieval painters often drew themselves, giving modern viewers a direct connection to artists from hundreds of years ago. Some fragments even feature imitation gems, which required craftspeople to scrape away parts of the glass to insert colored pieces.
Because the glass was mixed together over the centuries, parts of the collection now form panels of jumbled fragments. Andrew Hines, head of heritage at the cathedral, described the collection as "a medieval jigsaw puzzle." Experts had long known the glass existed, but its full importance was unclear while it remained packed in boxes. Researchers hope the digital archive will allow further study, and that artificial intelligence tools may one day help reconstruct how the original windows looked.