After the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, Catholics were forced out of the ancient parish churches of England. By Act of Parliament, Catholic worship ceased on 24 June 1559. They were forbidden from building their own churches and their only discreet refuge for Masses tended to be the chapels of the nobility and gentry. This position pertained, as regarded the law, until the passing of the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, although the chapels of the Catholic embassies in London were allowed to have Mass celebrated under the Treaty of Utrecht of 1714.
A few Catholic chapels were in fact built before 1791 but, with the obvious exception of Lulworth, these tended to be contained within houses. Catholic chapels have continued to be built, mainly by noble and gentry families, throughout the 19th century and up to the present day.
The following reviews many of the surviving Catholic chapels in England. One joy is that the horrors of Vatican II reordering have universally been avoided. Altars have not been moved and Mass has continued to be celebrated in the eastern position. Altar rails have remained.
ARUNDEL CASTLE
West Sussex
The domestic chapel at Arundel Castle, the great seat of the 18th Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, is successor to a tradition dating back to the 11th century. The chapel in the south range was rehabilitated by the 8th Duke in 1708 and decorated by James Paine for the 9th Duke in 1762, with an altarpiece of the Nativity by Gennari, rescued from James II’s chapel at Whitehall Palace. The present larger and grander chapel, dedicated to Our Lady, in the west wing, was erected by the 15th Duke in 1894-8 to the design of Charles Alban Buckler. It was consecrated by the Bishop of Southwark. A masterpiece of the Gothic Revival, it was inspired by both the Angel Choir at Lincoln Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. The interior is lavishly embellished with Purbeck marble and sculptural stone carvings, with magnificent stained glass by Hardman of Birmingham designed under the direction of Dunstan Powell, AWN Pugin’s son-in-law. The tabernacle on the high altar is gilt, and encrusted with rock crystal. The silver and vestments survive from the 18th century, and old master paintings collected by the 15th Duke adorn the walls. Mass is celebrated regularly. All five of the present Duke’s children were baptised in the chapel. Additionally the eastern end of the medieval Anglican church of St Nicholas, known as the Fitzalan Chapel, remains in Catholic use. It is blocked off and only accessible from the castle. Restored by Charles Alban Buckler, its chief function is as a mausoleum of the Earls of Arundel and the Dukes of Norfolk. Public Mass is celebrated each year on All Souls Day and the anniversary days of the Dukes and Duchesses of Norfolk, perpetuating the chantry function of the chapel.
BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL
Warwickshire
Baddesley Clinton lies some eight miles north of Warwick. The manor was purchased by John Broome in 1438. His son Nicholas died in 1517 and the manor passed to Sir Edward Ferrers, who had married his daughter. The beautiful moated manor house dates back to the 14th century. Edward Ferrers created the chapel in 1634. It is lined with plain panelling filled with old Spanish stamped leather. The Ferrers family remained consistently loyal to the old faith. Marmion Ferrers inherited the estate in the mid-19th century and married the artist Rebecca Orpen.They refurbished the chapel. The reredos panel by Rebecca Ferrers is of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. In 1940, Marmion Ferrers’s great nephew Cecil sold the estate to his relation Thomas Walker, who in 1980 sold it to the government, who conveyed it to the National Trust. The latter body does not arrange for Mass to be celebrated in the chapel.
BIDDLESTONE HALL
Northumberland
Biddlestone is one of the most romantic and remote spots in England. The chapel stands alone amidst wooded slopes in the foothills of the Cheviots. The only local inhabitants are wild deer and red squirrels. For centuries it was the seat of the Selbys, recusant squires, long extinct. The estate was sold in 1914 and the house, Biddlestone Hall, was demolished after the Second World War. Only the chapel survives. It dates from 1820 and was probably designed by John Dobson of Newcastle who, at that time, remodelled the attached house. Now on its own, the chapel has, with its two storeys, the character of a tower. This is not a coincidence as it is within the shell of a medieval pele, with its ancient vaulted undercroft. The interior, reached by an external stone staircase, is mildly Gothic with Victorian fittings. The Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle stopped providing a priest to celebrate Mass 30 years ago, and the chapel is now looked after by the Historic Chapels Trust.
