St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol

Victorian stained glass window with figures in a Gothic traceried opening at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol
Photo: Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

St Mary Redcliffe is the great Gothic parish church of Bristol, built largely between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries on the high ground above the harbour.

Many of its windows are Victorian, and they include a number by Clayton and Bell, one of the busiest studios of the period. Seen together, they show how the Gothic Revival studios filled medieval tracery with narrative figures in strong colour, and they make a good comparison with the glass at nearby Wells and Gloucester. The church is also a useful place to study how a window is divided into lights and tracery, a subject covered in How to read a church window.

PlaceDetails
LocationBristol, England
TypeParish church
PeriodVictorian
Glass artistsClayton and Bell

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Published 4 November 2026