Guildford Cathedral has launched a fundraising appeal after vandals smashed its iconic glass on the doors of its main entrance.
The damaged window panel is part of a set of sentinel angels engraved by glass artist John Hutton, a renowned iconic feature of the west front of the Cathedral and an acclaimed piece of 20th-century art.
To help restore the damage, you can donate securely here. Thank you.
Police were called to the cathedral in the early hours of last Saturday. A man has now been charged in connection with the damage which insurers estimate at more than £15,000 – not including the cost of the repair.
Matt O’Grady, Chief Operating Officer said:
“Everyone at the Cathedral is devastated by this senseless act of vandalism at a holy place.
“The smashed window was engraved by renowned glass engraving artist John Hutton and is irreplaceable.
“We hope that the whole community will come together to recognise that acts such as this serve no purpose and that places such as our Cathedral need to be preserved as shrines of peace, tranquillity, and spirituality in a troubled world,” he added.
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Artist, John Hutton was born in New Zealand but made his home in the UK and felt strongly that his work must be more than purely decorative, that it must be part of the spiritual surge of the architecture it was made for.
He died in 1978 and his ashes were buried beneath a stone at the foot of his most acclaimed work, the Angel of the Eternal Gospel, a panel of the West Screen at Coventry Cathedral. This piece was destroyed by vandalism in 2020. Coventry Cathedral decided that, as the original was impossible to restore, the best immediate response would be to invite new work by artists offering a fresh response to the story of the ‘ Broken Angel’.
