The colourful introduction by Colonel Robert Myddelton Biddulph (d.1872) of Chirk's heraldic glass, in the medieval or Elizabethan fashion, reflects the influence of Queen Victoria's celebrated 'artist in stained glass' Thomas Willement (d.1871), author of Regal Heraldry of 1821. Willement collaborated with the antiquary and scholar Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick at the Tower of London and the embellishment of Goodrich Castle in the 1820s; and he also collaborated at Lord Shrewsbury's Alton Towers with Pugin in the early 1840s, before the latter turned to his trusted craftsman John Hardman in his attempt to revive and improve the medieval art of stained glass design. Hardman's nephew, John Hardman Powell (d.1895), who was in Pugin's employ at the time that Hardman established his Birmingham glass manufactory, also assisted Pugin with preparing his cartoons for glass (P.Atterbury and C.Wainwright, Pugin, London, 1995 p.198). The stained glass and heraldic shields that served to decorate Chirk also reflect the heraldic interests encouraged by the publication of Philip Yorke's, Royal Tribes of Wales, 1799. The source of Pugin's designs for this glass in the mid 1840s was the celebrated 1595 Myddelton family tree, which he also used in the Cromwell Hall shields. At Chirk, Pugin introduced stained glass in the State Rooms, as well as the Cromwell Hall and Lower Corridor.