BROUGHTON HALL
Yorkshire – West Riding
The Tempests have been seated around Broughton, five miles west of Skipton, in Yorkshire in continuous recorded male descent over 32 generations from the early Middle Ages. The family acquired land at Broughton itself in the early 14th century. Sir Richard Tempest fought at Agincourt. Unswervingly recusant after the Reformation, as well as Royalist in the Civil War and Jacobite subsequently, they epitomise English Catholic gentry. Broughton Hall was rebuilt in 1594 in the reign of Elizabeth I, with a chapel on the top floor. This was replaced by the present chapel attached to the new west wing circa 1760, designed by John Foss of Richmond. The Chapel of the Sacred Heart is mid-Georgian Gothick with a quadripartite plaster ribbed vault, and a comfortable family tribune pew facing the altar, complete with a little Gothic fireplace. The altarpiece depicts the Crucifixion. The exterior of the chapel was encased in stone and a Grecian clock turret added in the early 19th century as part of a remodelling by George Webster of Kendal for Sir Charles Robert Tempest, the first post-Reformation Catholic High Sheriff of the West Riding. AWN Pugin designed the candlesticks. The interior was redecorated with murals by a Belgian artist in 1900 (restored by Campbell Smith in 1975). There has until recently been a continuous resident Catholic priest at Broughton, with a house in the park, since the 18th century. Mass is celebrated in normal times in Latin on Sundays and week days, with a Missa Cantata on the first Sunday of the month.
BURTON CONSTABLE HALL
Yorkshire – East Riding
The Constables (subsequently the Clifford-Constables and the Chichester-Constables, and distantly connected to the Constables of Everingham through their mutual descent from William Constable of Halsham, born in 1205) have lived at Burton Constable, nine miles north of Hull, since the 12th century. In the 1560s Sir John Constable commissioned a huge red brick Elizabethan house. In the 1760s William Constable remodelled the interior of the house with the help of various architects. The Constables and their successors remained consistently Catholic. The impressive Catholic chapel has an apse with a segmental arch screened by two Ionic columns carrying an entablature. It started life in 1774 as a billiard room designed by Thomas Atkinson although a year later it had become a coffee room. Work started after Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to convert the room into a chapel. This was completed in 1844, a scheme to build a free-standing edifice having not been proceeded with. There is a niche with a statue of Our Lady on the left and a fireplace on the right. An elaborate paint scheme in French ecclesiastical style was completed by the artist Henry Taylor Bulmer in 1844. This is now in the process of repair. Mass is celebrated occasionally. John Chichester-Constable died in 2011 and his daughter Rodrica married James Straker. John Chichester-Constable formed the Burton Constable Foundation in 1992 with the National Heritage Memorial Fund; this now has responsibility for the conservation of the chapel.
CHIDEOCK MANOR
Dorset
The Chideock estate near Bridport was purchased in 1802 from the Arundells by Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle for his sixth son Humphrey. The latter’s son Charles designed the free-standing chapel, dedicated to Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and St Ignatius, in 1870-2 in an early Christian/Byzantine style. The facade has a low narthex; above it there is an enamelled roundel with Our Lady of Sorrows at the centre. JS Hansom extended the building in 1882 by constructing a domed sanctuary. The interior is richly decorated and intricate. The ceiling vault is painted. Below, above the round arched arcades, are framed pictures of the English Martyrs. Arches and columns frame the sanctuary. The altar is surmounted by a gilt statue of the Virgin. The chapel is owned by a trust currently chaired by Charles Weld, and comes under the auspices of the Catholic parish of Bridport. Mass is celebrated regularly.
CROXDALE HALL
County Durham
Croxdale Hall lies a few miles south of the city of Durham. The estate belongs to Gerard Salvin whose ancestors acquired it by marriage in 1402. The family has remained firmly Catholic ever since. The house dates from the 17th century but major alterations were carried out in the 18th century, probably by Carr of York. In 1777 a chapel in the Wyatt manner was inserted into the north wing. This is in early Gothic Revival style, three bays long. Thin columns with tiny capitals support the vaults. The sanctuary with its three Gothick arches has canopied statues with statues and delicate plasterwork. There is a wooden altar and attractive altar rails. The altarpiece is by Maria Cosway in what Pevsner calls the “swoony” style of Catholic art.
CULHAM COURT
Berkshire
The Chapel of Christ the Redeemer at Culham Court is the most distinguished oratory to have been built in recent years. It is a detached building in the deer park of a beautiful 18th-century house overlooking the River Thames. It was built by the Culham Chapel Trust between 2012-16 to the design of the architect Craig Hamilton. Constructed of local flint, it has Portland stone dressings, including a Doric portico, pediment and a square bell cupola. In the words of the late Gavin Stamp, it is a building “of subtle originality” and “an exemplar of superb building craftsmanship”. The noble interior has a coffered plaster vault and Ionic columns of black Waterford marble. The main chapel is raised over a Doric crypt. The rich fittings include vestments and altar plate specially designed by
the architect. The sculpture
is by Alexander Stoddart, Sculptor in Ordinary to the Crown in Scotland, and includes a life-size marble statue of Christ behind the altar. The chapel was consecrated by the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. Regular services include Masses on the last Sunday of the month and holy days of obligation. It is served by the local parish priest in Twyford.
EVERINGHAM HALL
Yorkshire – East Riding
The Constables have been one of the historic families of the East Riding of Yorkshire since the 15th century and played a prominent role in the Pilgrimage of Grace, an uprising against Henry VIII. The Constable heir married a Maxwell from Dumfriesshire in the 18th century. Their grandson William Constable-Maxwell managed to revive the previously attainted Herries barony in 1858, becoming the 10th Lord Herries. He had previously built at Everingham, near Pocklington, the huge chapel of St Mary the Virgin and St Everilda, almost a basilica, in 1838-9, alongside the 1760s house built by Carr of York, as a triumphalist post-Emancipation successor to the recusant chapel in the house. It was designed by Antonio Giorgioli of Rome. The magnificent interior has marbled Corinthian columns with bas reliefs and statues of saints in niches by Luigi Bozzoli. The high altar is of polychrome marble and contains a sarcophagus with relics. The contemporary organ by Charles Allen is the best of its date. Abandoned in 2004 by the Diocese of Middlesbrough, to whom it has been leased, the chapel is maintained by the owners of the Hall, the non-Catholic Guest family, who have transferred ownership to a charitable trust. The contents of the chapel belong to the Herries Chattels Trust. Occasional services are held including local weddings and funerals.
EXTON PARK
Rutland
Edward Noel, 1st Lord Noel of Ridlington, married the elder daughter of Sir Baptist Hicks in 1607. Sir Baptist purchased the Exton estate in 1613. On his death in 1629 it became the property of his son-in-law who was created Viscount Campden. His grandson was created 1st Earl of Gainsborough in 1682. The direct Noel line failed and the relation who inherited Exton became the 1st Earl of Gainsborough of the second creation in 1841. His son converted to Catholicism in 1850. The earlier house had burnt down in 1810. Following his conversion, the 2nd Earl of Gainsborough commissioned Charles Alban Buckler to build a Catholic chapel attached to the east end of the house in 1868-9. The house currently belongs to the 6th Earl of Gainsborough, and his son Viscount Campden lives there. The chapel is dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury and built in the style of the 13th century. It has geometrical tracery and trefoiled lancet lights. There is a decent eastern-facing altar with rails. Mass is celebrated regularly.
