Stained glass windows honouring those who fell in the First World War have been removed from the Anglican Cathedral to be repaired.

The Right Reverend Nicholas Dill, Bishop of Bermuda, said the windows, which date back to the 1920s, have been showing wear and tear in recent years.

“The lead in the south-facing windows has become brittle and the windows now shake with the wind,” he said.

“We had experts take a look, and the recommendation was that it needed to be taken out and shipped to the UK to be re-leaded and brought back, hopefully before November 2018, which is the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.”

He said the repairs were important not just for the church, but for the island as a whole, explaining that the windows belonged to the people of Bermuda and were installed as a memorial for those lost during the First World War.

“It’s an important window, and we would have hated to have lost it due to bad weather,” he said, noting that the project had found some support from the Government, the Corporation of Hamilton, the National Trust and the Royal Bermuda Regiment Charitable Trust.

The work is expected to take around eight months, he added, and Plexiglas will be put in place to prevent the wind and rain from coming into the Cathedral until the windows return.

The windows have a unique legacy, having been built and designed by Meredith Williams and his wife, Alice Gertrude, who also designed the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh.

The window depicts warrior saints of the church, including Joan of Arc and St Martin, along with a British soldier in First World War uniform and a British Naval rating.