Tag Archives: chapel

A strict and particular chapel

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I HAVE PASSED IT often, and have long been curious about it, but until today I have not bothered to find out about it. I am referring to a small chapel on the corner of Kensington Place and Newcombe Street, which leads to the south side of a space where a weekly farmers’ market is held (on Saturday mornings). Called the Bethesda Baptist Church, its congregation was established in 1866. The building resembles a style commonly used in the late 18th century. According to a history of Kensington Place (www.hillgatevillage.com/the-facts), the chapel was constructed in about 1824. Over the years, it has been used by various Baptist sects. Currently, it is the home to a congregation, who believe in Restricted Communion and Particular Redemption. This sect was founded in 1866.

Bethesda Chapel, Kensington

Currently, I am reading about a clergyman, Conrad Noel (1869-1942), who believed fervently that the church should be both democratic and all-embracing. So, it was with some interest that I stumbled across a chapel in which people believing in ‘Restricted Communion’ gather to worship. The sect is a branch of the Strict and Particular Baptists, who follow the decrees of High-Calvinism. If you are finding this a bit difficult to follow, then you are not alone. Let me take a stab at giving a simple explanation of what the congregation in the Bethesda Chapel believe: a set of beliefs that are new to me. One website that seemed to clarify them well is www.sbhs.org.uk/membership/strictbapt/, from which I have attempted to extract the following information.

‘Strict’ refers to ‘restricted communion’. Unlike many branches of the Christian Church, which permit anyone who believes and loves Jesus Christ to partake in Holy Communion, the Strict and Particular Baptists believe that Communion should only be offered to those “who have been baptised by immersion as believers”.  The above-mentioned website explained:

“Strict Baptists see baptism as a rite by which believers testify to their faith in Christ, and associate it with church membership. The Lord’s Supper is for those who have joined the church in this way.”

As for ‘particular’, this lives up to the common meaning of the word. The Strict and Particular Baptists believe that:

“…Christ died to make certain the salvation of a definite number of people whom he has purposed to save, rather than to make possible the salvation of an indefinite number of people who might choose to believe.”

That is, only the ‘select’ few, known as the ‘Elect’, will be saved. The sect does not accept infant baptism, even by immersion, as being sufficient to become part of the Elect. Another website (www.baptists.net/history/2022/07/the-articles-of-faith-of-the-gospel-standard-churches/) explained what is required to become a member of a Strict and Particular Baptist sect such as that which uses the Bethesda Chapel:

 “At a regularly constituted church meeting … the candidate (whether already a member of another church or not) shall make a verbal confession of faith, and declare what he or she believes God has done for his or her soul. If accepted by a vote of the majority of members present and voting, signature in the church book to the Articles of Faith and Rules will be required. Thereafter, at the earliest convenient opportunity, the person shall, unless previously baptised by immersion, be so baptised in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and be formally received into church fellowship at the next observance of the Lord’s Supper.”

The Articles of Faith, and there are many of them, are strict. Thus, despite my oversimplification, it would seem that the Strict and Particular sects are, unlike the open-door church espoused by Conrad Noel, extremely exclusive and restrictive.  

PS: A little way west of the Bethesda Chapel, there is an institution that is, unlike the chapel, far from exclusive: it is open to all children regardless of faith, providing they live in its catchment area: Fox Primary School. This state school, which was founded in 1842, is housed in modern buildings. I mention it as a postscript because its walls are decorated with several attractive, colourful mosaics.

A charming chapel preserved

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WHEN RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936) died in London’s Middlesex Hospital, his body was placed in the hospital’s chapel before being taken to be cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, Charles Carrington wrote in his biography of Kipling that just as his coffin, draped with the Union Jack flag, arrived at the crematorium:

“… the followers of Saklatvala, the Indian Communist who had been cremated just before Rudyard Kipling, were singing the Red Flag.”

Kipling was not a sympathiser of Communist ideas and ideals.

