Children's Chapel, St James' Church, Sydney

The walls and ceiling of the chapel are painted with scenes inspired by the Christmas carol "As I Sat Under A Sycamore Tree" with the setting transferred to Sydney Harbour.

The rector of St James' at the time, Philip Micklem, was a friend of Anderson and had invited the Turramurra Wall Painters Union to decorate the chapel.

The concept behind the murals, as explained by Ethel Anderson, was "to bring the story of Bethlehem into surroundings perfectly familiar to the mind of the Australian child, and to give these familiar surroundings a beauty strange enough to awaken wonder in a child's mind, so that through this wonder might come a suggestion that beyond the world they know there is another world; to show the spiritual by means of the material.

[5] Artistically, the aim was to give the impression of an illuminated manuscript citing specifically the Book of Kells and the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry as influences.

Anderson wrote: "That is why we have used so much gold, and why we are allowing a slight archaic touch to show in the drawing and in our choice and arrangement of colour.

From the perspective of the entrance to the chapel, depictions of the southern side of Sydney Harbour with the south pylon of the Harbour Bridge under construction can be seen on the right-hand side along with Circular Quay, the spire of St James', Garden Island, Woolloomooloo Bay and in the distance, the spire of St John's Darlinghurst.

[4] On the left side is the north shore of Sydney with Admiralty House, Taronga Park and McMahons Point.

To the left of the altar is the Child Jesus with Mary his mother, sitting on deck, with Sydney Heads in the background beyond the rigging.

[6] On the North wall is an image of a man in clerical vestments, a style that was depreciated in the Diocese of Sydney in the 1930s for being "popish", providing an important historical record of church practice of the time of the painting.