| St James Episcopal Church - church, lodge and rectory | Leith (N.B.).—New Episcopal Church.—The foundation stone of the new edifice for St. James s Episcopal congregation, Leith, has been laid by the Right Hon W E Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer. For the site the sum of £2,000 has been paid and it is estimated that the church will cost between £5,000 and £6,000. The designs, which include a church seated for fully six hundred persons, and a parsonage, are by Mr. Gilbert Scott. The church consists of a nave of five bays, with north and south aisles extending from the east gable westward two bays, a chancel with semicircular apse, and a tower and spire. The nave and aisles are seated for the congregation ; the chancel is seated with stalls tor the choir; and the apse is occupied by the altar and reredos, and seats for the clergy. On the ground floor of the tower is the vestry, which has a private entrance. In the upper part of the tower is a bell-room surmounted by an octagonal spire pierced by slender lights protected by projecting gablets carried on shafts. The whole of the church is covered in with an open timber roof; that of the nave is boarded on the underside of the braces and ties to a polygonal form; and the chancel, apse, and aisles to the form of a pointed arch. There are two entrances—one in the west gable, the other in the south transept. The west door is surmounted by three two-light windows, the heads filled with plate tracery: in the apex of the gable is a vesica window. The windows of nave and aisles have three lights and in the apse and chancel are single-light pointe windows, the jambs and arches moulded. It is understood that the windows in the west gable will be filled with stained glass, by Messrs. Clayton and Bell The extreme length of the church inside is 125 feet; the breadth of nave 37 feet 6 inches; of aisles 14 feet. The height of the tower and spire, 180 feet. The style adopted is that of the thirteenth century. Messrs Berry, of Edinburgh, are the contractors for the mason-work, Mr Swann, of the Edinburgh Saw-Mills, has the carpenter-work.
'a decorative mural scheme designed by Mr E.P.C. Clarke, himself an architect and one-time organist of the old cathedral. This decoration consisted of painted stencil work throughout the body of the church, culminating in elaborate arabesques in the domed apse, the niches between the windows of which contained painted representations of saints Margaret of Scotland, Luke, Paul, James the Less, Andrew, Peter, Mark, Ninian and Columba. This design, approved by Mr Scott, never altered and lasted the lifetime of the building. The work was executed by the beadle, Mr Kirkpatrick, a painter by trade, who had taken up his St James’s duties in 1858 and was to serve the congregation for 48 years'. (Extract from pdf on website http://www.stjamesleith.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/St-James-History-to-1900.pdf accessed July 2015.) |