HAINTON HALL
Lincolnshire
The Heneages are a Lincolnshire family of great antiquity and their name is first recorded in the county in the 12th century. They have been resident at Hainton Hall in the Lincolnshire Wolds, seven miles south-west of Market Rasen, since the reign of Henry III. The Hall is the oldest family seat in Lincolnshire to have been occupied by the same family continuously. The earlier hall was Georgianised in various stages in the 18th century. The Heneages remained loyal to the Catholic faith throughout penal times and had a chapel in the house. George Fieschi Heneage (1800-64), MP for Lincoln 1832-5 and 1852-62, commissioned the separate Catholic chapel. The Catholic Lincolnshire architect EJ Wilson, a friend of AWN Pugin’s, built the little Perpendicular Gothic chapel of St Francis de Sales in 1836. It is some 100 yards from the house. The interior is pleasant with wooden benches. The east end is dominated by a large gilded arch. There is some stained glass. Mass is still said regularly. George Fieschi Heneage is believed at some stage to have conformed to the Church of England as did his son, the 1st Baron Heneage, and his grandsons, the 2nd and 3rd Barons Heneage; the latter was an Anglican clergyman dying in 1967. Fortuitously the estate was then inherited by a distant Catholic cousin, James Heneage, whose son Christopher is the current owner.
HENDRED HOUSE
Oxfordshire
The East Hendred estate lies equidistant between the towns of Didcot and Wantage in Oxfordshire. The current owner is Edward Eyston. The chapel of St Amand and St John the Baptist in Hendred House dates back to 1256 when Pope Alexander IV gave permission to Sir John de Turberville to construct it. The manor passed from the Turbervilles to the Arches in the mid-14th century and then by marriage to the Eystons in the mid-15th century. The Eystons remained loyal to the old faith after the Reformation. The chapel today is of modest size with white walls, three of them original, punctuated by Gothic windows and an altar with a reredos of 1860 and reset medieval glass above it. Charming 18th-century benches line the nave. Statues of Our Lady and St Joseph are on tables either side of the main altar. Mass is celebrated weekly.
HESLEYSIDE HALL
Northumberland
The Charltons of Hesleyside were originally a Border “reiver” family, seated at Hesleyside near Bellingham since 1343. The present Georgian house incorporates their 14th-century pele tower. The south front dates from 1719 and the east front designed by William Newton of Newcastle from 1796. The park was landscaped by William Charlton in c1776; the landscaping is traditionally said to be by Capability Brown. Alterations were made to the house in 1847 by Ignatius Bonomi, a relation. The Chapel of St Oswald in the house was served by the Benedictines until 1799 when the mission moved to Bellingham where the little parish church was built to Bonomi’s design in 1839. Bonomi may also have been responsible for the richly stencilled 19th-century decoration of the chapel in the Hall, especially on the door. This survives completely. There is also a beautiful painted medieval statue of St Barbara. The house and estate are now owned by William Charlton (né Loyd), who inherited them through his late mother.
HUSBANDS BOSWORTH HALL
Leicestershire
Grace Fortescue came to live at Husbands Bosworth Hall c1630 and thereafter the house became a recusant centre. Maria Alethea Fortescue, who died unmarried in 1763, left the estate to an infant cousin Francis Fortescue Turville. His grandson was Sir Francis Fortescue Turville who died in 1889. After the death of his widow and his sister, the estate went to Oswald Turville-Petre. His grandson Robert Turville-Constable-Maxwell is the current owner of the estate. Mass was said at the hall until 1873 when AE Purdie was commissioned to build St Mary’s Chapel in early Decorated style. There is an eastern bellcote. The chancel is apsidal and vaulted, with an ornate statued altar. The painting throughout is by Romaine-Walker in 1900. The stained glass is by Hardman. A recumbent effigy of Sir Francis Fortescue Turville is in the north chapel. Since June 2021 the chapel has been served by a priest of the Ordinariate with Mass each Sunday at 11am celebrated according to “Divine Worship” ie using the language of the Book of Common Prayer.
INCE BLUNDELL HALL
Lancashire
West Lancashire survived as the most Catholic part of England in the 17th and 18th century. The almost contiguous estates of the Andertons, Blundells, Ecclestons, Gerards, Gillibrands, Heskeths, Molyneux (Viscounts and Earls of Sefton), Scarisbricks, Standishes and de Traffords of Croston formed a solid recusant area between Liverpool, Wigan and Preston. Some of this character can still be felt at Ince Blundell Hall, former seat of the Blundells and Weld Blundells. The hall was designed by Henry Sephton of Liverpool in 1720. In the 18th century it also acted as a Jesuit headquarters with Father Babcock supervising 30 priests engaged on the Lancashire mission. It is now a Catholic nursing home. The large Italianate chapel attached to the back of the house was designed by JJ Scoles in 1858. It has a German Nazarene feel with arched windows, a flat beamed ceiling and stencilled decoration by Crace. Along the side walls are colourful 19th-century copies of Florentine quattrocento masterpieces. The well-preserved ensemble now serves as the parish church of the Holy Family. The former priest’s house in the park is a circular neoclassical design like a garden building.