Middlesex Hospital in the Fitzrovia area of London, where Kipling breathed his last, no longer exists. Founded in 1746, it provided medical care on a square plot of land bounded one one side by Mortimer Street between 1757 and 2005. In 2008, almost all of the hospital was demolished. The only part of the complex, which was preserved, is the Fitzrovia Chapel, in which Kipling’s body reposed briefly. Between 2012 and 2016, a new development, Fitzroy Place, consisting of flats and offices, was constructed on the hospital’s site.

The small Fizrovia Chapel, beautifully restored, stands in a small garden in the middle of the new development, dwarfed by the buildings around it. This gem of a Victorian ecclesiastical construction was designed by the Gothic Revival architect John Loughborough Pearson (1817-1897) and was ready for use by 1892 (although the interior decoration was not fully completed until 1929). The chapel’s spectacular colourful interior must be seen to be believed. Its magnificent appearance is the result of skilful use of mosaic, marbles of different types and colours, and amazing decorative motifs inspired by early Italian, Byzantine, and Moorish architecture. Some of the metal lampshades that hang from the decorative ceiling seemed to have been influenced by the types of lamps typical of Turkish tradition.

The chapel is maintained by The Fitzrovia Chapel Foundation. It is open on most Wednesdays for public viewing as well as during the occasional exhibitions and concerts that are held within it. This charming place is also available for hire for weddings, fashion shoots, book launches, and other events.

Until we attended an exhibition in the Fitzrovia Chapel in late May 2022, we had no idea that this small architectural gem existed. Along with nearby All Saints in nearby Margaret Street, the Fitrovia, a treasure chest with its sparkling golden ceiling, should not be missed by lovers of Victorian architecture and/or fine mosaic work  (as well as masterful use of inlaid stonework).

An oval church in London

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THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM in London’s South Kensington district was constructed between 1873 and 1881. It was designed by the prolific Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905). Almost hidden away but close to Oxford Street, there stands another distinctive building designed by Waterhouse. Dome decorative brickwork on the east side of the structure proclaims that it was built as:

“Kings Weigh House Chapel”, and:“These buildings were erected in the year 1891 for the worship and service of God”.

The complex of buildings on Duke Street faces the northeast corner of Brown Hart Gardens. They were designed to include a chapel and a Sunday school as well as other offices. The chapel derives its name from a former dissenters’ chapel that used to stand above the Kings Weigh House in Eastcheap. It was formed in about 1685 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Weigh_House). In 1834, the site of the church was moved to larger premises at Fish Street, near London Bridge. Where it used to stand there is now an entrance to Monument Underground station. In 1882, the Fish Street site was compulsorily purchased bt the Metropolitan Railway. The Duke of Westminster offered the congregation a site on Robert Street (now Weigh House Street) and funds to construct yet another chapel (https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/waterhouse/3.html). The church accepted his offer and their chapel designed by Waterhouse is what you can see today.

I have only seen the chapel’s decorative exterior with some Romanesque features, which were achieved using brickwork and contrasting whitish masonry, but have not yet entered it. However, I have seen pictures of its interior, which show that it is quite interesting. Apart from the impressive tower on the southwest corner of the church, I was struck by the oval structure that forms the bulk of the building. This houses the main place where the congregation worships. With the long axis of the oval running east to west, the oval ‘nave’ is surrounded above by an oval gallery with several rows of tiered benches (www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/plate-23). I have not seen many oval churches like this but did see one in Edinburgh (Scotland), the neo-classical style St Andrew’s and St George’s West Church. In this case the long axis of the oval also runs east to west.

The chapel was bombed during a communion service in 1940 in October 1940, when two people were killed and the chancel was damaged. During most of WW2, the chapel was requisitioned as a fire watching centre, presumably because of its high tower, and also as a ‘rest centre’. After the war, the damage was repaired, and the church was rededicated in 1953. By1965, the congregation ceased using Waterhouse’s chapel. It was decided in 1966 to disband the church at the Duke Street site and sell it.

