Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Classical conventicle

Most British people, even if not chapel goers or architecture buffs, are aware of the thousands of nonconformist chapels that dot the towns and villages of England and Wales. And even if we’ve not thought much about it, most of us could draw a typical chapel from memory: central door, a pair of quite tall windows,* shorter window above the door, and a plaque with a name or date somewhere in the centre too.

Once everywhere, these familiar buildings are not quite so common now, but there are still many, and the variations on this simple design seem endless – Gothic or Classical or Romanesque style; brick or stone or stuccoed walls; variations in window height and proportion. Most of them were put up by local builders without the help of an architect and it’s very difficult (for a non-expert at least) to classify them or to find any sort of pattern that might ascribe one style to the Methodists, another to the Baptists, and so on.

The builders of the Bridgnorth Baptist Church set to work in c 1742, the town’s tiny Baptist congregation of the early-19th century having clearly expanded quite a bit.¶ Their chapel is therefore earlier than the big Baptist expansion that occurred later in the century, with the popular preaching of men like Spurgeon and the resulting large Baptist churches (‘large classic convenictles’, as John Betjeman described them§). At Bridgnorth they used the simplest of classical means to produce a quiet, well proportioned facade: very plain pilasters in the centre and at the corners; moulded surrounds to the windows and doors with just a little elaboration; quite a large parapet in which draws the eye to the central name plaque, which is done in the clearest sans serif capitals. A lick of paint, together with the sunlight, throwing all those details in relief, does the rest.

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*Or two pairs of windows, arranged one above the other on either side of the door.

¶The Baptist Magazine (in a piece by one J. B., dated 7 January 1821) says that in 1816 the church numbered just three members, one of whom died the following year; by the time of the article, the number was up to eight. The writer prayed, ‘May the set time to favour this part of Zion soon come!’ It looks as if this prayer was answered.

§ See John Betjeman, ‘Nonconformist Architecture’ in First and Last Loves, 1952. Betjeman does attempt to ascribe styles to specific denominations, and to generalize about the differences in architectural approach between different groups of, say, Methodists (Weslyan Methodists favouring a solid, faintly Gothic style, Primitive Methodists going for much plainer buildings in general, with the occasional ‘flimsy Italianate’ city chapel). But generalizatons about this are difficult. I am eagerly awaiting Historic England’s forthcoming book on nonconformist chapels, scheduled for publication towards the end of this year.

Hook Norton, Oxfordshire

High windows

Finding myself near Hook Norton the other day, and recalling that my most memorable trip there involved a visit to the brewery, I decided to stop in the village and see what I’d missed the first time round. A pair of tall windows, partly hidden by trees, caught my eye. Looking closer, I found that the windows belonged to a Baptist chapel with a long history.

Beware of date stones. The one on the front of the Hook Norton chapel bears the date 1718. But the history of Baptist worship in Hook Norton goes back to the 1640s when, according to the chapel’s own website, the first pastor, James Wilmot, was imprisoned for preaching. The significance of the 1718 date is that this was when the Baptists acquired this plot of land, with room for both chapel and graveyard. However they rebuilt the chapel in 1787, which is the date of the present structure with its walls of local toffee-coloured stone and its high windows with beautiful curving glazing bars. There were further alterations in the Victorian period, when a gallery supported on cast-iron columns, still visible through the windows, was installed, to increase the seating capacity.

Hook Norton is a fair-sized village, but no doubt people also came to the chapel from surrounding villages in the area between Banbury and Chipping Norton. They found a simple, solid building, in a setting that feels peaceful because the chapel is sited well back from the road. It’s an atmosphere of quiet and seclusion that people must still appreciate today.

Cote, Oxfordshire

Rural restraint

In around 1703, a group of Baptists from Longworth near Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire acquired some land across the Thames at Cote and built a new chapel there. A few decades later, probably during the 1750s, they enlarged the chapel to create this lovely building with its symmetrical front (the bush conceals a second doorway), plain window openings, and truncated gable.

This building marks what I think of as the second phase of nonconformist worship in England. In the 17th century it had been against the law for dissenters from the Church of England to gather in their own places of worship. They could face penalties both for not attending church and for holding illegal meetings of their own. As a result, nonconformists met in studied obscurity – in people’s houses in isolated country spots and in obscure town buildings up quiet alleys.

In 1689 the Toleration Act granted certain non-Anglicans the right to assemble for worship under certain conditions – they had to register their places of worship, swear allegiance to the monarch (this ruled out Quakers, who swear no oaths, from the benefits of the Act), and to reject the doctrine of transubstantiation (this ruled out Catholics). The Act meant that Protestant groups such as the Baptists could worship more publicly, and build proper chapels for themselves. Hence buildings like this one.

John Piper thought the chapel at Cote one of the most beautiful buildings in Oxfordshire. I suspect that he liked, as I do, its combination of local materials and chaste symmetry – there’s a very English restraint about it, as there is about many early chapels. The setting is delightful too, amongst trees and headstones, some of which go back to the 18th century to remind us of the first Baptists who came here and raised this simple, fitting building amongst the fields and farms.

Old Baptist Chapel, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

The town of Tewkesbury is famous for several things. In 1471 it was the site of a battle in the Wars of the Roses at which the Yorkists decisively defeated the Lancastrians. It is home to a Norman abbey that is one of the most beautiful churches in England. And it has a virtually perfect medieval street plan, with numerous timber-framed houses and many narrow alleys giving access to the areas behind the main streets.

But right now, in July 2007, Tewkesbury is famous for being cut off by the devastating floods caused when record rainfall made the rivers Severn and Avon burst their banks. As a small tribute to Tewkesbury, this week’s blog looks at one of the less well known buildings in the town.

The Old Baptist Chapel is up one of the alleys that leads off Tewkesbury’s Church Street. It’s a timber-framed ‘black-and-white’ building that began life as a house and was converted for use as a chapel in the late-17th century, soon after the 1689 Act of Toleration made it legal for nonconformists to set up their own places of worship. Apart from the sign, only the large windows (probably installed in the 18th century) make it at all obvious that this most unassuming of English buildings is a chapel. Many features of the galleried interior – from the plastered ceiling to the baptistry sunk into the floor – are probably 18th-century too.

Further up the alley is the Baptists’ burial ground, a tiny walled enclave with early gravestones and chest-tombs. A small plaque proudly announces ‘BAPTIST BURIAL GROUND 1655’, so people were being interred here before the Act of Toleration and this fact raises the likelihood that Baptists were worshipping up this quiet alley too, perhaps in the house that they converted into a proper chapel when the law permitted it. And with the river a stone’s throw from the back of the burial ground, it’s also likely that they baptized their new converts in its waters. In part at least, this charming and evocative old building owes its use to the presence of the water that has dominated Tewkesbury’s history, and still dominates the life of the town today.