Stained Glass Hereford

Founded in 1994, the Leadbitter Glass Studio has been supplying Overlay Stained Glass panels to homes and businesses across Hereford ever since, delivering to every other part of the UK too. The Audley Chantry windows at Hereford Cathedral, created in 2007 by the contemporary stained-glass artist Thomas Denny, illustrate the life and writings of the poet Thomas Traherne — proof that new stained glass is still being commissioned here, centuries after the Mappa Mundi was first drawn.

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 Hereford.

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 Hereford. We also produce other styles of Decorative Glass for Hereford clients, including Bevelled Glass, Etched Glass, and Fused Glass.

See your glass before we create it!

Our Free Client Pages Design Service

Nothing is manufactured until you’ve seen it properly. Every Hereford order comes with a private Client Page, where a full-colour, to-scale drawing of your panel appears a few days after you order. If a colour needs deepening or a motif adjusting, tell us — we’ll redraw it, and keep redrawing it, until it matches what you had in mind. Only then does the design move on to production.

Image above created using Minster Glass.

How Our Stained Glass Is Made

Traditional leaded glass is essentially a mosaic held together by soft lead, and that construction is exactly why it’s prone to draughts and cracking over time. We take a different approach: the leadwork and the colour are both applied directly onto a single sheet of toughened safety glass, rather than built up around dozens of separate small pieces.

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

Every panel is manufactured with toughened or laminated safety glass, since durability is as important to us as the design work itself.

Traditional leaded glass has cost plenty of homeowners a small fortune, only for individual pieces to crack within weeks of fitting. Our Overlay Stained Glass was built specifically to avoid that.

Our process

We hand-shape lead strips directly onto the toughened glass first, tracing an uncoloured outline of your chosen design. The sheet is then turned over, and the colourwork begins — each section painted individually, contained within its own leaded boundary.

Once the colour is finished, matching lead lines are added to the back to mirror the front exactly, so the finished panel is leaded and coloured on both faces, not just one.

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

Ready to have Overlay Stained Glass, or any other decorative glass, made for your Hereford 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 Hereford area…