Stained Glass Bishops Stortford

Founded in 1994, the Leadbitter Glass Studio has been supplying Overlay Stained Glass panels to homes and businesses across Bishop’s Stortford ever since, delivering to every other part of the UK too. The town’s malting trade turned local grain into something genuinely prized, thanks less to the grain itself than to the skill and care that went into making it.

We design and build every panel in our own studio — from a photo you send, an idea you describe, or a pattern from the hundreds already in our gallery. Overlay Stained Glass comes as toughened single glazing or a double-glazed unit, and suits a front door, a landing window, or any other glazed opening equally well. Most orders qualify for free delivery across Bishop’s Stortford.

Our work has gone into a Prime Minister’s home, Hollywood film sets, and the residences of well-known musicians and billionaires, though homeowners across Bishop’s Stortford still account for most of what leaves our studio. We also produce other styles of Decorative Glass for local clients, including Bevelled Glass, Etched Glass, and Fused Glass.

See your glass before we create it!

Our Free Client Pages Design Service

Every Bishop’s Stortford order gets a private Client Page, where a full-colour, scaled drawing of your design lands within a few days. Want a colour deepened, or a motif made bigger? Let us know and we’ll amend it and send it back — as many times as it takes for the design to have earned its worth before manufacturing ever begins.

Image above created using Minster Glass.

How Our Stained Glass Is Made

Traditional leaded glass is a patchwork of small pieces held by soft lead, which is exactly why it cracks and lets the weather in as it ages — a shortcut that never really adds the value it promises. Our Overlay Stained Glass takes the opposite approach, applying both leadwork and colour directly onto one continuous sheet of toughened safety glass, so the finished panel is worth genuinely more than the sum of the fragments a traditional approach would use.

Pilkington K Glass is available on request, and current building regulations require it for new window and door installations across Bishop’s Stortford and the rest of the UK.

Every panel is built from toughened or laminated safety glass, since durability matters to us just as much as how the finished piece looks.

We hear it often — a homeowner pays good money for traditional leaded glass, only to watch individual pieces crack within weeks of fitting. Our Overlay Stained Glass was built specifically to put that problem to rest.

Our process

We shape lead strips onto the toughened glass first, tracing an uncoloured outline of your chosen design. Once that’s done, we turn the glass over and colour it piece by piece, each section held within its own leaded boundary.

Matching lead lines then go onto the reverse to mirror the front exactly, so the finished panel is leaded and coloured on both faces, not just the one you see.

A range of lead finishes is also available — see our Leaded Glass page for the full range.

Ready to have Overlay Stained Glass, or any other decorative glass, made for your Bishop’s Stortford home or business? Get in touch today for an accurate quote and turnaround time.

Browse Our Leaded Glass Galleries

Our website holds one of the largest collections of decorative glass patterns anywhere. Browse hundreds of Leaded Glass designs in our main gallery, arranged by theme and by door style, to find the right pattern — or simply for inspiration towards your own. Visit the Main Gallery to see what’s possible.