More about this scene
As might be expected of the world's most famous English public school, Eton College chapels have a host of stories
to tell about their early days. Lower Chapel, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, was built in 1889-92. Queen Victoria
and her daughters, Empress Frederick and Princess Beatrice, visited the new chapel on March 19, 1891, when the
Empress unveiled a statue of the Queen over the gateway into the Quadrangle. Built of Sutton and Weldon stone
from designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, it is similar in some ways to the College chapel: Perpendicular in style,
divided by large buttresses but without aisles. Three additional bays at the west end designed by Charles Blomfield
were completed in 1926 to give seating for more than 500 boys. The roof is chestnut wood, and on the shields
between the ribs are carved emblems of the Passion. At the west end there are dedications to a Head Master, Lower
Master and assistant master dated around 1889. Much of the furniture and fixtures in the chapel were donated by
Old Etonians and others connected with the school - organ, lectern, reredos, silver cross and candlesticks on the
altar, frontal and superfrontal and processional cross. Brother, sisters and friends of Tom Cottingham Edwards-
Moss put four stained glass windows in the chapel in 1895 'to preserve the memory of an Etonian so deeply
mourned'. He died at the age of 31 after becoming MP for Widnes. The windows in the nave are by Kempe, and
each depicts a virtue: on each are saints or men whose lives were examples of virtue, with scenes from the lives of
these men. The detail is well worth further investigation. The tracery of the ten windows is perpendicular. That of
the Chancel windows is decorated, given in memory of Mr Edwards-Moss, two representing the Annunciation and
the shepherds of Bethlehem, one of whom is playing bagpipes. The sheaf in the window is the badge of Kempe.
The tapestries - part of a memorial to those killed in the First World War - were designed by Lady Chilston and
woven at the Morris works at Merton Abbey. The 'Eton Guide' describes the tapestries as a remarkable
combination of the styles of the mid 16th century Brussels looms with English romantic detail, and quite
untouched by developments in contemporary art; they form one of the latest examples of the power of the
chivalric image in the 19th century public schools, showing the life of St George as typifying fallen Etonians.