Reverend Zoe Everingham said that with the new technology used for leading, the windows should be good for at least another 80 years, and now there are only two more on the northern side of the building remaining to be done.

“The leading expands with the heat and contracts with the cold, but doesn’t contract to the same shape as it was before,” Rev Everingham explained. “So in time you have this loosening situation occurring, very slowly, and then the weight of the glass pushes down on the leading and causes a bowing effect.

“The oldest window of the ones that came out – on the western wall of the church above the altar – that’s the Resurrection Window and it was badly bowed to the point where we were concerned that panes would crack or even pop out.”

Glass artist Christine Stewart took on the task of restoring the windows, which has been funded by two heritage grants from Bellingen Shire Council matched dollar for dollar by donations from the families associated with each window.

Stained glass, as an art form, reached its height in the Middle Ages, at a time when most of Britain’s population was illiterate, and church windows told the biblical narratives in easily understood, spiritually inspiring pictures.

The 25 beautiful stained glass windows at St Margaret, originally handmade by John Ashwin & Co in Sydney, also tell stories.

Six windows on the northern wall relate parables Jesus told to illustrate a particular lesson, for example, The Good Samaritan, while six windows on the southern wall illustrate the bible accounts of miracles Jesus performed.

As they are memorial windows, also associated with them are the stories of the original donor families, many of them pioneers in this district.

The windows restored and replaced under the second heritage grant (plus matching donations from the families connected to them) include two on the upper level of the eastern wall: ‘Christ the King’, donated in memory of Herbert William Kirkland and his wife Muriel Ethel Kirkland; and ‘King David’, a memorial to Leila Noble, a long-time church organist who died in 1959.

Also returning to the church is ‘The Resurrection’, on the western wall above the altar, in memory of Margaret Ann Raymond, wife of Augustus Mead Raymond (1870–1954).

A fourth window on the southern side, ‘Healing of Jairus Daughter’, originally funded anonymously, has been restored privately courtesy of the Hain family, in memory of Robyn Hain who died in August 2016.

The first heritage grant, plus donations, restored ‘Saint David’ (in memory of Bill Hammond); ‘St Patrick’ (dedicated to the Connell family); and ‘The parable of the sower and the seed’ (in memory of Herbert and Betty Allison (nee Allum).