In 1967, the chapel was bought by the Ukrainian Catholics. They have used it as their cathedral in London. Its full name is now ‘The Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family’ (Українська Католицька Єпархія Пресвятої Родини в Лондоні). The church is open for services, usually either early in the morning and/or in the early evening (www.ucc-gb.com/cathedral). Sadly, we looked at the place mid-morning, but we will visit it again one day when there is a service in progress so that we can view its interior.

Praying above the flowing water

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ALMOST OPPOSITE THE modern and magnificent Hepworth Wakefield art gallery, completed in 2011, there is a nine arched bridge, built between 1342 and 1356, crossing the River Calder. Midway across the bridge, there is a small gothic chapel. It is the oldest one of only four surviving bridge chapels in England. Between the mid-14th century, when it was built and the Reformation in the 16th century, the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin served as a place of worship for travellers crossing the bridge on their way from Wakefield to Leeds.

The purpose of a chantry chapel was:

“…to provide for a priest to say mass for the souls of the dead to reduce their time in purgatory.” (www.wakefieldcathedral.org.uk/visit-us/the-chantry/a-history-of-the-chantry-chapel)

Two acts passed during the reigns of King Henry VIII and his successor the young and fanatically Protestant Edward VI resulted in the closure of the well over 2300 chantry chapels in their kingdom. The chapel on the bridge at Wakefield was one of them. Whereas many chantry chapels were demolished or otherwise rendered unrecognizable, that on the bridge at Wakefield survived because it is an integral part of the structure of the bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantry_Chapel_of_St_Mary_the_Virgin,_Wakefield).

The former chapel on the bridge was used for various purposes between 1547, when its religious use was terminated, and 1842, when it was restored. It was used at different times to house a warehouse, a library, an office, and a cheese shop.

In 1842, the formerly Roman Catholic chapel was transferred to the Church of England and it was restored by the Yorkshire Architectural Society, which was influenced in its philosophy by the Oxford Movement, a group of High Church members of the Church of England who wanted to reinstate older Christian traditions, which had been abolished during the Reformation, and incorporate them into Anglican theological practice. The architect George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) was involved in the restoration of the edifice.  By 1848, the bridge on the chapel was once again being used as a place of worship. For a while it became a parish church, and then after a new parish church was built in 1854, it became used for occasional rather than regular services, and peopled prayed whilst water flowed below them.

Currently, the chapel is under the care of the Friends of Wakefield Chantry Chapel, which was founded in 1991. The chapel is usually kept closed but is opened on certain days (see: www.chantrychapelwakefield.org/open-days.html). As luck would have it, we walked across the bridge on a sunny day that the chapel was open. The small chapel is on two floors. The upper chapel is well-lit both by electric lamps and light flooding through its five sets of stained-glass windows. A narrow spiral staircase leads down to a lower, poorly lit, rather dusty chamber, somewhat devoid of interest.

The decorative ancient gothic chapel on the bridge makes an interesting contrast to the elegant but puritanically unadorned exterior of the Hepworth Wakefield gallery almost opposite it. Both buildings are definitely well worth exploring.  

A delightful detour

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ONE OF THE JOYS of travelling around in one’s own car is the ability to go almost anywhere one wishes and by any route, direct or indirect. Recently, we were driving along the A1141 between the Suffolk wool towns of Lavenham and Hadleigh when we noticed a small brown and white sign directing tourists to “St James Chapel”. We turned off the main road and drove along a narrow, winding by-road, which threaded its way through cultivated fields and small clumps of trees. We had no idea where the chapel is located and it was almost by chance that we noticed the small building, which is located well away from the lane. The best view of this tiny edifice is through a farmyard next to which it stands, otherwise it is well concealed by tall hedges.

Maintained by English Heritage, the chapel is approached via a narrow L-shaped passage between it and the hedges. A board close by gives the history of the place.  The tiny 13th century chapel served the nearby Lindsey Castle, which was abandoned in the 14th century and now exists only as earthworks (www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=384905&resourceID=19191). During the 13th century, a lady called Nesta de Cockfield (c1182-c1248; https://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p5161.htm#i154959), who was born near Lindsey Castle at Kersey, established a tithe (tax) to maintain the chapel of St James. Along with all other chantries (usually, chapels on private land), St James was closed in 1547 as part of the religious reforms instigated by King Edward VI.

