The West Window

about this project

The Light of God

For most of the cathedral’s history its windows were plain. The coloured glass came with the restoration programme of 1913 to 1930, funded by the Thoms Bequest, which replaced the clear glass through most of the building. The great west window was the exception. It held clear glass for another half century.

The great west window came much later. It was designed by Crear McCartney, a Lanarkshire artist and Glasgow School of Art graduate who had worked with the stained glass workshop at Pluscarden, and it was installed in 1987 to mark 850 years since the founding of the cathedral.

McCartney’s theme was the light of God, and he worked Orkney into it: the cliffs at Yesnaby, Arctic terns, a longship for Earl Rognvald. The Agnus Dei appears, with the symbols of the four evangelists, and at the apex a dove and an axe, for the Holy Spirit and for the martyrdom of Magnus.

The theme of the window is Light, both physical and metaphysical, and the design exploits the splendours of Light that I associate with Orkney. During winter the blue glasses will dominate, as they will also on summer mornings, but after Easter, and throughout the long summer light, the afternoon sun, setting fire to the top circle, will shower a Golden Radiance into the nave.

Crear McCartney, on the west window

The window was funded by donations from individuals, schools, companies and societies across Orkney and beyond. Every donor was recorded in a leather-bound book, which Queen Elizabeth II signed when she unveiled the window, and which is now held by Orkney Library and Archive.

The Society’s contribution to the cathedral’s glass has continued. The Friends funded the reconstruction of the rose window in the south transept, and the maintenance of the stained glass windows is among the commitments listed on the Society’s record of completed work. Early twentieth-century windows have been repaired by the monks at Pluscarden, the same workshop where McCartney learned his craft.