Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

Ruthwell Parish Church

Dumfries and Galloway

Posted 12 March 2023.

In outward appearance Ruthwell parish church is unremarkable, a simple squat whitewashed building, unusually entered through an east door, having obtained the key from a box near the adjacent manse. Inside, however, there is a treasure worth the detour; the Ruthwell Cross, perhaps the finest surviving Anglo-Saxon cross in the country. Much has been written about the history, so as to make it entirely unnecessary to relate it here. Links are provided below. Suffice to say that the apse on the north side was built in 1887 especially to house the cross by the polymath Reverend of Ruthwell, Henry Duncan. It is the three apse windows which contain the Percy Bacon glass. The dates of the insertion of the windows is not entirely clear, and the inscriptions are unhelpful. Pevsner suggests 1910-1914,¹ though a small plaque below one of the windows is dedicated to the memories of Alexander Leith Davidson and his wife Charlotte which is dated 1916.

The windows depict three northern saints; St Hilda, founder of Whitby Abbey, St Cuthbert and St Aidan of Lindesfarne. Hilda is depicted as queen, a modern representation as there is no evidence she was of Royal lineage. The head of her crozier is the shape of an ammonite, referencing the legend that Hilda turned a plague of snakes to stone, supposedly explaining the presence of fossils of that animal on the beach. She holds a model of the abbey at Whitby which she founded. Cuthbert and Aidan are represented as richly dressed bishops. The dedication below Hilda is incomplete. Those below Cuthbert and Aidan dedicate the windows respectively to Helen McFarlan, and James McFarlan, minister of the parish, 1871-89. Only one window, that depictinging St Aidan is signed.

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St Cuthbert St Aidan St Hilda St Hilda St Cuthbert St Cuthbert St Aidan St Aidan

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1. Gifford, J. & Pevsner, N. The Buildings of Scotland; Dumfries & Galloway, 1996; p505.
2. Ruthwell Cross: Wikipedia Entry.
3. For a comprehensive exposé of the origins, history and deciphering of the Ruthwell Cross refer to, Cassidy, B (ed); "The Ruthwell Cross", Princetown University, 1992.