Tiffany Window in Historic Scottish Church
St Peter's Parish Kirk, Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Sep 2, 2009
The Tiffany stained glass window of St Michael was installed in Fyvie parish church in north-east Scotland in 1902, a memorial to Percy Forbes-Leith of Fyvie Castle, who died in South Africa during the Boer War while serving as an officer in the British army.
Historic St Peter's Kirk
The church as seen today was built in 1808, although it is probably the fourth place of worship dedicated to St Peter to stand on or very close to the same site. There was a Cistercian priory in Fyvie, the spot now marked by the Celtic cross of the war memorial in a field near the modern church. The priory is believed to have been founded around AD 715.
St Peter's is now the Church of Scotland parish kirk of Fyvie.
Historic Scottish Churchyard
The churchyard contains many fascinating gravestones and family enclosures. These include the burial ground of the Forbes-Leith family of nearby Fyvie Castle.
Also at Fyvie is the burial ground of the Gordons of Gight. Their ancestral home of Gight Castle, now a ruin, is three miles north-east of Fyvie. One of the Gordons of Gight who is buried here was the grandfather of the poet, Lord Byron.
Fyvie Kirkyard's Most Famous Grave: Tifty's Annie
Agnes or Annie Smith was the daughter of the wealthy miller of Tifty, near Fyvie. She fell in love with Andrew Lammie, trumpeter to Lord Fyvie, but her family thought he was beneath her and had him banished to Edinburgh.
According to the haunting traditional ballad Tifty's Annie - still sung today - Annie's father and brother punished her by beating her, her brother striking her "wi' cruel blows and mony [many]", breaking her back. She died of her injuries and, again according to the song, of a broken heart at the loss of her lover Andrew Lammie.
The obelisk which commemorates Tifty's Annie was raised above her grave by public subscription two hundred years after her death. Well over three hundred years after her death, her sad story continues to be told in Aberdeenshire as though it had happened yesterday.
The Tiffany Window: a Memorial to Percy Forbes-Leith of Fyvie Castle
Lieutenant Percy Forbes-Leith died of enteric fever on New Year's Eve 1900 while on active service with the British Army during the Boer War in South Africa. He was 19 years old.
Although he was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and spent substantial amounts of his short life at Fyvie Castle, Percy had many American connections. His mother was an American heiress, Marie Louise January. His father, Lord Leith, was involved for many years in the US steel industry.
The plaque beneath the Tiffany window in memory of Percy Forbes-Leith states that it was "Erected by his friends in the United States of America."
Percy's body was brought back from South Africa and buried in his family's enclosure just outside the door of Fyvie churchyard.
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louise Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of the famous jewellery company. Louis designed many beautiful stained glass windows in the Art Nouveau style. Indeed, according to the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, the famous Tiffany lamp so synonymous with the name "used fragments of sheet glass that had been surplus to the production of Tiffany's immensely popular stained glass windows."
The Tiffany Window at Fyvie
This striking and dramatic stained glass window depicts St Michael, his archangel's wings spread out against glowing blue skies and gleaming white clouds. The warrior angel, adversary of Satan and patron of knights during the Middle Ages, stands on the wheel of time, representing victory over evil.
St Michael's face is very finely done and the whole window, with its jewel-bright colours, has that unmistakeable Tiffany look. This is a stunning example of the artistry of Louis Comfort Tiffany and the craftsmanship of the Tiffany Glass Company (later the Tiffany Studios.)
Members of the Congregation of St Peter's say that this magnificent east-facing window is best seen early in the morning with a low winter sun behind it or on a summer's evening when the lime trees in the kirkyard on the other side of the window are blowing in the breeze.
Other References:
Fyvie Parish Church: Its Life And Times (Booklet produced by the congregation.)
Find out where Louis Comfort Tiffany's work can be seen in museums around the world.
Read Lord Leith's moving response to "tenants and friends in Fyvie" for those expressions of sympathy on the death of his son Percy.
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