The chapel was used as a barn from 1547 until the early 1930s, when it became designated as a historic monument. The building is built with roughly cut flints held together with mortar or cement. The entrance with its gothic archway and the windows are trimmed with well-cut stone blocks. The interior walls are not plastered and look the same as the exterior. On the south wall there is a niche or ‘piscina’ (used for draining water used in the Mass in pre-Reformation church services), which, like the windows, is topped by a gothic arch. Apart from the piscina, there is nothing else left within the chapel apart from the ghosts of those who prayed there many centuries ago.

The ceiling of St James is formed of the exposed timbers that support the roof, which is attractively thatched, and looks well-maintained. The north wall of the chapel faces the road across the car park of the farm next door to it.

Without a car or bicycle or horse, reaching the tiny chapel of St James would involve a tiring walk. Without a car and plenty of leisure time we would most likely never have visited this delightful remnant of East Anglia’s rich mediaeval heritage.

A marvellous modern mosque

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KINGS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE has a superb perpendicular gothic chapel, whose construction commenced in about 1446 and took almost 100 years to complete. Its fabulously intricate fan-vaulting makes it one of the finest buildings in Cambridge, if not in all of England. Until recently, it was the one and only building in Cambridge that visitors to the city needed to see, even if they did not have time to see anything else. Although this continues to be the case, there is another building, which visitors should make time to see in addition to the chapel. Unlike the college edifice, this is not in the historic academic part of the city but in Mill Road, not far from the main railway station. Near the eastern end of this thoroughfare, which is rapidly becoming a ‘trendy’ part of Cambridge, you will come across a wonderful modern building set back from the road and separated from it by a pleasant, small garden. This structure is The Cambridge Central Mosque.

The mosque was completed in 2019 and designed by Marks Barfield Architects (London) in conjunction with Professor Keith Critchlow (1933-2020), who was Professor of Islamic Art at London’s Royal College of Art, and the garden designer Emma Clark. The designers of the mosque aimed (in the words of Abdal Hakim Murad, chairman of the Cambridge Mosque Trust) to create:

“…a brand new sacred space … to bring together something that’s very ancient and timeless with the very latest technologies.” (https://cambridgecentralmosque.org/design/)

This has been achieved very successfully. The visually spectacular deep portico, reached after walking through a pleasant garden, is supported by clusters of curved timbers, which immediately bring to mind thoughts of the masonry fan-vaulting in Kings College Chapel. These clusters continue through the entire building, creating a sense of continuity of the exterior and interior spaces. The vaulting that reminds us of the mosque’s gothic relative at Kings College also evokes purely Islamic architecture such as one finds at the Alhambra in Spain. The outside of the building is covered with brickwork in two colours, the bricks being arranged to produce patterns which are contemporary versions of a traditional Islamic design. The centre of the mosque is topped by a single dome made in matt-gold coloured metal.

The glass walls that separate the portico from the interior of the mosque reflect the mundane houses opposite the mosque (across Mill Road). I do not know whether the designers intended it, but I felt that these reflections were a way of giving the impression that the garden and the world beyond the mosque is merging with the building itself, that the religious structure was merging with its secular surroundings. Whether or not this was the designers’ intention, this mosque deserves a place in the highest echelon of great British architecture alongside Kings College Chapel. The beauty of the chapel and the mosque, separated by many hundreds of years in age, both have the effect of taking one’s breath away in amazement.

An isolated Anglo-Saxon chapel

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A FEW MONTHS AGO, we paid a brief visit to Mersea Island, which is off the coast of Essex. While we were wandering around on the island, we spoke with a man, who recommended that we visit the isolated chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, which is not far from Bradwell-on-Sea, also on the coast of Essex. He thought that we would enjoy its tranquillity and the beauty of its surroundings. In early August 2021, we drove beyond Bradwell-on-Sea to a carpark, which is 785 yards west of the chapel known as St Peter-on-the-Wall. The building is about 300 yards west of the east coast of Essex on the Dengie Peninsula, the southern lip of the mouth of the River Blackwater. The chapel stands on a hill overlooking the surrounding coast and countryside.