LULWORTH CASTLE
Dorset
The Lulworth Castle estate on the Dorset coast was purchased in 1641 by Humphrey Weld from Lord Howard of Bindon. The 17th-century castle was destroyed by fire in 1929 and although excellently restored as a roofed shell has not been reinstated as a house in which to live. The 12,000-acre estate is today managed by James Weld. Within a few yards of the ruined house stands St Mary’s Chapel built for Thomas Weld in 1786-7 at a cost of £2,380 by John Tasker. The chapel was the first free-standing Catholic chapel to be built in England since the Reformation. George III visited Lulworth from Weymouth and apparently gave permission for the building provided it was not immediately identifiable as a religious edifice but rather as a mausoleum. From a distance it looks like a garden temple. The chapel is built as a quatrefoil with a rectangle behind the altar. It is surmounted by a dome. The interior is described by Pevsner as “wonderfully serene”. There are four apses, in three of which Tuscan columns support galleries. The lightness of the interior owes much to large Georgian windows with clear glass. The altar was made in Rome by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1770 and originally intended for the English College in Bruges until purchased by Thomas Weld. In 1790 the first Catholic bishop to be appointed in the United States, John Carroll of Baltimore, was consecrated in the chapel. Joseph Hansom changed the chapel in 1865 to make it look more Byzantine but this was reversed in 1951 by Goodhart-Rendel. At the service of reconsecration two years later, Monsignor Ronald Knox in his sermon talked of the debt English Catholics owed to the gentry, who had kept the faith alive during penal times. Mass is celebrated at least twice a month, on Saturday evenings.
MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE
Oxfordshire
Mapledurham lies on the Thames some four miles north of Reading. Mapledurham House was constructed by the recusant Sir Michael Blount from 1585 onwards. The Chapel of St Michael the Archangel was built in 1797 against the north-west side of the house. The Mapledurham estate passed to the Eystons by marriage in 1863 and is now owned by Edward Eyston (qv). The exterior of the chapel is built in red brick. It has two large Gothick windows and a cross in blue brick above the porch. The interior with its ribbed plaster ceiling, doors in the sanctuary and altar rails is of Strawberry Hill Gothick character. The altar has a 17th-century Italian gilded stucco frontal. A raised dais for family seating is at the west end. There are various paintings, including a contemporary copy of Van Dyck’s Deposition, above the altar. Mass is celebrated monthly. The Bardolf (south) aisle in St Margaret’s neighbouring Anglican church (named after Sir Robert Bardolf, owner of the estate 1375-95) remains the private property of the Eyston family and is Catholic (cf Arundel, Oxburgh and Tichborne). It is used solely for burials, not for public services.
MELLS MANOR
Somerset
Katharine Horner was the daughter of Sir John Horner. She married Raymond Asquith, the son of the prime minister, in 1907. He was killed in 1916 on the Somme (Guinchy). Her brother was killed a year later at the Battle of Cambrai, making her the heiress of Mells Manor near Frome. She converted to Catholicism in 1923 and brought up her children, including Julian (“Trim”), 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, as Catholics. Mells Manor became a centre of Catholic writers such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Siegfried Sassoon, who thought Mells “a survival of vanished civilisation”. In 1947 Monsignor Ronald Knox came to live at the Manor where he finished his translation of the Bible and several other works. Both Sassoon and Knox are buried nearby, in the village churchyard of St Andrew’s. Katharine Asquith had a particular admiration for the Dominican order (she had been instructed and received into the Church by Fr Vincent McNabb OP) and in 1940 she opened St Dominic’s Chapel in a small detached building in the garden, on behalf of the whole parish of Frome (partly to alleviate the difficulties of transportation during a period of fuel rationing). It is a simple but rather moving edifice with an altar on the western-facing wall. To accommodate growing attendance, it has recently been expanded by the 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith. The fittings include a medieval French statue of Our Lady (found in Frome in the 1940s), two medieval Italian paintings of the Crucifixion and the Flight into Egypt, Stations of the Cross painted by Daphne Pollen, originally for her uncle Maurice Baring, and some Bulgarian and Serbian icons. Knox’s original tombstone (carved and lettered by Arthur Pollen, husband of Daphne) is set into one of the walls. Mass is celebrated every Sunday and, in normal times, several evenings in the week.
