Painted Window Glass, Battle Abbey

The abbey’s windows were smashed when it was suppressed. Surviving fragments are of a style known as grisaille, a term used for panels of predominantly clear glass decorated with simple painted patterns. This piece shows part of a feline face (a nose and one eye).

The designs from Battle are very similar to that of a surviving window in the parish church of Stodmarsh, Kent, and we believe that they were produced at the same glass studio. A reconstruction of a window from Battle Abbey on display in the museum has been created using the surviving glass and the Stodmarsh window as a reference.