The stained glass images in the west window are from the old church.  They were originally set as eight separate windows in the transepts, which were added to the church when it was extended in 1838.

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According to Michael Smith in The Building of Saint David’s Church, “the Barnes family at Duryard House”, who were relatives of the donor, insisted that the windows should be re-positioned in the new church.  This difficulty was overcome by the well-known stained glass manufacturers Clayton and Bell, who offered to set them in the west window.

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William Barnes was born in 1817, the son of Samuel, an eminent eye surgeon.  William joined the Exeter Bank in 1839 and remained a partner until he died in 1892.  In 1840 he married Lucy Long in Oxfordshire, and in the next few years four sons and two daughters were born.  However, Lucy died in 1850, aged 28, and by 1855 William and his family had moved across Exeter from Matford House in St Leonard’s to Great Duryard House in Cowley Bridge Road.  In 1862 he was elected Mayor of the city, and he was also for a time churchwarden of St David’s.

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Unfortunately no commemorative inscription or plaque exists, and no newspaper reports of the installation of the windows have been found, but it seems reasonable to assume that they date from after the family’s move to Great Duryard, and that they were placed as a memorial to William’s wife, who died so tragically young.

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There are twelve separate figures and, below them, two small scenes depicting the announcements, from New and Old Testaments respectively, of two miraculous births.  The first of these, from Luke 1, shows the angel Gabriel standing to the left with a lily, the symbol of purity, and in front of him sits Mary.  The text beneath is from verse 28: ”Hail thou that art highly favoured” and verse 38: ”Behold the handmaid of the Lord”. The second scene represents the visitation of three angels to Abraham in Genesis 18.  Abraham bows before the visitors and says “Rest yourselves under the tree” (verse 3) and the angels give him the good news “Sarah thy wife shall have a son” (verse 10).

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Christian tradition normally recognizes seven archangels, in accordance with Raphael’s pronouncement in Tobit 12:15. Only two, Gabriel and Michael, are identified in canonical scripture, and two more, Raphael and Uriel, are mentioned in the apocrypha. The Eastern Orthodox church recognizes three more, of whom Barachiel and Sealtiel (or Selaphiel) are shown in the second row on the window. Chamuel, Jophiel and Zadkiel are mentioned in certain traditions and are all given specific attributes.  Zaphkiel is more obscure. All ten are richly arrayed, but the features are poorly drawn.

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​Above the archangels are two golden angels, identified as Cherubin and Seraphin, possibly the work of a different artist. The one on the right holds a banner with the words “Sanctus Sanctus”.