Chapel of the Royal High School

Details

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 06/02/2018


LANSDOWN ROAD (east side),
Chapel of the Royal High School

(Formerly Listed as: Chapel of the Royal School)

04/06/2007

GV

II

A chapel built in 1939 to a design by H.S. Goodhart-Rendel with an unfinished west end, consecrated in 1950, and completed in 1957-1961 by H.H. Goldsmith and H.W.S. Tolson.
MATERIAL: The chapel, in stripped Gothic style with Tudor detailing, is built of coursed squared limestone and has a Welsh slate roof.
PLANFORM: It has a simple single cell plan-form, with attached to its south-east a small vestry. Its west-end consists of an entrance lobby with gallery above.
EXTERIOR: The west end has strip buttresses framing three two-light mullioned windows with leaded lattice lights. Above, it is a large triple window of two-three-two lights with mullions and transom, and a small louvre above. The east end has a large seven-light, leaded mullioned window in a segmental arch with a louvre above and a decorative stone cross at the roof apex. The side elevations have projecting semi-aisles with paired strip windows flanked by strip pilaster buttresses rising to turrets at eaves level and flanked by blank walling above either two or four light windows. At the east end of each side elevation is a similar triple feature with two paired windows with an entrance below. In the north elevation is a foundation stone of 1939, reading: 'This stone was laid by the most honourable the Marquess of Bath K.G.P.C.C.B. on the 7th day of July 1939'.
INTERIOR: The chapel has a plain timber ribbed keel roof with a decorative, painted Canopy of Honour above the altar space to the east. The internal buttresses in plastered brick have stone framed openings forming very narrow aisles, and form tall alcoves which are spanned at ceiling level by carved oak lintels. The nave has a floor laid with 'Granwood' type blocks laid in a herringbone pattern, with broad shallow steps leading up to the choir with evidence of a former altar rail. The steps and choir floor are laid in coloured stone with the site of the former altar filled in with a stone screed. To the left of the choir is a stone commemorative plaque with the following inscription: `The furnishings of this sanctuary are given by Alice Ramsay widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Ramsay C.I.E. in precious memory of their daughter Jean Ferelith Ramsay WAAF who gave her life that we might live Dover January 30th 1944.' (The furnishings appear to have been removed).
The 1960s west end contains an entrance lobby with fixed wooden cupboards. The frame to the internal door to the nave was formerly decorated with Regimental badges. The wooden gallery above, accessed via internal stairs on either side, contains its original pews and an organ by Geo. Osmond & Co of Taunton. A photograph of 1960 shows that the organ formerly stood in the choir. A commemorative stone plaque of 1961, situated near the stairs to the gallery on the north side, carries the inscription: `The Chapel eastward of this stone was built in 1939 to the design of HS Goodhart-Rendel, Architect of London, and consecrated in 1950 after the War. The West end and gallery were completed in 1961 to a design by HH Goldsmith & NWS Tolson, Architects of Bath. Builders: 1939 E Chancellor & Sons 1961 FI Blackmore & Son.'

HISTORY: The Royal High School, completed in 1856, was built in Gothic Revival style to a design by James Wilson. It first opened as the Bath and Lansdown Proprietary College for boys, but as this school failed, it was sold in 1863 and became the Royal School for Daughters of Army Officers, founded after the Crimean War. Works on the Chapel at the Royal School were started in 1939 by the builders E Chancellor & Sons, and a foundation stone was laid by the Marquess of Bath, of Longleat House, in July that year. During the Second World War the school evacuated to Longleat, and the chapel's west end could not be completed. In 1950 the chapel was consecrated. Due to the school's limited resources after the Second World War, Goodhart-Rendel's plan for the west-end, which included an external stair turret, was not fully implemented. Instead, in 1961 the west end and gallery were completed to designs of 1957 by the Bath based architects H.H. Goldsmith and H.W.S. Tolson (using Blackmore & Son as builders).
Goodhart-Rendel started his career as an architect from 1909 onwards. In 1915 he was commissioned in the special reserve Grenadier Guards. He resumed his architectural practice in London in 1919. In 1924-5 he was President of the Architectural Association and in 1937-9 of the Royal Institute of British Architects. During the Second World War Goodhart-Rendel rejoined his regiment. In 1945 he started working in an architectural practice with his partners H Lewis Curtis (since 1930) and FG Broadbent (since 1945). Goodhart-Rendel's work was greatly influenced by nineteenth century architecture, and he had an extensive knowledge of the Victorian Gothic revival. As such he became a successful designer for restorations and extensions. Some of his work also echoes the style of Sir Edwin Lutyens. He is best known for his church designs, mostly dating from after 1945.

SOURCES
Oxford DNB (entry for HS Goodhart-Rendel: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33455
D Watkin, The rise of architectural history (1980), pp 165-169.
M Forsyth, Bath (Pevsner Architectural Guides 2003), pp 267-268.
Historic documentation, including photographs, plans and drawings, supplied on behalf of the owner of the Chapel from their private collection and the Bath Records Office.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The Chapel at the Royal High School in Bath merits listing at Grade II for the following main reasons:
* It is a good example of a church by the nationally important architect HS Goodhart-Rendell, in which his early ideas on church design as further developed after 1945, are expressed.
* Its austere but elegant overall design and its architectural detailing are of a high quality and it makes interesting use of natural light.
* The fact that the interior of Goodhart-Rendell's earliest church, St Wilfrid's, Elm Grove, Brighton (qv) of 1934-5, has mostly been lost due to its conversion into flats, gives added importance to the survival of the Chapel at the Royal High School.
* It forms an important group with the mid-C19 Royal High School building (qv) in the Gothic Revival style.

Listing NGR: ST7476266477

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

509528

Legacy System:

LBS

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