This is a catalogue of the pre-Gothic Revival stained glass found at 57 sites in Lancashire. Many of these are churches, but there are also domestic halls, museums, and schools. Highlights include important glazing dating from the 14th and 15th centuries at Cartmel Priory; a major window of c.1500 depicting the legend of St Helen at Ashton-under-Lyne; a sixteenth-century Seven Sacraments window at Cartmel Fell; fine imported 15th- and 16th-century continental panels at Chorley; and above all the magnificent but hitherto virtually unknown collection belonging to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. The introduction discusses many aspects of the stained glass of both Lancashire and the neighbouring county of Cheshire: documentary sources, donors and heraldry, condition, iconography, as well as examining the style and techniques used by the glass-painters. The county's indigenous surviving glass mostly dates from the 16th century and while it is predominantly heraldic, several sites demonstrate the region's strong attachment to traditional Catholicism at the time of the English Reformation. This catalogue will therefore be essential not only for scholars and students of the history of medieval and early modern art, but also those with an interest in the social and religious history of Tudor Lancashire.