MILTON MANOR HOUSE
Berkshire
Milton Manor House was built between 1659-64 by Paul Calton. It is a compact red brick house of three storeys. In 1764 it was sold to the Catholic Bryan Barrett, a wealthy London lacemaker. He employed Stephen Wright to Georgianise the house. He added the wings and two beautiful Gothick rooms in the south wing, the library and, above it, the beautiful Catholic chapel of 1772. The chapel has low relief panelling formed of interlaced ogee arches and an ornamented coved ceiling with thin ribs and pendants. It is un-reordered. There are altar rails and the chapel is lined with slightly uncomfortable-looking benches. The windows are late 14th century with glass from neighbouring Steventon church. They include figures of the Virgin, Christ in Majesty, Pentecost and the Resurrection etc. There is 16th-century Netherlandish glass in the south windows. The house descended in the 20th century to Marjorie Barrett; her son Anthony Mockler-Barrett is the current owner.
OXBURGH HALL
Norfolk
Edmund Bedingfeld was given licence to crenellate the hall in 1482. He built the original moated mansion. The 6th Baronet, Sir Henry Richard Paston-Bedingfeld, rebuilt the house and bequeathed the picturesque building of today. The Bedingfelds remained constantly Catholic. The Chapel of Our Lady and St Margaret was built in reddish brick in 1835-9 as a detached family chapel with nave, apse and stone chantry chapel. The dedication is to “The Immaculate Conception and St Margaret”. It is mainly of interest because of its fittings. The painted altar retable incorporates an Antwerp altarpiece of 1525; the painted wings are also Antwerp work. The communion rails are 17th-century Flemish. There is much fragmentary stained glass including an English 14th-century figure of St John the Baptist. A recumbent 19th-century effigy of Sir Richard Henry Paston-Bedingfeld lies on a lavish alabaster tomb chest. Mass is celebrated regularly. The estate was acquired by the National Trust in 1950 although Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfeld, 10th Baronet, sometime Norroy and Ulster King of Arms, remains resident at Oxburgh with his family.
SIZERGH CASTLE
Westmorland
The Stricklands of Sizergh Castle became strong Catholics and Stuart supporters in the late 17th century. Sir Thomas Strickland accompanied James II and the royal family into exile at Saint-Germain near Paris in 1688, and Lady Strickland was governess to the future “James III”, the Old Pretender. Their son was allowed to return to England, and a rather neglected Sizergh. Marriage to the heiress Cecilia Towneley enabled improvements to be carried out c1770 by the local architect, John Hird of Cartmel. These included the creation of a spacious chapel with a coved stucco ceiling, and an apartment for the priest in the west wing. This now forms an ante room to the present chapel formed to the north in the 20th century. The latter has an open timbered roof and is full of light from large mullion windows. A group of 18th-century family hatchments add heraldic interest on the walls. There are 18th-century vestments and the breviary of “Henry IX” (Henry Benedict, Cardinal Duke of York) in a handsome Roman binding. It is one of the many Jacobite relics and portraits at Sizergh. The castle was given to the National Trust in 1950, but the family continues to live there, the present incumbent being Henry Hornyold-Strickland, Count della Catena. Mass is celebrated regularly
in the chapel.
