Stapleford History Society 9 December 2025
A talk by Paul Shakeshaft
Paul Shakeshaft had described the building of King’s College Chapel to the Society a year ago and this second talk focussed specifically on the windows: their creation and meanings. Although photographing the windows is very difficult, we were treated to a slide show to help us appreciate the skill of the makers and the intentions of the designers.
Henry VIII was on the throne when the Chapel was finished, apart from the windows. The first contract with the glaziers was signed in 1515 and for twenty- six windows : twelve at each side plus two end windows. The king employed Dutch glaziers to work in Southwark. Headed initially by Bernard Flowers, they were deemed to be more skilled than the English workmen. This, Inevitably, led to riots during the 1530s as work was being taken from Englishmen by foreigners who could not speak English. (Sounds familiar!)
Bernard Flowers and his men were familiar with the glass produced in Alsace, sheets of green, blue, pink, purple, red, yellow and green. The general aim was to create a vision of the Holy City in Paradise by the use of such bright colours. Sand, lime and potash were combined to produce white glass (not transparent) and enamel paint was sometimes used to reproduce the facial features of characters on the windows.
There were several designers, variously influenced by the Renaissance and Reformation, by fashions in The Netherlands and later in Italy. Many of the windows are describing the life of Jesus as described in the New Testament alongside stories from the Old Testament. For example, the picture depicting the Resurrection is paired with the image of Jonah’s release from the great fish. These are known as Typological windows. Others describe the life of Mary and the Acts of the Apostles, with an emphasis on Paul rather than Peter who was associated with the Church of Rome which Henry VIII had rejected.
By 1547 the glazing was complete. The windows manufactured in Southwark were most likely transported to Cambridge by ship in a journey round the coast of East Anglia to Lynn and then down the river to Cambridge, which was still a viable port at that time.
The survival of the windows is quite amazing. In 1643 Cromwell’s troops and their horses were actually quartered in the Chapel and had been commanded by the Puritan Earl of Manchester to get rid of “a thousand godless images”, though the troops did nothing to them. In 1940 German bombing of Cambridge was expected. Yale University paid for the windows to be removed and stored in various venues in the area, lofts, basements, basically anywhere that had space for them. They were not put back in place until 1951.
Report by Jane Steadman