Winding the clock back to the time when the Romans ruled Britain, we find that there was a fort named ‘Othona’ near the site of the chapel. It was one of a series of Roman forts created to protect Britain from Saxon and Frankish pirates, possibly built by a Count of the Saxon Shore, a Roman official, named Carausius, who died in 293 AD. A Roman road ran up to the fort, connecting it with places further inland. During the 7th century, the Romans having left Britain, an Anglo-Saxon holy man, Cedd by name, landed at Othona in 653.

Cedd (born c620) was one of four brothers. He had a religious upbringing and education in the monastery set up by Saint Aidan (c590-651) at Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumbria. Cedd became a missionary. After successes in the Midlands, he was invited by Sigbert, King of the East Saxons, who reigned in Essex, to bring Christianity into the area. Cedd sailed from Lindisfarne and landed at what was the ruined fort at Othona. He moved north later in life and died in 664 (of the plague) near Lastingham in Northumbria, where he had founded another religious establishment.

Cedd’s first church at Othona might well have been wooden, but soon he built one of stone, of which there was plenty lying about in the ruins of the fort. His stone church is built in what was then the style of churches in Egypt and Syria. Apparently, Celtic Christians, such as Cedd, were influenced by this style. Building a church in the ruins of a Roman fort mirrored that which had been built in the ruins of a fort by St Antony of Egypt. The location of the former fort on the Roman road might have appealed to Cedd as it would have facilitated ‘spreading the word’ inland.

The church that Cedd built used to have a chancel and possibly other parts, as it was part of a monastic complex based near Bradwell.  Cedd’s church, St Peter’s, simple as it was and is still, can be considered the first cathedral to have been built in Essex. It is considered unlikely that the monastery Cedd created near Bradwell survived the Danish invasions. Soon after Cedd’s death, Essex was incorporated into the diocese of London and St Peter’s became a minster, the chief church in the area. When the parish church of St Thomas was built in Bradwell-on-Sea, St Peter’s became relegated to being a ‘chapel of ease’. Services were held three times a week there until at least the end of the 16th century. Sometime after this, the chancel was pulled down; the church was left standing as a navigation beacon; and the building was repurposed as a barn. As a barn it remained until the early 20th century, when the church was reconsecrated and restored in 1920.

The church is still in use. Services are held there under the auspices of the nearby Othona Community, based nearby at Bradwell-on-Sea. At present, services are held on Sunday nights in July and August at 6.30 pm.

We walked across the fields to St Peter-on-the-Wall, which is one of Britain’s oldest still standing and working churches. After some difficulty, we managed to open the one door to the church. We entered the building’s simple and peaceful interior. A colourful crucifix, created by Francis William Stephens (1921-2002) hangs high up on the east wall. St Cedd is depicted praying at the feet of Jesus on The Cross. The supporting stone of the simple stone altar has three fragments embedded in it. One of them was a gift from Lindisfarne, another from Iona, and the third from Lastingham. The altar was consecrated in 1985. Apart from a circle of chairs for congregants and a timber framed ceiling, there is little else in the church apart from a feeling of tranquillity, which can only be experienced by visiting this charming place. The man at Mersea Island, who suggested that we visit St Peter-on-the-Wall, did us a good turn.

A saint, a hermit on high, and a cousin

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I HAVE OFTEN VISITED my cousin, Peter, who lives near Bodmin in Cornwall. On my way to see him, I have always noticed signs pointing to roads leading to Roche. It was this year, only on our most recent visit to the area, that we first visited the small village about 6 miles southwest of Bodmin.  Roche, pronounced as in ‘poach’, and is French for ‘rock’, is known as ‘Tregarrek’ in the Cornish language, which means ‘homestead on the rock’, which is a suitable name for the place, as I will explain.

