The great dining hall at Alton Towers
The work we do
Our particular skills are kiln-fired painted stained glass and stained glass design.
- We design and make new stained glass windows, doors and skylights.
- We restore stained glass.
- We teach the key techniques of kiln-fired stained glass painting.
The studio’s name is Williams & Byrne.
We’re near Ludlow, in Shropshire, the UK.
There are two of us – David Williams and Stephen Byrne. (Our backgrounds: here.)
New stained glass windows, doors and skylights
We make new stained glass windows and stained glass doors or skylights in any style: traditional or modern, figurative or abstract – whatever is right for your chosen building.
Right now, we’re restoring a set of 18 heraldic windows for a castle and making two new church windows.
In 2017, we made 24 windows for the east and north face of a new tower.
In 2015 we made four windows for the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Wellington College, Berkshire.
Before that we worked long and hard on a London mansion for which we made 17 skylights.
Varied work indeed: all the work we do is one-off (not mass-produced) to suit the requirements of your particular building, old or new.
See here for more about the new stained glass we design and make.
Restoration and conservation
We take on difficult restoration work, where complicated painting skills are required and where you want perfect forgeries of broken ancient glass.
We recently restored Pugin’s lost masterpiece – 18 full-size heraldic windows and 9 tops for the great dining hall at Alton Towers.
Clients sometimes send us antique stained glass they’ve bought from auction houses in Paris or London, sections of which we re-paint or re-furbish as required.
See here for stained glass restoration.
Working with other stained glass studios
We can work with other stained glass studios. David Williams worked with The Reytiens Glass Studio to help paint the Diamond Jubilee stained glass window for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Training
We focus on teaching how to paint stained glass (not cutting or leading).
Our students travel to us from Australia, the USA, South Africa, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Kuwait, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Singapore, France, the Republic of Ireland and Peru.
If you want to learn the techniques, this is our blog.
Our book is here:
