History and Architecture: Windows & Memorial Tributes

The original glass installed into the church in 1875 was cathedral glass of light-green tint.

The colourful stained glass memorial windows were gifts that were added later. The first to be installed was the beautiful five-light window at the east end of the chancel, depicting 'The Ascension'.

This was was given by parishioners and friends in 1909 in memory of the Rev. Henry Powell Owen Smith, who was vicar from 1884 to 1909.

 

   
 

There are three lancet windows at the west end of the nave, with a rose window above them. All the lancet windows depict biblical warriors and were erected as memorials to men killed in action during the First World War.

The central window, ' St. George,' is in memory of Lt. Charles Herbert Ball, who was killed in action in France on April 3rd, 1918, and was given by his family. A plaque on the sill of the centre window on the west wall provides details about this window.

Also on the west wall is a lozenge-shaped marble tablet to the memory of John Blinkhorn, Churchwarden 1866-1895, who died in 1904

The two stained glass windows depicting ' St. Michael ' and 'Joshua', plus the rose window (pictured below), were given to the church by the parishioners in 1920, as a war memorial to those of the parish killed during the First World War.

   

 

 

Click on this photograph on the left to move in for a better view of the Lancet windows and the metal tablets.

 

 

 

 
 

On the north wall is a large framed scroll. This beautiful scroll records the gift of'the rose window and the St. Michael ' and ' Joshua' windows given by the parishioners as a war memorial and records the names of those who served in the First World War whose lives were spared.

In the centre of the north wall is a bronze war memorial listing the names of the fifteen parishioners who died ' in the service of their King and Country in the Great War, 1914-1918.'

To each side of this a brass plate has been added to record the names of the eighteen parishioners who were killed in the 1939-1945 War.


There is also a plaque on the north wall in memory of Capt. Arthur Clive Leech who was killed in action in Dardenelles in 1915.
     

The most modern of the stained glass windows is in the north-west corner of the nave and was placed by Albert Jacob Sheldon in July, 1968, in memory of his parents, Jacob and Catherine, and his sisters and brothers. This window is the work of Harry J. Stammers of Bradwell House, Bucks., and can be identified by his trademark of a ship's wheel. The window was one of his last designs.