By Lars Niven

FIFE COUNCILLORS have been told a charitable trust, and not the council, owns a valuable stained glass window commissioned by Dunfermline-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

The Tiffany Window, thought to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, was on display to the public in the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline for years.

It was removed last year and sent to a specialist firm in the Borders to be restored.

Most assumed it would be put back into the Tiffany Lounge at the hall, but the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust said it wanted to house the window in its new headquarters at Pittencrieff Park.

That led to criticism from campaigners who claimed it belonged to the council as the Carnegie Hall was handed over to the local authority by the trust some years ago.

They argued that few people would ever get the chance to see the window, which was originally intended for Dunfermline Abbey, if it was installed in the trust’s offices.

However, research by council lawyers has shown the trust does in fact own the window.

Councillors will meet at the City Chambers in Dunfermline this morning to discuss the latest development.

They have been urged to authorise officials to negotiate with the trust to ensure the window is put in a place where as many people as possible can see it.

Options put forward by officials include returning it to the Carnegie Hall, where it has been on display in the Tiffany Lounge since 1992, or “designing it in” to the proposed new museum for Dunfermline.

It was commissioned by the Carnegie family in the early 1900s from the New York studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

While the council has not had the window valued, a Tiffany lamp sold at auction recently for $250,000.

According to a report by Iain Whitelaw, the council’s senior manager for cultural services, it originally cost about £2000.

Andrew Carnegie hoped the landscape would be installed in Dunfermline Abbey as a family memorial and offered it to the authorities.

However, it was rejected as being “out of harmony” with the abbey’s other windows. It was kept in storage for years, then installed in Carnegie Hall, in the 1930s.

But after all the windows were blacked out for theatrical lighting purposes, it was moved to the Tiffany Lounge. The £8000 restoration bill is being paid by the trust.

In a report prepared for today’s Dunfermline area committee, Mr Whitelaw confirms the trust owns the window.

“From 1935 to the mid-1960s the Carnegie Hall and the window remained in the possession of the Carnegie Trust,” he says.

“In the mid-1960s the hall was passed to the local authority by the trust. This appears to have been a matter of some negotiation between the local authority and the trust.”

He adds, “The window was originally installed by the trust in the hall around the time of its original construction and it is reasonable to assume that they would not have done so unless they owned the window.

“This means that the Tiffany window would form part of the structure of the hall and ownership of the window would be the same as ownership of the hall.

“When the hall was sub-let to the local authority in the mid-1960s the window formed part of the building.”

Mr Whitelaw points out that the trust still owned the hall.

The trust has declined to comment while discussions are taking place with the council over the window’s future.