The Memorial Chapel

This chapel is dedicated to the memory of those who fell in the First World War - later extended to include those also of the Second.

Appropriately, the theme of the altarpiece is Our Lady of Sorrows. Our Lady holds the corpse of Christ on her lap in a classical ‘Pieta’ pose. The scene on the left shows the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple for circumcision. The prophet Simeon tells Mary that a sword will pierce her own heart too. In the right hand scene the prophecy comes true as Mary watches her son carry his cross to Calvary.

Four centurions from the New Testament pick up the military theme along the bottom of the reredos. They are the centurion Cornelius, who was the first Gentile to be baptised; the centurion who took Paul on his journey to Rome; the centurion of the crucifixion who exclaimed, “Truly this man was a Son of God”; and the centurion who asked Jesus, full of faith, to heal his servant. His words are echoed by us just before Holy Communion: “Lord, I am not worth to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.”