Interior - view of chancel looking towards altar

Description Interior - view of chancel looking towards altar

Date 1913

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number SC 717126

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of BL 22326

Scope and Content Chancel, St John's Scottish Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh, looking east from the nave St John's Scottish Episcopal Church was designed in 1815-18 in a Perpendicular Gothic style by the architect, William Burn. In 1879-82 the chancel was extended by the architectural firm of Peddie & Kinnear, and refurbished in 1913 by John More Dick Peddie & Forbes Smith. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the interior in 1913. The chancel is fronted by an intricately carved wooden rood screen, above which hangs a cross, both installed in 1913 by John More Dick Peddie & Forbes Smith, who also added the sounding-board (canopy) to the pulpit (left) and refurbished the chancel with canopied stalls and oak panelling inspired by King's College Chapel in Aberdeen. The pew ends are decorated with carvings of five different types of vine leaf heads. The church originally had box pews, each allocated to a family within the congregation. In 1867 when the box pews were replaced with the present bench seating, the services of two elderly ladies, employed to escort people to their seats, were no longer required. Described as 'grim but respectable', the ladies opened the pew doors and stood until each family was seated before shutting the door and 'shooting the bolt home'. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference Box 66

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/717126

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap