WHEN Jock Campbell of Kilkenzie and Jean Cameron of Campbeltown were on holiday in New Zealand there was a little piece of Campbeltown history that they had to go and see.
It is a magnificent set of Edwardian stained glass windows, which have travelled halfway around the world. The Aitken Windows, which depict Leonardo da Vinci’s famous work, The Last Supper were created in Edinburgh in 1903.
They were given to Lochend United Free Church by the then Mayor of Wellington, John G W Aitken and his brothers and sister in memory of their parents, to the church where they had worshipped back in Campbeltown. Jean was baptised in the old Lochend Church.
JGW Aitken was also a prominent member of the congregation of St John’s in the City, Wellington, the New Zealand capital.
Lochend Church was demolished due to ‘a lack of money and a lack of money’ as one former parishioner put it, and its window’s put into storage in 1985.
The car park of the Campbeltown Tesco store is now where the church used to stand.
The windows could have been lost forever but a New Zealand descendant of the Aitken family suggested to St John’s that the windows should come to Wellington. This idea coincided with St John’s receiving what it describes as ‘a significant legacy’ from a past parishioner and it was decided to use the windows and put them into a new chapel being built.
The Mackay Chapel was dedicated at Easter 1994, thanks to a very generous bequest from a former St John’s member, Miss Margaret Mackay.
The chapel is a smaller, quiet and more intimate addition to the larger church and is open every weekday for meditation and a service is held there on Sunday evenings.
Since then a number of Campbeltown and Kintyre people have visited St John’s and seen the windows for themselves.
The present St John’s in the City Church has been a landmark in the centre of Wellington for more than a century and is considered an architectural gem in the heart of the city. When first built it was on the edge of Wellington but the city has grown out to meet it.
