The Murals - The Chancel Arch

The entrance to the chancel is celebrated by an immense arch pierced by 2 smaller arches leading to the chancel aisles. It represents the worship of Heaven, as given in the Books of Ezekiel and Revelation. The altar was taken as the central point of the design, with a transparent rainbow transversing the lower figures and centring on the tabernacle in which the Sacrament was reserved.

The lowest range of five sections is occupied by the heads of the Four Living Creatures (man, lion, eage and ox, the symbols of the four evangelists). Above are two pairs of Cherubim who symbolise the modes of the ministry of the Church and thus the four principal structures of the Apostolic Church: the evangelist, the apostle, the prophet and the pastor. Each figure turns towards the altar and is dressed in a coloured robe – the Evangelist in scarlet, the Apostle in gold, the Prophet in blue, the Pastor in silver. In addition, each figure carries a symbol of his office.

The third range shows the worship of heaven by Holy Angels and by the Perfected Church. In all, a choir of 59 angels kneels in adoration below a band of 35 angels blowing gilded trumpets to sound ‘the high praises of God’.

Across the top of the great arch, the Four and Twenty Elders are clothed in albs, golden stoles and purple copes (declaring their role as Apostles and Rulers of the Universal Church). Above, the Great Multitude of the Redeemed ‘which no man could number’ carry palms of victory, 4 harps and 4 golden trumpets. Around them is a sea of glass mingled with fire. The colour here is quite as vivid as elsewhere, despite the distance from the ground. Only in this section is Traquair known to have had any assistance, from John Fraser Matthew, apprentice of her friend, the celebrated Edinburgh architect Robert Lorimer.