How This Northumbrian Family Business Is Keeping Stained Glass Alive
Father and son Neil and Andy Wilton have been creating bespoke stained glass frames since the 1970s
The Stained Glass Display Company offer framing solutions to display stained glass safely. Whether they’re creating an illuminated display system, or a professional handling frame for a museum artefact, The Stained Glass Display Company are the leaders in their field. Owners Neil and Andy are proud of their Northern roots and continue to hone their craft in Northumberland.
Neil and his father set up their business in 1978 and started out making stained glass in Newcastle, with a shop in Jesmond. ‘Whilst we were making stained glass, we were asked by the Victoria and Albert Museum if we could make them a frame to put some stained glass in that they were restoring,’ Neil recalls. ‘Once they’d restored it, it wasn’t going on display but they wanted to put it back into storage in a safe frame. We knew them as we’d provided them with materials previously, so we made a frame, and here we are 40 years on still making them for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and plenty of others too. We now make frames that have lights in them so people can take a piece of stained glass and display it on their wall like a picture. It’s a very niche business, as you can imagine, but we have a lot of clients and we send our work across the world. We’ve gone from strength to strength. It’s great fun.’
The Stained Glass Display Company has worked with museums, churches, schools, hospitals, businesses and private homes across the globe, and their clients include York Minster, The Burrell Collection and the National Portrait Gallery. ‘We’ve done work for Winchester College which has loads of stained glass panels that are really rare,’ Neil adds. They’ve been illuminated and reset into the walls. When the Victoria and Albert Museum have something to frame they come to us which is nice as they have their own installation team down there. We’ve done work for York Minster and helped them with a display a few years back when they were restoring all their stained glass – that was quite a big job!’
Recently, Andy and Neil were involved in the Victorian Radicals exhibition which toured across the US before being displayed for the British public at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. The exhibition showcased paintings, drawings, textiles, metalwork and stained glass that explores a radical Victorian vision for art and society. Stained glass is always a challenge for a museum to display because it's delicate, requires illumination and, in this case, travels thousands of miles. It’s in cases like these where The Stained Glass Display Company can offer a solution with their illuminated frames.
Every frame manufactured is a bespoke system that is designed to care for and display the stained glass. ‘With the Victorian Radicals exhibition, thought had to be given to the transportation of the panels, to avoid any damage to the precious artworks,’ Neil explains.
This same level of care is offered to any member of the public who seeks the company’s help to display their stained glass. ‘It will sometimes be a premium museum but other times simply a couple who’ve found a piece of stained glass, or an heirloom, and don’t know what to do with it,’ Andy explains. ‘I guess years ago, you’d have to knock a hole in your house to display it, but you can now hang it on your wall and if you don’t like it there you can move it to another room.’
Every project is different. ‘Stained glass comes in all different sizes and shapes, and depending on how it’s been made, it might be different thicknesses and also very fragile,’ says Neil. ‘It could be a round piece of stained glass so the frame has to be round. The customers always have different requirements. When we did work for York Minster, they wanted a frame to go in their Undercroft, which is down in the basement, so it had to be sealed so it didn’t let moisture in and we had to have special devices to tell us what the moisture levels and the temperature was. Those were clever gadgets! We’ve done work for a musician in London who found a piece of stained glass he loves and he now has that on his wall. The challenges are mainly handling the materials and travelling back and forth to get different things done, like painting.
‘It’s interesting because a lot of clients respect the fact that we’re not just making a frame but we’re sympathetic to the materials. When we had the shop in Jesmond, we would teach people how to make stained glass, which was fun. We then found that some of those people would go off and run their own classes so we had customers come to our shop to buy materials.’
Andy and Neil are passionate about keeping stained glass alive and their craft is helping with this. ‘There are not as many people making stained glass as there used to be, and certainly not many people wanting to build a window to fit them in – that really doesn’t happen anymore,’ Andy says. ‘More often than not, we’re seeing places that used to have stained glass becoming a restaurant or an office space so what we’re doing is not only helping to keep existing stained glass alive but we’re offering opportunities for new stained glass to be put into places where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible. It’s a real opportunity for stained glass artists, architects, and people who are into a different kind of art. It’ll help people further down the line.
‘We are passionate about stained glass and we welcome the opportunity to educate the public on how stained glass can be affordable. If you find something at auction that you like, or something you wanted to commission, we’d like to be able to show you how you can display that in your home.’
Despite working worldwide, this family business remains proudly Northern. ‘It’s great to be in a family business that started with my father and his father,’ Andy adds. ‘It’s great to continue that legacy in doing what we do. It is a niche business but it’s fantastic to help stained glass, that would otherwise go to landfill or sit in a shed somewhere, find a new lease of life and be hung on a wall, or equally help illuminate a piece of stained glass in a unique design to be displayed – whether that be a family crest or a Star Trek-themed panel.’
