Stations of the Cross by Eric Gill at St Alban's Church

Station 1: Jesus is condemned (Matthew 27.26). The seated figure of authority on the left seems by comparison with the Westminster set to be the Roman governor Pilate, though his dress and hairstyle might suggest a younger and more Greek figure.  The figure on the right wears Jewish dress.

Station 2: Jesus accepts the cross. Only St John of the four Gospel writers states that Jesus carried his own cross (John 19.17) – the other three assign this role to Simon of Cyrene (see Station 5) from the beginning. The other figure is the same as that in Stations 1, 3 and 13.

Station 3: Jesus falls the first time.
This detail is not found in the Gospels.

Station 4: Jesus meets his mother Mary. This detail is not found in the Gospels, though John (19.26) states that Mary was at the Crucifixion (see also Station 8).

Station 5: Simon of Cyrene (a Greek colony in North Africa) helps Jesus. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke Simon carried Jesus’ cross from the beginning (he is not mentioned by John). Here Simon is not African in feature as he is often shown.

Station 6: Veronica comforts Jesus by offering him a cloth to wipe himself. The later St Veronica does not appear in the Gospels, and this episode is first found in a medieval source, the Meditationes Vitae Christi by Giovanni de’ Cauli of San Gimignano; a relic at St Peter’s in Rome is claimed to be Veronica’s cloth.

Station 7: Jesus falls a second time. As in Station 3, this is not to be found in the Gospels. The soldier combines a Roman spear with a modern steel helmet, perhaps evoking the Second World War which broke out as Gill was working on these stations.

Station 8: Jesus speaks to ‘the women’. John (19.26) records three women as present at the crucifixion: Jesus’ mother Mary, her sister Mary, wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene; John records Jesus as addressing only his mother, though Luke relates a speech to the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’ (Luke 23.28-31). The figure nearest Jesus is clearly his mother.

Station 9: Jesus falls the third time, again an element unrecorded in the Gospels. This time the Roman soldier is wholly in ancient dress (contrast Station 7).

Station 10: Jesus is stripped. The removal of his garment and the casting of lots for it is mentioned in all four Gospels. The Roman soldier reappears from Station 9.

Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross. No Gospel account mentions that Jesus was nailed to the cross; simple tying was the usual Roman practice, to ensure a lingering death. The supervising figure is that from Stations 1, 2 and 3

Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross, with his mother on the right and St John on the left. (cf. John 19.26). The inscription at the top abbreviates the Latin Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’; the Greek inscription held by John means ‘love me’, part of John 14.15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’.

Station 13: The body of Jesus is taken down from the cross. His mother Mary is on the right; the two further male figures here and in Station 14 may be servants of the Romans (compare Station 11) or the servants of Joseph of Arimathea (see Station 14).

Station 14: The body of Jesus is entombed. The Gospels  report that it was buried in the tomb prepared for himself by Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus.