The central panel of the festal white altar frontal shows Christ crowned as king and vested as priest, reigning from the cross which is depicted as a tree of life. The precise source for the image is unclear, as such imagery, which is common visually, also appears in a number of significant early Latin hymns for Passiontide and Holy Week. As a regular worshipper, Ethel Barton would have been familiar with such texts in the translations in the English Hymnal.