HOW AN ICONIC PIECE OF HISTORY CAME TO WATROUS, LITERALLY, IN PIECES
Soon after European settlers began arriving in the area in the early 1900s, the All Saints Anglican Church was established in Watrous in 1910. The first vicar, Rev. King, was given a stained glass window to bring with him to his new parish when he came from England.
The window, called the Enthronement of Christ, is actually several window panels with Christ shown on the middle panel flanked by panels depicting saints Peter and Paul. It is said to be an excellent example of English neo-medieval stained glass with colours of blue, purple, red, green and yellow. As many of the techniques to produce those colours have been lost over the centuries, the window truly is a rarity.
“It’s priceless,” says Alice Insker, a member of the All Saints parish.
So much so that the exterior has now been covered with Plexiglas to protect it. Only visible from the outside when the lights are on in the church, the true majesty of the work is best seen from inside and more and more people are wanting to take a look.
Inkster says they haven’t kept track of the number of visitors who arrive seemingly daily. “There’s lots of people coming in to see the window,” she says.
Originally placed in the Church of St. John the Baptist in Wiltshire, England, the window dates from the 1500s. At one point it was removed from the church and buried to protect it from Puritan vandalism. It was replaced after the Restoration, only to make way for a newer window.
When Rev. King left England to lead his new church in Watrous, he brought the window with him. But, such fragile items don’t travel well even in modern times and the window was dismantled into 2,000 pieces to make the trip before being lovingly restored and installed in the new church thousands of miles away.
“They took such care of it,” Inkster says, right from the beginning. “They took care of it — to bury it and bring it over in little pieces and put it together.”
Inkster says the example of that kind of care encourages the community and visitors to look to the past, and ahead to the future to bring together all the various pieces.
In one example, the area’s Lutherans now share the church with the Anglicans. “We are joined now with the Lutheran and making a bigger congregation,” she says.
Like the care that went into bringing the window to Canada and putting together the pieces to create the historic window, Inster believes the window and the church can bring together not only the two congregations, but area residents and visitors from far afield.
“In thinking of the window and the past and present and future, we can take care in this world and keep going,” she says.