Explore the After World War II about the After 1925 of this artwork, Five Sisters window.
Before being reinstated the windows required further restoration, which was part of an effort to make safe the entire west front of the Minster, to avoid its being "permanently defaced by gantries, erected as a necessary protection to passers-by against stones falling as they crumble away". This effort would cost £250,000 (equivalent to £6.8 million in 2023). In June 1950, in reference to fundraising for the Five Sisters window, the Dean of the Minster was quoted as saying, "We have been anxious that it should be the work of the women of Yorkshire and England, as it was after the First War." In 1950 they were reinstated, using an eight-storey electric lift.
 A rededication service was held on 9 December 1950, attended by 2,400 people, involving a massed choir of 250 singers and a choir of one hundred singers representing the Women's Institute. For the first time, an all-female team of bell-ringers, from the Ladies Guild of Change Ringers, rang the Minster's bells for the service.Another Minster first was the inclusion of the craftspeople who had been responsible for the restoration work playing a formal role in the rededication service. Mr W J Green, the Clerk of Works, whose father had been responsible for preserving and replacing the glass after World War I, was asked by the Dean, "Can your glaziers assure me that, despite its age, the glass is in good order and has been replaced without hurt?" to which Mr O Lazenby, the glazier foreman, replied, "In the name of the Minster glaziers, I, whose responsibility it has been to superintend the insertion of the five windows, do testify that it has been well and truly done." This dialogue was intended to draw attention to the glaziers' skill and their devotion to this enormous task.The scaffolding was fully removed in March 1951, giving the first unobstructed view of the windows since 1935 when work had been carried out to repair damage from the death watch beetle. The windows were subsequently featured as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. In the same year there was a call to raise funds to re-lead the roof over the windows.In 1964 twenty panes were shot by an air rifle.During an exploratory analysis of the window's glass by the University of York's physics department during the 1970s it was discovered that three pieces of blue glass were medieval soda glass, rather than the expected potash glass. Prior to this it was thought that almost all medieval stained glass in Europe contained potash, meaning that this discovery was "both unexpected and important". After further investigation, it became clear that Medieval blue soda glass was not as rare as had been suspected, and that York Minster had at least ten times as much as was initially thought.
University of York York Minster Women's Institute Festival of Britain York World War II University of York's bell-ringer Dean World War I potash