The BBC has reported that Giant sketches of an angel, used by artist John Hutton to create one of Coventry Cathedral’s most striking features, have been repaired and gifted to the cathedral.
Chalk drawings were created on black paper by the engraver as a blueprint for each of the 66 angel and saint figures he took a decade to carve into the 70ft (21m) high glass West Screen.
In 2022, the Friends of Coventry Cathedral bought three sketches, which have now been restored in Gloucestershire.
The tryptic will be on display at the cathedral over the Christmas period.
The Friends group initially raised £1,500 to purchase the art, which had been in the possession of one of Hutton’s friends.
About £20,000 has also been spent on specialist restoration and framing.
Cathedral archivist Dianne Morris, said she was “so excited” to see the finished art.
“It’s all my Christmases come at once”, she said.
“When they were offered to us for sale I knew we had to get involved.
“They’re so magnificent, I think I would have bought them myself anyway.”
Specialist conservator Heather Norville-Day, from Wickwar, said she was “thrilled” to be asked to carry out the restoration work.
“I can’t tell you how honoured I am to do this.”
The prints were “extremely brittle, they were water damaged, they had mould damage, a lot of fractures and missing areas,” she explained.
Over the last 50 years, pieces have dropped off and been lost.”
She has worked on the sketches for about six months, and she said they would now “last for 100 years or more”.
But, she added, it had been a “challenge from start to finish”.
“I can’t tell you how easily they could have been destroyed, I’m surprised they survived.”
The sketches consist of three 7ft by 3ft (2.1m by 1m) images which together make up a tryptic of one of the flying angels depicted on the glass screen.
They were created as the engraver worked on the screen, which was completed in time for the cathedral’s 1962 consecration.
It’s thought Hutton’s life was cut short by inhaling quantities of glass dust.
His ashes are interred at the base of the screen.
‘An old bedspread’
The carvings were created “using an outline sketch of each of the figures” said Ms Morris, “and then the detail was created by a tool that he invented himself”, comprising hand and dentist drills.
Hutton’s wife Marigold acted as his model for the figures, she said.
“To be able to get an outline of the figures, John draped her in an old bedspread while he quickly sketched the outline of the saints and angels.”
The cathedral owns a smaller Hutton sketch, and was gifted another, by the artist’s granddaughter, of an angel – a work destroyed during a robbery.
The exhibition marked the “end of a two year project to bring back to the cathedral a design that will be here forever, we hope,” said Martin Williams, the outgoing chair of the Friends and CovSoc member.
“It’s such an exciting moment to welcome them back,” he said.
“It has been conserved and framed to museum standards so that it can tell its story to future generations”.
The artist’s work can also be seen at Guildford Cathedral and at cathedrals in New Zealand, where Hutton was born.
However, Mr Williams insists Coventry’s are the best.
“The angels aren’t just there being holy and pious,” he said.
“He’s depicted them as dancing and playing instruments and flying with movement.”
CovSoc Committee member, Aaron Law was one of those who helped raise money for the initial purchase. He said the sketches allowed visitors to the cathedral to “see the different stages of the process to create the glass, and the effort involved”.
“It’s really good to see them, almost at home,” he added.
This article has been amended from a post on the BBC website by Vanessa Pearce on 15 December 2025.