OUR WONDERFUL KEMPE GLASS

Number 7 – the Great West Window
The five large lights depict the following:
LEFT: St George, Patron saint of England, wearing the armour of a knight and carrying a sword and a lance. On his chest he wears the Cross of St. George, a red cross on a white shirt over his armour. He supports the Shield of England – red, with three golden lions. He stands on the defeated dragon. His lance also has a small banner with the same flag flying from it.
CENTRE LEFT: St. Etheldreda of Ely, reminding us that this church was once in Ely Diocese. She was a princess who founded a double monastery in Ely in AD 672. She died in AD 679 and is also sometimes known as Audrey.
CENTRE: St. Michael the Archangel, also dressed as a knight in armour and carrying a long sword in one hand and a cross in the other. He too stands on a defeated dragon. Note the wings at his shoulders.
CENTRE RIGHT: St. Hugh of Lincoln, dressed as a bishop. He carries a crosier and in the bend of his left arm a model of Lincoln Cathedral. He was a great builder, starting the building of that great church and, by tradition, visiting this place, then in Lincoln Diocese, and ordering the building of All Saints to replace a smaller church which stood here. (It is believed that the font is from the earlier building.) He was famed for his travels accompanied by his pet swan, which you can see at his left side.
RIGHT: St. Alban, a comparatively local man, a Roman citizen who lived at Verulamium, (S.Albans). He was the first Christian martyr in this land and he carries the martyr’s palm and a sword to show that he was a soldier. He supports the Shield of St. Alban. This church, now in St Alban’s Diocese, was not so when this window was put in, at the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. It is of interest to note that we have restored it in the year of our own Queen’s Golden Jubilee. It was placed here by the Page family of Page’s Park and Page’s Almshouses fame.
This magnificent window contains many depictions of saints and angels – 31 lights in total – and is particularly beautiful viewed with setting sun behind it in the evening.
Brian Willett