The Altar

In most churches of the period of St James’, the altar is a massive carved stone edifice, even if nowadays is it covered with a decorative frontal.  But underneath the normal frontal in St James’ is plain oak table.  It is clearly made to the correct size and until recently was not very steady.  Peter Iles, a member of the congregation and late husband of Arma Iles, a lay reader, added some stabilising struts in recent times,

It is clearly a consecrated altar, having a stone inlay with 5 crosses, which would have been used for the incense as part of the dedication ceremony.   We know that it was dedicated at the time that the nave was completed, and a local paper, the Montrose Courier, carried a detailed description of the dedication service on Monday 1st October 1877 (see full article below, with reference to the blessing of the altar in section 9).

We know that the building of the church had to come to a halt after the nave was completed, because the congregation had run out of money temporarily.  One can only assume that the decision was taken not to move the altar from the old High Street chapel, but obtain a new one.  Assuming it might be temporary and have to be moved, and the shortage of money, the decision was taken to get a plain wooden table.  The inserting of the stone tablet was a necessary artifact if the altar was to be dedicated.

Having such a lightweight moveable altar does have its advantages.  Until relatively recently, the practice was to celebrate the Eucharist with the priest ‘facing east’, i.e looking straight at the Reredos, and with his back to the congregation.  In this case the altar would be placed hard up against the Reredos.  In today’s worship, the more common practice is for the priest to ‘face the people’, and in St James’ the altar can be easily moved out to allow the priest to stand behind it, with his back the the Reredos.

The stone inlay used at the dedication ceremony

The High Altar stripped bare, as it would be for Good Friday

REPORT OF THE DEDICATION SERVICE

The pages below give a very detailed report (from the Montrose Courier)  of the Service of Dedication on 1st October 1877 in which the church (at that time only the Nave) was first used, and the altar dedicated.