Apse windows

There are seven large windows in the rounded apse at the east end of the church.  Only three of these lights are filled with stained glass.

The three windows centre were given by Miss Helen Rickard Hepburn in memory of her mother: Helen Maria; daughter of James John Forbes Leigh of Whitehaugh (just north of Alford), and wife of Robert William Rickard Hepburn of Rickarton: who was born on 5 December 1831; died on 1 March 1881. (What connection, we may ask, could there be with William Rickart Hepburn of Rickarton, whose widow: Elsa Mona: commemorated her daughter’s death by building the Roman Catholic church of The Immaculate Conception, just a stone’s throw away, in Arbuthnott Place in 1879?).

The three windows depict scenes from the Passion: two with inscription from the Vulgate traced by The Revd Canon Michael Cosgrove Paternoster, sometime Rector of St James’s church.

The North East stained glass window in the Apse

This window shows our Saviour, wearing a sumptuous robe of white bordered with gold and black, carrying His cross (John 19:17 “Bajulans sibi crucem exivit”: “He went forth, bearing His cross”); and two men whipping Him (the whipping rendered less severe by a splendid scarlet robe) while a third mockingly bends the knee (Matt 27:29; ”Viri illudebant ei caedentes”: “Men bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him” (the original being “Et genu flexo eum illudebant ei”).

The East-facing stained glass window in the Apse

Except for the superscription over the cross: I N R I (“Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudacorum”: “Jesus of Nazareth; King of the Jews”: from John 19:19-20), this window has captions in English: “It is finished” below the Saviour crucified; and “Behold the Lamb of God” across an angel with scarlet wings and outstretched hands: for this window has as its highest picture the Lamb with its foreleg crooked about a standard.

Note:  Because of this window’s position directly behind the massive stone reredos, the photo we have taken is not a clear as we would like.

The South East stained glass window in the Apse

This window has the same superscription as the others, and shows Christ being taken reverently down from the cross by five of His followers (Phil 2:8; “Factus obediens usque ad mortem”: “He became obedient even unto death”); and tended by four saintly figures before being carried thence (John 19:42; “Ibi ergo posuerunt Jesum”: “There laid they Jesus therefore”).