Left: Whole window. Right: The Annunciation. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

The Annunciation and the Visitation, by John Hardman & Co., with a closer view of the Annunciation light shown on the right. The nave windows were installed in 1869-70 in Alexander Ross's Inverness Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew, Inverness-shire, Scotland. Hardman's didactic scheme starts at the east end of the nave with the Annunciation in the south aisle, as shown above, and on this side follows Jesus's life through to his time in the carpenter's shop, except that the large, panoramic five-light window in the south transept (added in 1887) shows the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. The two-light windows are indeed "clearly drawn archaic designs in bright colours," as John Gifford says (189). This lovely window seems to elevate Mary, who has been interrupted in her reading of the scriptures, and has turned to listen to the extraordinary message that the angel brings her.

Photographs by Colin Price, reproduced here by kind permission of the cathedral; text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.

Related Material

Bibliography

Gifford, John. Highland and Islands. The Buildings of Scotland. London: Penguin, 1992.

"Inverness, Ardross Street, Cathedral Church of St Andrew." British Listed Buildings. Web. 11 January 2018.

"A Tour of the Cathedral." United Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness. Web. 11 January 2018.


11 January 2018