SLEDMERE HOUSE
Yorkshire – East Riding
Sledmere is situated to the north-west of Great Driffield. The Sykes family originally came from Leeds and in 1748 Richard Sykes inherited the estate, which by the end of the 19th century amounted to some 35,000 acres. He commenced the building of the house. The 5th Baronet, Sir Tatton Sykes (obit 1913), married Christina Cavendish-Bentinck, who converted to Catholicism. The house suffered from a bad fire in 1911 and was rebuilt by Walter Brierley. The 6th Baronet Sir Mark Sykes (of the Sykes-Picot Agreement) died of Spanish flu in 1919. The estate is now owned by Sir Tatton Sykes, 8th Baronet, born in 1943. The Catholic Chapel of St Mark was added by Brierley after the fire. Two marble Corinthian columns divide the sanctuary from the west end. A plaque is inset in the south wall to the memory of Sir Mark Sykes. The ceiling was painted in a Baroque manner by Tom Errington in the 1990s. Three stained glass windows behind the altar were designed to the memory of Sir Richard Sykes, 7th Baronet, by his sister Angela, Countess of Antrim, and executed by Patrick Reyntiens and David Wasley. Mass is celebrated periodically.
SPETCHLEY PARK
Worcestershire
The Spetchley estate near Worcester (currently 4,500 acres) was bought in 1605 by Rowland Berkeley, a wool merchant and banker descended from a junior branch of the Berkeleys of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. His original home on the site burned down in 1651. The Spetchley branch of the Berkeley family became Catholic at the end of the 17th century. The Palladian house in Bath stone, with its giant portico on the western side of four unfluted Ionic columns, was built in 1811 by the Catholic architect John Tasker. In the east wing a Catholic chapel runs the whole depth of the house. Public access is by a north porch. Three blind windows mark the private gallery. The chapel has a high interior with a coved plaster ceiling. The sanctuary has a blank “Venetian” motif with a segmental arch on fluted Ionic columns. The communion rails are balustraded. The Berkeley family continues to live at Spetchley Park, and they also inherited Berkeley Castle on the death of the 8th Earl in 1942. Major Robert Berkeley died in 2017. His younger son Henry lives at Spetchley Park while the elder brother lives at Berkeley Castle.
STONOR PARK
Oxfordshire
The Stonor family were living at Stonor in the Chilterns in the middle of the 12th century and remain there to this day. The 1st Lord Camoys (not himself a Stonor) lived from c1360 until 1421. He was a Knight of the Garter and commanded Henry V’s left wing at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The barony fell into abeyance in 1426 and was revived 413 years later for Thomas Stonor as the 3rd Lord Camoys in 1839, ten years after Catholic peers were allowed to take their seats in the House of Lords. The estate is now run by the 7th Lord Camoys and his son William. The flint and stone chapel is connected to the east wing of the red brick house. It is thought to date from the late 13th century. It has a brick tower. Mass has been celebrated without a break since 1349 and is still celebrated each Sunday. The chapel was Gothicised in 1797 with a vaulted roof, gallery and Gothick altar rails. Francis Eginton designed the stained glass windows with a Salvator Mundi above the altar. Two doors with ogee arches flank the altar. The chapel was repainted in pink, grey and white in 1959. The Stonors remained firm to the faith after the Reformation. St Edmund Campion had his printing press at Stonor and was arrested nearby prior to his martyrdom in 1581. The Stonors have provided many priests including Edmund Stonor, Archbishop of Trebizond, who died in 1912. There is a tablet in the chapel to Dame Edith Sitwell, the convert poet, who was a friend of the family.
TOWNELEY HALL
Lancashire
The chapel in Towneley Hall in Burnley is exceptional as it is an ancient structure which was moved and rebuilt in its present position, attached to the north wing, out of old materials as an expression of early Georgian antiquarianism by the Catholic Towneley family. The hall dates from the early 14th century but its present appearance as a castellated mansion owes much to three centuries of antiquarian endeavour. Originally a quadrangle, the east side was moved c1736 to let in more light and the chapel reconstructed by Charles Towneley using “the stonework, wainscot and everything to which the effects of consecration could be expected to extend”. The interior is dark and panelled with a Gothic transverse screen. The altarpiece is a magnificent carved Flemish reredos acquired by Peregrine Towneley after it was displaced from Flanders at the French Revolution. The great treasure of the chapel is a rare set of medieval High Mass vestments from Whalley Abbey preserved after the Reformation. The Towneleys remained strongly Catholic, Royalist and Jacobite. In the 16th century there were eight “priest holes” at Towneley, and it was listed on Lord Burghley’s map of recusants as being “of more than ordinary perversity”. A museum since 1901, Towneley Hall is well run by Burnley Borough Council. Mass is celebrated every year on All Souls Day. A link is maintained with Sir Simon Towneley (Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire 1976-96) who lives at Dyneley Hall, a shooting lodge on the estate.
