The Cathedral Studios

27/07/2026

Discover the latest episode of The Living Church Podcast 'Through a Glass Brightly with Léonie Seliger' featuring our own Director of The Cathedral Studios.

Léonie shares the origins and theology of stained glass, its limits and complexities of the art, and some inside stories about the stained glass in Canterbury Cathedral.

What mysteries wink at us from the bright colors of stained glass? An interview with the Director of Canterbury Cathedral Studios

21/07/2026

The Duke of Gloucester has officially unveiled our new stained glass window at Goudhurst Church! See below for more information on the restoration works and to see more of Leonie's beautiful creation.

Goudhurst Friends of St. Mary’s Canterbury Cathedral

25/06/2026

What a dish!

The current window in the studio for the Thomas Becket Miracle Window research and conservation project is sII. This window has shocked visitors for years with the extent of bowing happening within the panels. Looking up from the Cathedral floor was like looking at a choppy sea on a windy day. The photos cannot do it justice!

This extreme distortion had reached the point where the bending strain was causing glass pieces to break. The panels were pressing against the external protective glazing, causing even more stresses! After several years of monitoring and trials to help us understand the many factors that cause these problems, we were able to devise a method that returns the panels to their original shape (flat rather than dished).

The team are hard at work flattening these historically important panels. Each solder joint is carefully cut using an oscillating saw so that the lead network can relax back into shape. This is proving incredibly successful, with panels which once looked like soup bowls now flat as pancakes.

The open joints are then soldered and patinated. This visually blends the bright new solder with the surrounding lead. It's all slow and painstaking work, but the results are well worth the effort.

The glass is being researched by Art Historian Dr. Rachel Koopmans, with the help of head of Studio Leonie Seliger and the studio conservators. This unprecedented research potential (with the glass is out) is revealing important new insights into the Miracle Window glass.

📷 Images - ©Chapter of Canterbury

30/04/2026

The west windows of the nave aisles contain glazing designed and made by Cathedral glazier Samuel Caldwell Jr. They were installed in 1949, replacing mid-19th century glazing lost in WWII. He incorporated some old glass into his designs, including several heraldic shields. Most of these date to the late 14th and 15th century! The original location of these shields is now unknown.

Repairs to the stonework made it necessary for us to remove some panels. It was decided that every medieval shield would go back into the building in its own protective glazing unit. This solution brought the shields further forward into the building, which caused a problem in two panels, where an immovable bar ran straight in front of the glass.

Replicas were made to replace these two 15th century shields. The old glass was carefully removed for the new shields to be inserted into the panels. The before and after images below show how much brighter they would have been before corrosion!

The originals have been moved to the Water Tower corridor on the north side of the cathedral, and fitted with protective glazing. This has allowed visitors to see the medieval originals at eye height for the very first time.

Making the replicas was a fun job, and involved creating corrosion patterns in paint!

📷 Images - ©Chapter of Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral