Professor Sarah Brown
Course Director, MA in Stained Glass Conservation and Heritage Management Convenor of Stained Glass MA

Profile

Biography

BA (London), MA (York), FSA, FRHistS

Sarah Brown specialises in stained glass, its history and conservation. She is course director of the department’s MA in Stained Glass Conservation and Heritage Management. She joined the History of Art Department in 2008 after a long career in the heritage sector, latterly with English Heritage.

Sarah has published on ecclesiastical architecture and stained glass of all periods, while specialising in the history and conservation of stained glass of the Middle Ages and Gothic Revival. She is particularly interested in the intersection between art and craft and in the culture of stained-glass restoration in Great Britain.

Sarah is chairman of the British committee of the Corpus Vitrearum based in the University of York’s Stained Glass Studies Research Cluster, and is an expert member of the International Scientific Committee for the Conservation of Stained Glass. She is currently editor of the online newsletter Vidimus.

Between 2008 and 2025 Sarah was Director of the York Glaziers Trust, the conservation charity responsible for the care of the stained glass of York Minster and for projects for external clients throughout the UK. In this capacity she oversaw the conservation of the Minster’s Great East Window and implementation of a twenty-year strategic plan for stained glass conservation at York Minster. Her research interests continue to be focussed on the architecture and stained glass the Minster, the largest and most diverse collection of medieval glass in the UK.

Research

Overview

• Stained glass c1300-1950
• Stained glass techniques and technologies
• Stained glass restoration histories

Projects

Sarah’s recent and current research focuses on the stained glass of York Minster.

Details about Sarah's work on Great East Window at York Minster can be viewed here.

Research group(s)

• Stained Glass Research Cluster
• Medieval and Medievalisms Cluster
  
• Centre for Medieval Studies

Supervision

In Progress

Oliver Fearon

Banners, Badges and Beasts: Illuminating the art and craft of the heraldic glazing of gentry houses in late medieval England (AHRC-funded CDA with Glasgow Life (the Burrell Collection))

Veronica Smith

Forgotten Glassworlds: Secular decorative glazing of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Catherine Spirit

Antiquarianism, Fragmentation and Ornament: Continental Stained Glass in East Anglia c.1800-1845

Awarded

Peter Martin

The European stained glass trade, with special reference to the trade between the Rhineland and the United Kingdom 1820-1835

Marie-Helene Groll

William Burrell, Thomas & Drake and the transatlantic trade in stained glass in stained glass 1900-1950 (AHRC-funded CDA with Glasgow Life (the Burrell Collection))

Louise Hampson

The history and development of the stained and painted glass of York Minster, from the late fifteenth century to 1829

Anya Heilpern

The painted glass of Winchester Cathedral, c.1495 - c.1528

Sarah is particularly interested in hearing from students interested in working on aspects of the relationship between stained glass art and craft and in the interactions between art history and conservation.

Katie Harrison (co-supervised with Prof Tim Ayers)

Illuminating Narrative: An interdisciplinary Investigation of the fifteenth-century St Cuthbert Window at York Minster (Wrocah-funded PhD)

Publications

Selected publications

• 'The medieval glazier at work' in E.C Pastan and B. Kurmann-Schwarz (eds.), Investigations in Medieval Stained Glass (Leiden 2019), 9-22.
• ‘Reading Coloured Light: Stained Glass  c.1350-1550’ in P.S. Barnwell (ed.), Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland 1350-1550 (Donington, 2019), 25-59.
• 'Archbishop Richard Scrope's lost window in York Minster' in S.Powell (ed.) Saints and Cults in Medieval England, (Donington 2017), 299-317.
• 'The West Window of St George's Chapel: A Restoration History' in Nigel Sauland & Tim Tatton-Brown (eds) St George's Chapel, Windsor: History and Heritage (Wimborne Minster, 2010), 114-124
• ‘Repackaging the Past: the Survival, Preservation and Reinterpretation of the Medieval Windows of St Mary’s Fairford, Gloucestershire’ in Virginia Chieffo Raguin (ed), Art, Piety and Destruction in the Christian West 1500-1700 (Farnham 2010), 91-112
• ‘Stained Glass Conservation at York Minster: Past Histories, Future Challenges’, in L. Pilosi, M. Shepherd and S. Strobl (eds.) The Art of Collaboration: Stained Glass Conservation in the Twenty-First Century Proceedings of the 2009 Corpus Vitrearum Forum on the Restoration and Conservation of Stained Glass Windows (London/Turnhout 2010), 57-64
• ‘Recovering the Past – Thinking about the Future: Writing about stained glass in England, c.1750-c.1850’, in Karine Boulanger and Michel Hérold (eds) Le Vitrail et les Traités du Moyen Ages á nos Jours, Corpus Vitrearum 2007 International Colloquium Transactions, (Bern 2008)
• ‘Catholic Church Building in England’, Ecclesiology Today 38, pp.7-24
• ‘“So Perfectly Satisfactory”. The Stained Glass of Thomas Willement’ in Sarah Brown (ed) A History of the Stained Glass of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Historical Monographs Relating to St George’s Chapel Vol. 18 , pp.109-145 (Windsor, 2006)
• ‘Image, Liturgy and the Topography of Devotion: St Mary’s Church, Fairford’ in Ecclesiology Today, 35 (2005), 3-22.
• ‘The Medieval Stained Glass’ in Richard K Morris and Ron Shoesmith (eds) Tewkesbury Abbey, History, Art and Architecture (Logaston, 2003), 183-196

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Encounters with the Material Object

Postgraduate

• Art and Imagery in York Minster
• The History and Theory of Stained Glass Conservation
• Advanced Techniques of Stained Glass Conservation
• MA Stained Glass Conservation Core Course 1: Basic Glass Handling and an Introduction to Stained Glass Conservation
• MA Stained Glass Conservation Core Course 2: Research Skills for Stained Glass Conservators

Other teaching

History and Theory of Stained Glass Conservation; Art and Imagery in York Minster; Advanced Techniques of Stained Glass Conservation

External activities

Memberships

• Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut Català de Recerca en Patrimoni Cultural (2019-)
  
• Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Great Britain, The Corpus of Medieval Window Glass, British Academy Major Research Project
  Chairman
• Corpus Vitrearum International
  General Secretary, International Scientific Committee for the Conservation of Stained Glass
• British Archaeological Association
  Honorary Vice President
• Worshipful Company of Glaziers
  Liveryman and board member, The Glaziers Trust
• The Stained Glass Museum, Ely
  Trustee and Conservation Advisor
• Society of Antiquaries, William and Jane Morris Committee
  member (2018-)
• Durham Cathedral, Fabric Advisory Committee
  member (2018-)
• Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee (2018-)
• York Diocesan Advisory Committee (2018-)
• York Foundation for Conservation and Craftsmanship
  trustee
• International Advisory Board, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, Centre for Stained Glass Studies
  member (2018-)
• International Advisory Board, Institut Catala de Recerca en Patrimoni Cultural, University of Girona, Catalonia
  member (2019-)