Windows to the past

Before you step inside the hall take a look at the panes of glass in the doorway as you go in. Do you notice anything? I've been in and out of that hall countless times over the years and never once did I take enough time to notice the peculiar sheen on the tiny panes of glass in the door. It's not a flaw in the glass, they've been filtered using gold - that's why you get that 'gossomer wing' colour effect that you just about make out in our photographer, Keith Moore's photo, top right . Again, these doors were lost in the 1972 bombing, so what could be salvaged was used in the framework, but they essentially the doors had to be totally replaced.

"These windows are probably more expensive than the stained glass," my guide, Colin Sharpe, the superintendent says, adding: "They are filtered with 15 karat gold. Can you see the gold tint?" he asks as he stands back at an angle and looks at the tiny panes, encouraging me to do the same.

For me the most stunning windows are those in the gallery and depicting the Fire World War. It is difficulty to believe that the faces in these window lights have stared down on people attending concerts, dances, the feis, boxing...you name it they have seen it.

In an aside, while I am distracted by the heraldic colours fromthe windows washing the floor with a flood of colour, Colin tells me that years ago badminton tourneys were played in the hall and a false floor was also laid.

"This is a maple dance floor and the council chamber would be underneath us. This maple floor would have been covered, there was a false floor that went down on top of this years ago, and they would have put up badminton nets and played. Of course the innovation of leisure centres saw that type of thing being taken away, but they did play badminton in here," he says.

The upper aspect of the gallery windows are, once again, Guild windows and London companies. The colours in them are among the most spectacular because they are so high up and have more light pouring through them without buildings outside to cast shadows.

"You can see how vibrant the colours are and one that I always pick out for tourists is the one with the three barrels. Can you imagine what the barrelsstand for?" he asks.

I stumped, so he tells me - it's the Vintners Association of London.

Swana

"Do you see at the top, the swans? The Vintners Association in London own the swans in the Thames, and that's the significance of the Coat of Arms."

In the centre portion of the window lights are a mermaid and merman, and from left to right in the arched window you have the skinners, the grocers, the fishmongers, the drapers and the vintners.

In the lower gallery, some close-ups of which are reproduced below, are some highly-decorative panels which illustrate the arrival of St Columba in the Place of the Oak, in 546AD when he was given permission to build a monastery in the closing of the City gates in the face of the approaching Jacobite Army, and the one of the men in red robes depicts the Centenary Procession marking the shutting of the gates, which took place in 1778. This was the first ever commemorative procession by the Williamites around the City to mark the anniversary of the closing of the gates, which gave rise to the ongoing tradition of marching. You also have the four famous fighting clans of the time: The O'Neills, the O'Dohertys, O'Donnells and the O'Cahans, who were Lords and Chieftains who fought over all manner of things from land to fishing rights.

Also commemorated are the building of the City Walls in 1601, and on the right, the re-builings of the City Walls in 1609, the citizens sent over from London in connection with The Plantation, Derry/Londonderry being the pilot programme and precursor to the Plantation of Ulster, various Coats of Arms including that of Charles II, who granted the Royal Charter which led to the naming of the City as 'Londonderry'. There is a tiny map of the Walled City, another of the original Guildhall, which was burned to the ground on Easter Sunday in 1908. By far my favourite - apart from the 'War Windows' - is the one for the pre-fab houses, enlarged below. The light is tucked in the far bottom right of the lower gallery.

"These are the framed houses sent from London in 1609. These were the firest pre-fabricated houses ever. A thousand of these houses were packed in crates and sent over from London at a cost of 1,130, just over 1 for a house," says Colin.

Don't you just wish you had that mortgage? A little over 1! When clearance work on old shops, like AJ Spears, took place to make way for the Richmond Centre, in between the walls of the original shops they found fullsectionos of these pre-fabricated houses! How class is that?

"Believe it or not, they were packed in crates and sent back to London," says Colin, and they are in a museum in London somewhere," he says.