Hermitage at St Roche, Cornwall

Unfortunately, the parish church was closed when we stopped in Roche. It is dedicated to St Gomonda, one of the many saints barely known outside Cornwall. Robert Meller, who is compiling a fascinating multi-volume, encyclopaedic account of Cornwall, wrote of Gomonda:

“Precisely nothing is known about this female-sounding saint and in reality, she might have been Saint Gonand, a male saint.”

Nothing is known about St Gonand. It is also possible that the church was dedicated to Bishop Conan, the first bishop of St Germans, appointed in the 10th century. The church itself has a Norman font (which we were unable to see) and a mediaeval tower (15th century). The rest of the church was rebuilt between 1820 and 1822 in a style typical of older churches in the area.

St Gomonda’s churchyard, which we entered by crossing over a stile made of granite slabs, contains a weathered Cornish cross, a primitive-looking monolith about six feet in height. The stone is covered with man-made indentations or carvings. One of these depicts a sword, which according to Meller, is an unusual image to be found on a Cornish cross. There have been standing stones, menhirs, such as the cross at St Gomonda, since before Christianity arrived in Cornwall. The crosses with Christian symbolism date from the 5th century onwards. It is therefore possible that the one we saw at Roche was pre-Christian with later Christian carvings, but here I am merely guessing.

About 420 yards southeast of the parish church, there is a ruined early 15th century, two-storied hermit’s chapel. Like many holy Hindu shrines in India and the monasteries in Greece’s Meteora district, the chapel perches high above the land around it. It can be seen 60 feet above its surroundings on the top of Roche Rock, whose presence inspired the naming of the village near it. Built in 1409 and dedicated to St Michael, the chapel used to be accessed by an iron ladder. At some stage, the cell beneath the chapel (on the upper floor) was occupied by a leper, expelled from his village because of his illness. He survived because every day, his daughter, Gundred, carried him water from a well about a mile and a half away. For her compassion and kindness, she was sanctified, becoming yet another of the saints of Cornwall.

Roche Rock and its chapel figure in various folk legends, including “Tristan and Isolde”. Meller wrote that when King Mark was chasing the lovers, Tristan and Isolde:

“… they took refuge in Roche Chapel to escape capture …To escape capture from the soldiers, Tristan jumped out of the chapel window – referred to as ‘Tristan’s Leap’”

Putting aside legends, the Roche Rock is an exceptional geological feature. Geologists consider it to be the finest example of quartz-tourmaline rock in Britain. It is composed of quartz and black tourmaline, which is a type of granite also known as ‘schorl’. Schorl is extremely hard and resistant to being worn away by the weather. Over the millions of years since this large lump of stone was formed, the surrounding terrain has been worn away, leaving the prominent rock that we see today.

I doubt that I would have thought twice about visiting the place had my cousin not lived nearby. I first met Peter in the early 1980s or late 1970s. Then, I got to know him and his family as friends. In the late 1990s, I began researching my family history, a process that included filling in gaps on family trees. A relative in New Zealand provided me with much information about a branch of my mother’s extended family. You might be able to imagine my surprise when I discovered from this information what Peter and I never knew before – that we are related; we have a common ancestor. We found out that apart from being friends, we are also members of the same family. Peter and I are doubly related because my mother’s parents were second cousins once removed. Peter and I are not only 4th cousins but also 5th cousins.

Our first visit to Roche proved interesting. Small as it is, Roche contains several things to see, which are some of the many features that help to make Cornwall attractive for visitors. Although one might not want to stay there, it is worth making a small detour from the main A30 road to explore the place briefly.

A chapel that became a barn

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PHILIP’S NAVIGATOR BRITAIN is a detailed (1 ½ miles to the inch) road atlas covering England, Scotland, and Wales. It is extremely useful for finding one’s way through Britain’s maze of narrow country lanes if, like us, you do not make use of GPS systems. One of the many features of the maps in this atlas is that it marks old buildings and other sites of interest in both towns and deep in the countryside. Recently (June 2021), we were driving around in rural Wiltshire, having just visited the small town of Bedwyn when I spotted that there was an old chapel nearby, close to the hamlet of Chisbury.

