Exeter Cathedral, Devon

The star of the cathedral’s stained glass is the magnificent east window, where the earliest glass is from c.1304, as is the recently restored clerestory glass opposite the bishop’s throne. Other fragments of medieval glass can be seen in the chantry chapels.

Most of the Victorian glass was lost or damaged in the Baedeker raids of 1942 and has been repaired or replaced by glass by a variety of artists, both local, (e.g. A F Erridge’s Courtney & Nativity windows, and George Cooper-Abbs’s  Cathedral Builders’ window, both for the Exeter firm of Wippell & Co. in the south aisle), and national (e.g. Christopher Webb’s window in the south aisle commemorating the air-raid of 1942).

The west window, which is also a post-war replacement, is of interest as it is the work of the final two owners of the famous Clayton & Bell studio. One of the most well-known and prolific of the businesses founded during the great Victorian revival in stained glass. It had passed down to Reginald Bell, who tragically died in 1950 prior to the completion of the window, the work being finished by his son, M. C. Farrar Bell. There is another work by Reginald Bell in St Edmund’s Chapel.

The Drake Memorial window  above the door opposite the former Chapel of the Holy Ghost is also worth seeking out, as a rare example of a Cathedral Glazier being commemorated in stained glass.  In this case, Frederick Drake, who was the Cathedral Glaziers for 40 years from 1880 until his death in 1920.