UGBROOKE PARK
Devon
The Cliffords acquired Ugbrooke Park in the 16th century through marriage to a Courtenay heiress. The 1st Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (obit 1673) was Charles II’s Lord Treasurer. He converted to Rome and had to resign his office because of his refusal to sign the Test Act. The earlier house was substantially refurbished by Robert Adam in the 18th century. The chapel of St Cyprian was rededicated from Anglican to Catholic use in 1673. Its demure Adam front hides a sumptuous Italian Renaissance interior from the 1840s when the chapel was rebuilt to a Greek-cross plan with a new vault and cupola over the crossing. The sanctuary has a marble altar, pictures and altar rails. The estate currently belongs to Thomas, 14th Lord Clifford of Chudleigh and his son Alexander. Mass has been celebrated in the chapel since 1673, initially by a Jesuit chaplain and more recently by the parish priest of neighbouring Bovey Tracey.
NEW WARDOUR CASTLE
Wiltshire
The Arundells arrived at Wardour in 1541 when a younger son from Lanherne in Cornwall was granted various manors in Tisbury and its vicinity, previously belonging to Shaftesbury Abbey. They lived initially at Old Wardour Castle, slighted in the Civil War. In 1770, Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour, commissioned James Paine to build a magnificent Palladian mansion, completed six years later. Hidden within a wing is All Saints Chapel, then the grandest Catholic place of worship built in England since the Reformation. Its unspectacular entrance gives little indication of the grand interior with its Corinthian pilasters and exuberant plasterwork. Pevsner describes the chapel as being “grand in its decoration”. John Soane extended the sanctuary in 1788-90 to set the marble high altar created by Giacomo Quarenghi in Rome. The furnishings are generally splendid. There are a number of large paintings, the huge Deposition behind the altar being commissioned by Father Thorpe, Lord Arundell’s agent in Rome, from Giuseppe Cades. Another painting (17th century), that of the Samaritan women by Louis de Boullogne, was purchased from Notre Dame in Paris at the time of the French Revolution. The silver sanctuary lamps were made by Luigi Valadier in Rome in 1775. The marble relief of the Virgin and Child by Pierre-Étienne Monnot of 1703 came from the private chapel of the Jesuit Superior General in Rome. In 1898 the ownership of the chapel was transferred to a trust; the present chairman of the trustees is the former Hon Richard Arundell, now the 11th Lord Talbot of Malahide, who lives nearby. The Jesuits provided priests for the chapel until some 15 years ago. Mass is celebrated each Sunday.
WILLIAMSTRIP PARK
Gloucestershire
The Chapel of Our Lady in the grounds at Williamstrip Park was built by Mr and Mrs John Kennedy and is the third Catholic chapel to have been designed by the architect Craig Hamilton. The foundation stone was laid by Monsignor John Armitage; the chapel was completed in 2019. The building is faced in beautiful ashlar Bath and Clipsham stone. The entrance front is composed of a large austere triumphal arch framing the door, and a semi-circular relief after Della Robbia under a pediment. The interior is splendid with a gilded apse and stained glass windows depicting female saints, designed and made by Jim Budd, a leading glass artist. The entrance leads into a narthex with walnut screen.
The tall nave has Corinthian columns and a plaster vault. The combination of white Portland and black Kilkenny stone gives a Florentine feel, underlined by carvings and sculpture in the Della Robbia tradition. The altar is placed under a baldacchino with an arched marble roof forming a single structural element, an impressive feat of craftmanship. Marble and bronze statues include one of St Patrick copied from a Victorian original in Wolverhampton.
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