A team of scientists and researchers have solved the four-year-old mystery of the shards of stained glass anonymously returned to Dunfermline Abbey in Fife.
The shards were delivered to the Abbey Church in November 2020 and addressed to “Bob Brewse”.
They were wrapped in a duplicate of the Fife and Kinross Extra newspaper, dated 12 February 2005. Also included was a typed note, which read: “Hello there, I’m returning some stained glass that I discovered over 20 years ago. It was in a small pile below the scaffold that was erected by the Abbey, near footpath facing west. I wrapped it up in paper to guard it but never had the prospect to return it. Unsure if was recent glass getting in or old coming out. I felt a bit guilty taking it and hope it would get used. Regards, CEEPS”.
It is believed that “Bob Brewse” is a reference to the renowned king of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, who’s buried on the church.
For years nobody knew any greater than “CEEPS” in regards to the shards, nonetheless a team consisting of a Professor of History, a scientist and a PhD student, finally unravelled the mystery.
Michael Penman, Professor of History on the University of Stirling, examined church records for references to break to the stained-glass windows within the church or to repairs.
He was assisted by Dr Kennedy of the Institute for Sustainable Building Design at Heriot-Watt University, who used scientific evaluation to seek out the ingredients utilized in the glass, which in turn dated them to a period between 1870 and 1940.
The final pieces of the puzzle were solved by Ms Kelly, a PhD student from the Glasgow School of Art.
Examining the pieces, she determined that they depicted an angel and an individual wearing a noble’s robe. By visiting the church itself, Ms Kelly was in a position to see that the Margaret Window was in places manufactured from an ever so barely in a different way colored glass and material.
The mystery had been solved.
The Margaret Window depicts the wedding of Queen Margaret and King Malcolm Canmore and was originally installed in 1932.
Ms Kelly said, “When I started my PhD at Heriot-Watt University in October 2024, I never imagined I’d bump into a mystery linked to Dunfermline Abbey.
“Through this collaboration of science, history, and visual evaluation, we determined that each one the fragments originated from the primary lancet window, where two areas of injury had led to repairs and alternative.”
Intriguingly, there may be one final mystery yet to be solved: who’s CEEPS?!