The area in which Chisbury is located is the site of an ancient hill fort in which archaeologists have found artefacts from the Palaeolithic era, as well as the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The fort, whose earthworks are still discernible, was later used by the Romans. Long after the Romans had left England, the manor house of Chisbury was built within its site.

In the 13th century, the Lord of Chisbury Manor built a ‘chapel of ease’, St Martin’s, close to his manor house. According to Wikipedia, such a chapel is:

“…a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.”

The chapel of ease at Chisbury was built to serve the household of the Manor House as well as villagers nearby, to save them having to travel to the nearest parish church which was in Great Bedwyn.

In 1547, during the Reformation of The English Church, the chapel, like many other places of worship in Henry VIII’s realm, ceased to be used. Instead of being demolished, as so many ecclesiastical buildings were at that time, the chapel was re-used as a barn. The barn continued to be used over several centuries until 1925, when it was designated a building of historical importance. Now, it is maintained by English Heritage. This re-purposing of a place of worship reminded me of what I saw when I visited Albania in 1984. At that time, religion of any sort had been made illegal by the Stalinist regime led by Enver Hoxha. Mosques and churches had either been demolished or re-purposed as sports halls, cinemas, and for other non-religious uses.

The chapel of Chisbury is beautiful. The glass has been long lost from its windows. Trees can be seen from within the chapel through its carved stone gothic windows. The ceiling of the chapel is timber framed, but I suspect that these are no longer the original timbers. The roof is thatched. The floor is at two levels, higher at the west end than the east. Steps lead from one level to the next. The two levels might reflect the fact that the chapel is built on a steeply sloping hill.

On the inside of the west wall of the building, close to the way into the chapel, there is a faded red painted circle enclosing a cross. Symbols like this were painted on to the walls of buildings during the consecration ceremonies of building about to become churches. What you can see in the chapel at Chisbury must have survived many centuries. Maybe, it has been touched up from time to time.

It is written that Jesus Christ was born in a kind of barn surrounded, as the story goes and many artist have depicted, by farm animals. I wonder whether this went through farmworkers’ heads as they used the former chapel as a barn for a variety of agricultural purposes.

Had it not been for builders working nearby, the chapel would have been silent except for birdsong. I am glad we made the small detour to see this delightful relic of mediaeval life in England.

Utopia and Worlds End

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THE AUTHOR OF “Utopia”, which was published in Latin in 1516, Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), had a house in London’s Chelsea. It was not far from Henry VIII’s manor house on what is now Cheyne Walk. The land in which More’s house was built was bounded to the north by what was, and still is, the Kings Road, to the south by the River Thames and between the still extant Milman Street and Old Church Street.

The house that was ‘L’ shaped in plan (www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol4/pt2/pp18-27) when More used it as his out-of-town dwelling between 1520 and 1535, when he was arrested there and taken to the Tower of London. His arrest was in connection with trying to upset the marriage plans of his neighbour in Chelsea, King Henry VIII. More lived at Beaufort, to which he loved to escape from London and from the Court, and to spend time with his family and to write. It was here that he entertained many friends, among whom were the scholar Erasmus and the artist Holbein.

After Thomas More’s execution and the death of Henry VIII, King Edward VI granted Beaufort House to William Pawlet, 1st Marquis of Winchester (c1484-1572). Then, it passed through the hands of the Dacre family to William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598), and next to his son, Sir Robert Cecil (1563-1612). Cecil sold it to Henry (Clinton) Fiennes, Earl of Lincoln (1539-1616). The house and its grounds continued to move through different owners until it came into the possession of the physician and founder of the British Museum, Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) in 1738.

