Gyles Windows
The two stained glass windows in the Little Hall are rare and interesting, as they are both by the York glass painter Henry Gyles, to whom a total of fifty-eight glass paintings can be attributed. The side window is his earliest known work (1662) and depicts the armorial bearings of the London Company of Merchant Taylors the York Company were not granted their own Arms until 1963. It is initialled HG on the left beneath the motto. It is known as the ‘Buckton’ window as it was the Gift of Simon Buckton, a Merchant Taylor, as the dedication shows. The window’s restoration in 1862 is recorded by one panel and a second panel, by the local glass painter Helen Whittaker, records the windows conservation in 2008 by Keith Barley, of Barley Studios, the award winning local conservator and restorer of historic stained glass. 
The end window is again by Henry Gyles (1701) - his full signature is shown at the bottom - and is in four parts. At the top it depicts the crowned bust of Queen Anne with two supporting angels, with the armorial bearings of the aLondon Company of Merchant Taylors below. Above the angel at the foot of the window is the extraordinary descriptive panel claiming that This Company has beene dignified in the yeare 1679 by having in their Fraternity, eight Kings, eleven Dukes, thirty Earles and fortyfour Lords. This refers to the London Company, who actually did have such a membership (but presumably the inscription should read ‘…by having had in their fraternity…’). The date of 1679 refers to the completion of the restoration of their London Hall following the Great Fire of 1666; the mystery is why the glass is in York and not in London! The national importance of these two windows enhances the link between the Company of Merchant Taylors of York and the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass in London which continues today.