DESIGNS and drawings from a 130-year-old Lancaster stained glass studio have been bought and saved by Lancashire County Council. Money from the National Lottery's heritage fund allowed the council to bid for the documents created at the famous Abbott and Co - a now defunct stained-glass design and manufacturing studio based in the city since 1860. Abbott and Co carried out work in churches, hotels, pubs and public buildings. The records, bought for almost £30,000, include about 2,500 water colour designs and more than 150 day books containing estimates of work commissioned, cartoons and several thousand pattern drawings.

Cllr Tom Sharratt, chairman of the library, museums and arts committee, said: "We are particularly pleased to have beaten off the competition to bring these records back to Lancashire.

"They help to show that the county has a fine tradition of craft and design, something which is sometimes overlooked in the enormous industrial growth that took place in the 19th century.

"Study of these records will help to redress this imbalance and prove of great interest to both local historians and those researching design, industrial and economic history."

The public will be able to look at the records at the County Record Office in Preston once they have been catalogued.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.