Details
CHAPEL COURT
(South side)
Chapel of St Michael Within
12/06/50
GV II
Chapel to St John's Hospital. 1723 by William Killigrew, altered late C19, reopened after restoration in 1879, altered C20.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, lead roof.
PLAN: Single space with west gallery and east apse, entered from Chapel Court and with corresponding south door, octagonal turret and cupola over west end.
EXTERIOR: External fabric and detail appear largely of C19 restoration. South flank, to Hetling Court, has four round lights above the doorway and three paired lights with tracery and under flat segmental heads, these all in heavy raised plat surrounds, and with flat mullions and tracery members, to bold plain sills on console brackets. Upper lights have central oculus surrounded by six near circular openings, and lower lights have central mullion to rounded heads under an oculus. Left hand end tall pair of panelled doors, on three stone steps to segmental head with keystone and plat surround. Each end plain paired pilasters, with single pilasters dividing bays, rising from plinth, without bases, carrying dentil cornice, inflected to end pilasters, under blocking course and parapet. Left hand end is turret with horizontal board cladding, and louvred ventilators on three facets, under cornice and lead cupola. East end has projecting apse with small single lights each side and three-light window in heavy surround to centre, lower part of apse is fluted, and to each side is broad and deep splayed plinth dying to curve. Parapet is swept and raised above centre. North side of chapel largely absorbed in other parts of hospital complex, but has similar doorway to that on south, with two-light window to its left, all set back under C20 first floor `bridge'.
INTERIOR: Simple nave with deep gallery and shallow apsidal chancel. Plain plastered walls, flat ceiling with deep cove cornice, and three ventilating roses, carpeted floor. Rear of gallery projecting half cylindrical turret with central door, presumed staircase. Panelled gallery front carries delicate carved and painted Royal Arms; these are George IV, as used 1816-1817, and were placed here in 1973, having been removed from St. Mark's, Lyncombe (qv), a redundant church. Organ gallery added in 1971.
FITTINGS AND MONUMENTS: Plain bench pews, reredos in Gothick style, with octagonal panelled pilasters carrying carved figures, and mosaic panel. Brass communion rail. Apse windows have coloured glass of 1879, and it is recorded that windows were replaced in 1870. Tablet records that the chapel was re-opened on St Luke's Day, 1879. Monument on north wall of 1683 to William Peak, Master of the Hospital, with fine moulded surround and pediment with bold angel's head. Early C18 chapel was designed and built just before John Wood was called in to work on adjacent Chandos Buildings (qv), and shows no appreciation of the design `revolution' about to be set loose on the hospital. Pevsner refers to `...deplorable Victorian tracery' in the windows, although it is not clear to what extent, if any, this copied the Killigrew detail.
HISTORY: This, the first classical place of worship to be erected since antiquity, was built to replace a church which dated back to the C12.
SOURCES:(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 108).
Listing NGR: ST7493464679
