Selby Abbey gets first new stained glass window in 90 years

Helen Whittaker hopes people will engage with stained glass more

The first new stained glass window to be created for Selby Abbey in 90 years was unveiled this weekend.

Visitors got to see the design, which fills one of the Norman window frames at the western end of the nave, for the first time on Palm Sunday.

The window depicts the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as he awaits his betrayal and arrest.

Designer Helen Whittaker, 49, hopes the project will inspire people to "engage in stained glass once more".

She said: "There was a bit of pressure, but you know there always will be when you've got to fit something in a building of that magnitude and you know it's going to last for hundreds of years.

"What's important about stained glass is quite a lot of people don't engage in it any more and just see it as holy wallpaper and then just kind of move along the abbey.

The stained glass in the window at Selby Abbey

"But with this window I'm hoping people will look at it and think about it on a spiritual level or even as a matter of beauty with the colours - so that they just engage in stained glass once more."

Ms Whittaker went on to say that stained glass was put on the endangered craft list last year, so "it's more important than ever that people start seeing that this is still a sort of living medium, so there's many layers to this project".

She has undertaken other stained glass window projects for churches and cathedrals across the country, including the Afghanistan memorial window in All Saints' Church, Pavement, in York.

Ms Whittaker also made The Queen's Window at Westminster Abbey, which was designed by artist David Hockney and unveiled in 2018.