History of Holy Cross
The Church Windows
	The finest window in the Church is over the West door, and is of the 19th Century, a Victorian copy based on a Mediaeval predecessor. It curiously contains a small quantity of 14th Century glass, evidently removed from an earlier window. It can be seen at close quarters from the new gallery. Most of the restoration work was carried out by two companies - Heaton, Butler & Bayne and O'Connor & Taylor in 1874 and 1875, and at other times in the late 19thC. The windows on the South wall of the nave date from the 14th Century, but have been largely rebuilt. The three memorial windows in the North wall all have examples of portraiture in stained glass. In the Western-most window the head of St. Augustine is a likeness to the Rev. Albert Alexander Maclaren, a pioneer missionary in New Guinea, who was Assistant Curate of Bearsted in 1888-89. St. Andrew, in the centre window, has the features of Canon John Scarfe (Vicar of Bearsted 1884 -1902), a founder of the St. Andrew's Waterside Church Mission, now merged with The Missions to Seamen, while St. Louis of France, in the Eastern-most window, is a portrait of Major-General Lewis Edward Knight, of Milgate, a great-nephew of Jane Austen.
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