Get eye-to-eye with unique Renaissance treasures at The Vyne

It's easy, sitting in a comfortable house in England, to find the destruction of the treasures of Palmyra or the Bamiyan Buddhas by religious fundamentalists absolutely unbelievable. A careless and pointless desecration of history that's beyond our imagination. And yet ... it happened here not that long ago.

In the middle of the 1500s, and again 100 years later, religious conflict tore England apart. One notable victim was the country's religious art; particularly fragile stained glass windows. That's why a set of panels at a country house outside of Basingstoke is so remarkable. Until Easter, you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get nose-to-nose with them.

William Sandys created the Vyne to celebrate his success as Lord Chamberlain to a young Henry VIII. Though most of the house you see today is Georgian and Victorian, the chapel is a magnificent survival from the original. Up above the altar are three light-filled arches, each with six panels of vivid stories told in glass. The top panels are religious scenes, the bottom commemorate the notable royals who had made Sandys' career possible. These glowing, jewel-toned works of art demonstrate what was possible at the apogee of the Renaissance glass-maker's skill. They're just as good as the celebrated ones in Auch Cathedral (Gascony) I wrote about here. But these are the only ones of this quality you're going to see in England, in their original setting.

They have always been beautiful, but now they've been spectacularly reborn. Suffering from five centuries of weather, outdoor grime and indoor candle smoke, they were showing their age. Pitted, a bit grimy, wobbling dangerously in their leading. So the National Trust embarked on a comprehensive and risky restoration. They removed everything, cleaned and restored each panel, fit the jigsaw back together, then replaced them. But not before installing a second, high-tech, weather-proof set of clear glass panels between the original windows and the Hampshire weather. This modern double-glazing, combined with careful conservation indoors, should mean that these unique treasures will be be preserved for generations to come.

But you only have four more weeks to see them at eye level. The National Trust has left the workers' scaffolding in place, so you can clamber up and look straight at them. It's only from this perspective that you really grasp the nuance and sophistication. Lavish architectural detail. Tiny trees and buildings in the landscape behind the main figures. Animation and expression in the characters' faces. The the fluid spring of a running dog keeping pace with a small boy. This is the kind of detail you just don't grasp when you're standing 12 feet below. It's a testament to the makers' search for perfection that they incorporated so many fine points they knew most people would never notice.

Equally interesting to any Tudor history buff is who's in the windows.
Henry VIII is in the centre. Not the broad, grim wife-flipping
brute of popular imagination, but a handsome, beardless blond youth with an eager look and an equally young blonde wife. She's on his left, and you can tell from the pomegranate design on her sleeve that it's Catherine of Aragon. Not the tired, post-menopausal woman fighting to keep her marriage, but a beautiful and confident newlywed. It's fascinating, and tragic. The other woman is Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Henry's sister. (Check out the perfect contentment of her lapdog, cheekily curled up on the lavish purple velvet of her prie dieu.)  These are very rare contemporary portraits of people we think we know well. The faces here suggest that we don't.

Thanks to the fine work of the National Trust and specialist restorers Holy Well Glass, you'll be able to appreciate these treasures for the rest of your life. But if you want to appreciate their details to the degree described here, you have four weeks.  Get there. You won't regret it.