A SET of five stained glass panels commissioned for a North Yorkshire stately home have been reinstated after they had been abandoned for more than 100 years.

The window panels were designed in 1818 by architect PF Robinson at request of the 4th Earl of Tyrconnel John Delaval Carpenter, and his wife Sarah for their new Gothic-style drawing room at the 17th century Kiplin Hall, near Scorton.

The Earl was proud of the fine stained glass bay window, with four of the five panels believed to have been acquired from a church that was either demolished or modernised.

Marcia McLuckie, administrator at the Jacobean Kiplin Hall, said: “Either the Earl or Thomas Willement – a renowned stained glazier who created the centre panel – must have acquired the four 18th century Biblical stained glass windows.

“They show Christ on the Road to Emmaeus and the Supper at Emmaeus to the left, and Christ appearing to the Disciples in the Upper Room of the Holy City of Jerusalem to the right.

“The central panel shows the colourful coat of arms of the Carpenter family.”

Mrs McLuckie said Willement had created the top and bottom borders, cut the Biblical panels to fit, repaired and re-leaded them, and where necessary, made replacement pieces.

The Earl had been keen to show off his window, and on August 20, 1846, in requesting a meeting at Kiplin Hall, wrote to his agent John Topham: “You will see my stained glass windows by the way which I think you will admire.”

The windows fell out of favour with the new owner of Kiplin, Admiral Walter Carpenter, who inherited the estate in 1868, and he made substantial alterations to the former Earl’s Gothic drawing room to create a Jacobean-style library in the 1880s.

But more than 100 years after they were discarded, staff at Kiplin Hall stumbled upon the forgotten windows in a damp outbuilding in the estate grounds.

Mrs McLuckie said: “Surprisingly they were still in remarkably good condition.

“The glass pieces have now been cleaned, conserved, re-leaded, reframed and re-hung for the enjoyment of visitors.

“I was astonished when she first saw the windows back in their place. I walked into the library, and the sun was shining through the windows, really picking out the colours in the glass - they looked spectacular.

“Putting these stained glass windows back into the bay window has really added to the ambience of this lovely room.”