Christmas comes early: 19th-century stained glass windows unearthed in St. John's church basement

A Newfoundland theatre company is getting an early Christmas gift this season, after its owner dug up an array of 19th-century stained glass windows in a St. John's church basement.

Kathie Hicks, CEO of Spirit of Newfoundland Productions, was rummaging through the company's holiday decorations in preparation for their upcoming holiday show, The 12 Bays of Christmas. Spirit of Newfoundland uses Gower Street United Church to store some of its props.

Nestled in a room "literally in the bowels of the basement," Hicks stumbled on something she'd never seen before.

"We were picking through, trying to find … a couple of benches," Hicks said. "And we went, 'What is this?'"

Propped up against a wall were several dusty, but mostly intact, stained glass windows. 

"They were so beautiful, and the colours were so gorgeous," Hicks said. "They go right to the soul. Right to the heart."

Robert Pitt, chair of the church's heritage and archives committee, says the windows date back to the erection of the church itself in 1896, and were originally installed in the main sanctuary of the building — which is directly above the Spirit of Newfoundland performance hall.

They have a "Romanesque rounded arch rather than the pointed arch of the Gothic style, although the architecture of Gower itself is a mixture of Gothic and Romanesque," Pitt said. The glass itself is a pattern of diamonds and squares — common to that time period, he added.

"I don't know if there's any ecclesiastical significance of those, except that it … would have made a lovely light pattern with the sun coming through it," Pitt said.

Pitt believes the windows were removed between the 1950s and 1990s, replaced by pictorial windows that now adorn the church.

"Most Methodist congregations [had] plain patterned windows. The Methodist tradition was fairly austere, basic — no altar, no statuary, no other icons and generally no pictures in the windows," Pitt explained. 

But changing tastes beginning in the 1950s, he said, led congregation members to donate more than 40 new pictorial stained glass windows to the church, replacing the originals.

Hicks says she was so enamoured with the glass she asked the church if she could display the windows in the theatre.

"I don't know a lot about stained glass. I just know they're gorgeous and we love them," Hicks said. "And now we're trying to figure out how to light them best, how people can enjoy them and … get up close and personal and see them."