Saint
St Werstan's Window
He fled the Danes to pray in peace. Peace did not last.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Norman priory church with fifteenth-century glass
- Legend from
- Saxon legend; 15th-century glass
- Tone
- Dark history
High in the priory glass, a hermit kneels, a chapel rises, and a martyr falls.
Great Malvern Priory keeps a strange story in its fifteenth-century glass. St Werstan, a monk of Deerhurst, is said to have fled the Danes and made a hermitage on the Malvern hills, where he was murdered. His oratory is thought to have stood where St Michael's Chapel, or Bello Sguardo, stood later. A clerestory window in the choir shows his vision, the consecration of his chapel, the grant of Edward the Confessor and his martyrdom. Jabez Allies, writing in 1852, noted that Leland is the only writer to name him, and dated the painted glass to around 1460. The priory proper was begun in 1085.