Name: What's in Store? Stained Glass
Uploaded: 2025-06-18T10:45:11.000Z
Duration: 3 min 51 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome to the English Heritage stores at Helmsley.

This is where we keep and care for a host of wonderful objects from our sites across the north of England.

Adverbs of degree

And I'm going to show you something really special now.

This is an armorial window from Belsay Castle in Northumberland.

It was made by Henry Giles of York in 1699.

This window was originally installed in Belsay Castle to commemorate the marriage of William Middleton of Belsay and Francis Lambert.

So it was installed in an extension of the castle they created at around that time.

But it didn't stay in the castle, it ended up being removed as part of the building became derelict, and I actually found it in one of the rooms in Belsay Hall about 10 years ago.

This window is one of about 60 works by Henry Giles of York, who lived from 1645 to 1709.

It's incredibly unusual though, because it's one of the only fully intact windows, one of the only original windows complete with its original lead and its original frame that we have.

This window it commemorates a marriage and what it shows is the arms of the Middletons of Belsay who owned Belsay Castle.

And what we've got is a shield in the center with a hand of a red Baron, Baronette, and then we've got a helm, a knight's helm above and a crest above that.

That crest is the wild man of Belsay, the wild man carries a oak tree that has been pulled out of the ground.

On the rest of the window, you can see a motto here, Les Sis Dire.

That is kind of made up French Latin that means let's speak.

And then we've also got a rose here and a narcissus or daffodil type flower there crossed over to represent a marriage.

And then we've got the classic hallmark of a Giles painting, which is a cherub.

When we first discovered this window, it was in quite poor condition.

Um, but we were able to look at it as a very original window.

It had its original frame except for this very bottom piece, it had this panel missing, which we've replaced.

Um, but most excitingly, all of the lead came that connects all the pieces of glass together, when we took it apart, we found it actually had writing inside it, um, and it had Edmund Giles of York, 1665.

And that turns out to be Henry Giles's father, Henry Giles was using his father's lead mill to produce his own work in his windows.

This window is really special and it's been a great journey to research this window, investigate it and understand all elements of it with the artist and the depictions on it.

What's really interesting is the depiction of the wild man, that led onto a great research and understanding how the Middletons of Belsay.

Use the wild man throughout the life of the castle and subsequently into Belsay Hall, we now use the symbol of the wild man for modern visitors when they go and visit Belsay.

This window is one of very many artifacts that we store here from Belsay Hall and Belsay Castle and amongst thousands that we have generally in the store from sites all across the north of England.

We open to visitors in summer months for special tours and we look forward to welcoming you.