These four stained-glass panels, created by the renowned Victorian firm Clayton and Bell, adorn the clerestory of the quire in Gloucester Cathedral. Set beneath graceful Gothic canopies, they depict four of the apostles, St Peter, St John, St James the Greater, and St Andrew, each rendered with the luminous colour and devotional precision characteristic of the High Victorian Gothic Revival.

Against a radiant background of ruby glass, the apostles stand in serene symmetry. St Peter, holding the keys of Heaven, is marked by authority and humility; St John, the youthful evangelist, carries his chalice of vision; St James bears the pilgrim’s staff and scallop shell, symbols of his journey and martyrdom; while St Andrew, robed in blue and white, cradles the diagonal cross of his passion, an emblem of steadfast faith and missionary courage.

Clayton and Bell’s craftsmanship reflects the 19th-century renewal of medieval glass traditions, blending rich colour, strong linear design, and finely modelled faces with an intensity of spiritual feeling. Within the soaring clerestory of Gloucester, the apostles stand not merely as individual saints but as a collective image of discipleship, guardians of the Church whose witness shines forth in light and colour, proclaiming faith through the medium of glass.