Sloane demolished Beaufort House in 1740 to “…strip it for parts…”, so wrote James Delbourgo in “Collecting the World”, his recent biography of Sloane. The demolition work was executed by a Quaker, Edmund Howard (1710-1798; detailed biography: https://ahsoc.contentfiles.net/media/assets/file/Edmund_Howard_by_J_Nye_SF.pdf). He was Sloane’s gardener in Chelsea. During the demolition, he was often in dispute with Sloane over money.. Howard observed that:

“… the receiving of money was to Sir Hans Sloane more pleasing than parting with it.”

Little remains of what Sloane demolished apart from a few brick walls. However, one fine relic, an elegant neo-classical gateway designed by Inigo Jones, was sold to Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753) and placed near his Chiswick House.

The northwest corner of Thomas More’s Chelsea estate is a peaceful walled garden, which can be entered from Kings Road. Some of these walls are the Tudor brickwork from More’s time at Beaufort House. The north side of the almost square plot is occupied by a line of small buildings belonging to the Moravian Church Fetter Lane Congregation (Chelsea). These buildings, which include the curate’s house, a tiny chapel, and a meeting hall, once a church, face a large square patch of lawn with four fig trees in its centre. Closer examination of the lawn reveals that it contains numerous square gravestones that lie flush with the mowed grass. This is the Moravian Burial Ground.

Protestant missionaries from Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) founded a church in Fetter Lane in the City of London in 1742. The missionaries were hoping to travel to the British colonies to carry the Gospel to people out there, notably slaves. However, they realised that there was plenty for them to do in England and worked alongside British missionaries like the Wesleyans. The church in Fetter Lane survived until WW2 when it was destroyed by bombing. In the 1960s, the congregation moved to its present site.

The burial ground was established in the former stable yard of Beaufort House and the first burial was done in 1751. About 400 people have been buried in this cemetery. Amongst them was Henry, the 73rd Count of Reuss, brother-in-law of Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf (1700-1760). It was the latter who leased Lindsey House in Chelsea, built on the estate of Sir Thomas More, and used it between 1749 and 1755 as his base for missionary work in England. Zinzendorf was extremely critical of slavery (www.zinzendorf.com/).

At the south edge of the burial lawn, there is a stone pergola and an elaborately carved wooden bench backrest. Both were created by the sculptors Ernest (1874-1951) and Mary Gillick (1881-1965), who leased the site of the Moravian cemetery between 1914 and 1964 (https://londongardenstrust.org/conservation/inventory/site-record/?ID=KAC100). Mary designed the effigy of Elizabeth II used on coinage in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1970. The long wooden bench is decorated with painted shields, showing the coats-of-arms of all the owners of Beaufort House and its estate from More to Sloane. It also has a brief history of Beaufort House carved into it.

From the oasis that is the Moravian Church’s ground, it is but a short walk west along Kings Road to the large Worlds End Distillery pub, which was already present in the 17th century.  The present pub was built in 1897. It is: “… a public house in the gin-palace genre …” (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391649).

As for the name ‘Worlds End’, this might not be as apocalyptic as it first appears because ‘end’ often used to mean ‘field’ in archaic English. Regarding the ‘World’ part of the name, Edward Walford wrote in about 1880:

“In the King’s Road, near Milman Street, is an inn styled “The World’s End.” The old tavern… was a noted house of entertainment in the reign of Charles II …The house was probably called ‘The World’s End’ on account of its then considerable distance from London, and the bad and dangerous state of the roads and pathways leading to it.”

The posh ‘Sloanes’* of Chelsea might regard Worlds End as truly the end of their part of the world because west of it the shops and dwellings on Kings Road seem far less opulent than those on the stretch between the pub and Sloane Square. At Worlds End, the ‘Sloanes’’ utopian world transforms into unglamorous routine inner-city life. Should ‘Sloanes’ carelessly stray as far west as Worlds End, they would have crossed over to the ‘wrong side of the tracks’.

[* a ‘Sloane’ is a fashionable  upper middle- or upper-class, often young, person, especially one living in London and particularly in Chelsea; most definitely not Bohemian, but extremely bourgeois.]