Stained Glass Croydon

Founded in 1994, the Leadbitter Glass Studio has been supplying Overlay Stained Glass panels to homes and businesses across Croydon ever since, delivering to every other part of the UK too. Croydon Aerodrome welcomed diplomats, film stars, and countless ordinary travellers through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, giving Croydon the distinction of being where a huge number of people first set foot in England.

Abstract Charles Rennie Mackintosh style overlay stained glass design, made for a Croydon customer

Every panel is designed and manufactured in our own Decorative Glass Studio — either from your own photo or idea, or from one of the hundreds of patterns in our gallery. Our Overlay Stained Glass comes as either toughened single glazing or a resilient double-glazed unit, and suits a front door, a landing window, or any other glazed opening in the home equally well. The great majority of orders qualify for free delivery across Croydon.

Overlay stained glass house number panel, popular with Croydon homeowners

We’ve supplied Overlay Stained Glass for a Prime Minister’s home, for Hollywood film sets, and for well-known musicians and billionaires — though the vast majority of what we make is still for homeowners across Croydon. We also produce other styles of Decorative Glass for Croydon clients, including Bevelled Glass, Etched Glass, and Fused Glass.

See your glass before we create it!

Computer generated Overlay Stained Glass design preview

Our Free Client Pages Design Service

Every Croydon order comes with a private Client Page, where a full-colour drawing of your design, built to scale, appears a few days after you order. If a colour needs deepening, or a motif needs enlarging, tell us and we’ll amend it and send it back — as many rounds as you need. We only begin manufacturing once your front door makes the right first impression.

Frank Lloyd Wright style overlay stained glass door, made for a Croydon home

Image above created using Minster Glass.

How Our Stained Glass Is Made

Traditional leaded glass is a patchwork of small pieces held together by soft lead, which is exactly why it’s so prone to cracking and letting the weather in as it ages — not much of a welcome for anyone arriving at the door. Our Overlay Stained Glass is built to make a genuinely lasting first impression, applying both the leadwork and the colour directly onto one continuous sheet of toughened safety glass, rather than piecing together dozens of separate fragments.

Pilkington K Glass is also available on request, and is required by current building regulations for new window and door installations across Croydon and the rest of the UK.

Overlay stained glass roundel design, made for a Croydon customer

Every panel is manufactured using toughened or laminated safety glass, since durability matters to us as much as how the finished design looks.

Plenty of homeowners have a story about traditional leaded glass costing good money, only to see individual pieces crack within weeks of fitting. Our Overlay Stained Glass was designed specifically to avoid that.

Rennie Mackintosh style overlay stained glass rose design, made for a Croydon customer

Our process

We hand-shape lead strips onto the toughened glass first, tracing an uncoloured outline of your chosen design. Once that’s complete, the glass is turned over and coloured piece by piece, each section held within its own leaded boundary.

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

Green and blue overlay stained glass window design, delivered to a Croydon home

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

Ready to have Overlay Stained Glass, or any other decorative glass, made for your Croydon 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.

Notable Stained Glass Commissions from the Croydon area…

We supply Stained Glass to Croydon and these surrounding areas…

Bromley – Greenwich – Orpington – Westminster – Kingston Upon Thames – Richmond – Twickenham – Leatherhead – Brentford – Hounslow – Ealing – Sevenoaks – Dartford – Wembley – Dagenham – Crawley – Romford – Enfield – Woking – Loughton – Uxbridge – Tonbridge – Gravesend – Waltham Abbey – Guildford – Royal Tunbridge Wells – Windsor – Slough – Watford – Rochester – Chatham – Hoddesdon – Hatfield – Basildon – Maidstone – Gillingham – Bracknell – St Albans – Maidenhead – Farnborough

have paid a lot of money for ‘old style’ stained glass, but it hasn’t always stood the test of time. Small coloured sections of a traditional ‘jigsaw’ style panel can break quite easily but this cannot happen with our product.

The materials

As everything we create is bespoke, you can choose exactly which materials you would like us to use on your panel(s). You can select your own colours from our range, request an obscure glass you want and even the type of lead you want us to use.

Lead

Lead strips also comes in a number of colours and effects. The most popular choice through the 80’s and 90’s was Option 1 Natural lead. Today almost every job we create is produced using Option 2 Antique Lead which is a darker lead (see below). Leadbitter Glass now offers antique lead as standard so this is included in any quote you receive. Soldered joints on the lead strips help achieve that ‘traditional’ feel to the glass. This soldered finish can be requested at an extra price. You can see the different Lead strips available in our Leaded Glass Options page.

Coloured textured stained glass
Image above created using Stippolyte Glass with Aged Lead Option 2

Colours

There are hundreds of overlay stained glass colours to choose from for use in the modern day stained glass. Plain colours and Effect colours can be chosen to ensure the panels suit your home. All colours can be combined with a textured overlay to give you even more choice.

Obscure Stained Glass

The Frank Lloyd Wright style door set you can see below was created using toughened Minster Glass and our Overlay Stained Glass technique. We used our Aged Lead (Option 2) and various translucent colours for the design. The door and two side panels are solid sheets of toughened safety glass. Minster glass is one of the most popular types of glass to be used with Leaded Glass designs. Another popular obscure glass we use to create Overlay Stained Glass panels is Stippolyte glass. We can also use clear glass or Flemish glass to create any Leaded Glass panel you require.

Frank Lloyd Wright Stained Glass Door

Image above created using Minster Glass

Browse Our Leaded Glass Galleries

Our website contains hundreds of Stained Glass patterns and our Main Gallery is the first place to head. We have organised our patterns into themed galleries with glass suitable for the most popular styles of doors. Our main gallery can help you find the perfect stained glass pattern to compliment your home or at least give you the inspiration to come up with your own pattern.

Stained Glass Designs Gallery

We supply Stained Glass to Croydon and it’s surrounding areas:

London – Bromley – Sutton – Kingston upon Thames – Mitcham – Epsom – Redhill – Reigate – Guildford – Crawley – Horsham – Dorking – Leatherhead – Coulsdon – Purley – South Croydon – Warlingham – Oxted – Godstone – Caterham

Notable Stained Glass Commissions from the Croydon area…