More than half a century after a second world war bomb shattered ancient stained glass windows in Westminster Abbey, new windows by the British artist Hughie O'Donoghue are to be unveiled in the abbey.
Installed in time for the special service on Tuesday marking the 60th anniversary of the coronation of the Queen in the abbey, the blue and gold windows – incorporating stars and lilies, emblems of the Virgin Mary and linked to royalty – are the first commissioned by the abbey in more than 10 years. The windows cast light on the tombs of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.
The Queen attended a private service on Sunday at a chapel at Windsor Castle to mark the 60th anniversary.
The windows are being installed in the beautiful 16th-century Lady Chapel. The chapel was commissioned by Henry VII and built from 1503-1519. It is regarded as a last glorious flowering of the medieval Gothic style, and described by the dean, John Hall, as "one of the most stunning ecclesiastical spaces in the world".
Elizabeth I was buried in the chapel in 1603. One of the first acts of James I was to disinter the body of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, from Peterborough Cathedral, and rebury it in a magnificent tomb opposite Elizabeth – the cousin who had ordered Mary's death.
The last glass commissioned by the abbey was for the same chapel, an east window by Alan Younger installed in 2000, which will now be flanked by O'Donoghue's new windows.
The new windows, made using traditional techniques by a stained glass studio in York, are in rich blues, a traditional colour of the Virgin Mary, and their golden tones were chosen by the artist to reflect the warm stone and gilded Tudor ceiling emblems.
They are the first stained glass designs by O'Donoghue, a member of the Royal Academy.
