New Bright lights for All Saints
Fitting lights for beautiful old church
by Ana Watts
Traditional hanging glass and filigree lanterns cast a golden glow on the wooden pews and kneelers All Saint’s in Keswick Ridge. This 1860s Medley Church on the bucolic Crock’s Point Road, just a stones-throw from the St. John River, is as idyllic as its surroundings. The lanterns look as if they have always hung from the vaulted beam ceiling,
perhaps were even converted from gas to electricity there, but that is not the case. They are new. New to All Saints and the Parish of Bright anyway.
When electricity found its way to rural New Brunswick in the 1950s, the people of All Saints could not afford to purchase traditional church lanterns. They made-do with school fixtures, better suited to the bare facts of arithmetic than the dramatic stories of the Bible, but serviceable none-the less.
In more recent years the people of All Saints made the acquisition of more traditional lighting fixtures in keeping with its design a priority for their pretty little church. They set out to buy six of them. They couldn’t find one. Church architecture has changed a lot in the last 150 years, and so has the style of church light fixtures. What to do?
The clever people of All Saints in the Parish of Bright in the Diocese of Fredericton had a bright idea. They sent a notice to E News, the weekly newsletter of the Diocese of Fredericton.
“Lights needed”, read the ad in E News on Oct. 7, 2008. “All Saints in Keswick Ridge is looking for six matching church lights for its 146-year-old Medley design church. Cylindrical fixtures in keeping with the style and vintage of the church are preferred.”
The Rev. Chris Hayes, rector of Richmond read the ad and contacted Eugene Price, warden of All Saints. His parish was preparing to move into a brand new St. John’s Church in early November and the old St. John’s would be closed. The lights in the old church were not fitting for their new and modern building, would the people of All Saints be interested?
Before long a delegation from All Saints was knocking on the door of the old St. John’s.
"The lights were exactly what we had hoped for," says Eugene Price. "And there were eight of them! A lovely bonus." In mid-November he, Troy Adams and Bob Poore made the trip to Richmond in a truck. They removed the lights and were soon headed back toward Keswick where they put the lights in All Saints' Medley Room. The following Wednesday, Nov. 19, several parishioners applied a lot of elbow grease to the elegant old fixtures, and on the next Monday Eugene Price, Bob Poore, Jim Monteith, and Geoff Gollings installed them in the church.
On Nov. 30, the first Sunday of Advent, the people of All Saints lit one Advent candle and eight new-to-them lights. The lanterns were rededicated to the Glory of God and in loving memory of W. Lawrence and Margaret Hall by their daughters Grace Whitehouse of Alberta and Eleanor Sinclair of British Columbia, and their son Vern Hall of Ontario. Grace and Vern were among the 80 people who participated in the special November service of dedication led by their interim priest Canon John Sharpe.
“The first Sunday of Advent was a good day to get new lights,” says Eugene Price.
The generosity of the people of the Parish of Richmond, the extensive and willing volunteer participation of the people of All Saints, and the generosity of the Hall family in covering the out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the project, combined to provide new lights to compliment the Keswick church, a fitting memorial to a fine family and a hopeful beginning to the new church year.
