page_title: St Peter-in-Ely
section_title: The Kempe Window
hierarchical_section_title: St Peter-in-Ely / The Kempe Window
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles Kempe window at St Peter-in-Ely
context_page_description: St Peter-in-Ely or St Peter's Church, Ely is a Church of England Proprietary Chapel in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, located on Broad Street. The chapel is in the Diocese of Ely and follows the Anglo-Catholic or high-church tradition of the Church of England.
  It is a stone structure in the Early Decorated Period style and consists of chancel, nave, south porch and south-west bell turret with one bell. The architects responsible are named in a contemporary press report as 'St Aubyn and Wadling of London'. Mr H.J. Wadling attended the dedication service as 'architect'. The east window is a notable work from the studio of Charles Eamer Kempe and there is a wooden screen and rood loft designed by Sir Ninian Comper.
  The building opened for worship in 1890 with the intention of ministering to those living and working in Ely's riverside district.
context_section_description: The five-light east window, dating to 1892, was commissioned from the London studio of Charles Eamer Kempe, by the Revd. Salisbury Price, then a curate of the parish of Ely, Holy Trinity, in which St Peter's had been founded as a mission church. Its central light shows the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ, flanked by two lights: that to the north showing St Edmund, the martyred King of East Anglia; and that to the south showing St Etheldreda, seventh-century foundress of the monastery of Ely. The outermost lights show, to the north, St Augustine of Canterbury; and to the south, the martyred St Thomas Becket, also of Canterbury. 
  Above the main lights is a representation of the Eucharistic Host, set in the circular centre of a tracery rose window. Around the Host cluster six angels, so to speak within the 'petals' of the 'rose', while, in the spaces between the 'petals' are depicted six lilies, the stem of each shown surrounded by a circlet inscribed with 'Ave Maria'. The Marian theme is reiterated in the outer elements of the tracery, where the acclamation, Gloria tibi Domine/ qui natus es de virgine is seen, written on two scrolls. Panels in the lower tracery specifically depict the Annunciation: Gabriel addresses the Virgin with Ave Maria and she replies with Ecce ancilla Domini. The Holy Spirit is seen descending in the form of a dove. Emanations  somewhat resembling ears of corn radiate from the dove, as from the Eucharistic Host placed at the centre of the 'rose'.   
  At the lowest level of the window we find heraldic art and representations of St Michael and St George flanking three central panels which have been left blank because, originally, damask cloth stretched over a tall frame or board set behind the altar obscured the lower, central part of the window. A very early photograph of the church interior shows this cloth-covered construction still in place. Later removed, it seems from the photographic records of the church never to have been replaced by any more solid reredos. The blank panels now shed bright light on the sanctuary.
  The window was dedicated to Lieutenant-General Henry Hope Crealock CB, CMG, who was the uncle who had recently bequeathed a substantial fortune to the Revd Salisbury Price. The representations of St Michael and St George allude to his military honours. Both General Crealock and Salisbury Price are commemorated in the heraldry. The face of St George is a later replacement for the one that figured in the original Kempe glass.
  Multi-coloured strapwork forming a border for the main five lights is patterned with alternate leopards' heads and wheatsheaves, motifs taken from the Price and Crealock arms respectively. A wheatsheaf in the bottom left hand corner, later the characteristic mark of Kempe windows, is found here for the first time in a design from his studio.
caption: The Kempe window
exif: {}