Last weekend saw the start of Surrey's Autumn Heritage Festival and we kicked off with a visit to Horton Chapel, the place previously noticed in the three posts of reference 1.
Horton Chapel being the last survivor of the cluster of chapels built to serve the Epsom cluster of mental hospitals. The local Muslim community were denied access and ownership has devolved onto a community trust with flavours of community, heritage and art. See reference 2.
A little early, so took a look outside first - an outside suggesting that plenty of money was available for municipal chapel building at the end of the nineteenth century, and that the work was of a high standard. So good quality brick work and nicely done stone surrounds to the windows - with the original sash replaced by plastic double glazing in the one snapped above.
That said, despite the large plot which had been made available, the chapel (bottom centre above) did not point to the east, rather to the north east. Although I believe that some disputatious religious worry about whether one should point towards Jerusalem along a line of latitude or whether one should be geographically correct and point along a great circle, which might be about what this chapel does. Perhaps the architect was a freemason or a geographer.
But it did run to stained glass at the north east end, over the altar.
A bit further round we have the service entrance, where the door does not look quite right. Furthermore, there is a top rail to the door but not a bottom rail. Then the hand rail looks new and the concrete steps are clean and tidy. So I wondered whether the steps had been added later, but then thought it unlikely that the floor levels inside had been changed. And if it has been messed about with, it has been done very neatly. Neatness which did not extend to the parapet, where a bit of making good is still to be done.
A serious looking padlock denying access to the cellars, perhaps more properly the crypt. No-one offered to show us around and I forgot to ask about it.
Maybe fifteen or so of us gathered outside the door for our tour at 10:00. The place was well staffed by volunteers, but we still outnumbered them by at least 2:1. We drew a cheerful and enthusiastic lady to take us around.
This pipe rack is about all that is left of the organ which once served the chapel.
Carefully restored parquet, with the pattern presumably a relic of the original layout of aisles, pews and so on. Much the same sort of parquet as we have in a couple of rooms of our own house. Some sort of pine, maybe pitch pine.
Looking towards the north east end, now the home of a rather large and ugly counter for dispensing drinks and snacks, yet to be opened. Oddly, while an atheist, I did not like all this taking the place of the altar; it seemed to show a certain lack of respect for the original purpose of the building. A bit like having the rather smaller counter in the central church in Kingston right up against a large and once important memorial, as noticed in the course of reference 3.
The nave had been nicely restored, and they had sensibly left the partition in place, as the whole nave would be rather large for current needs. But it must have been an impressive space at the time it was built. One supposes that the deputy medical superintendent who erected it in the early 1960's thought that pinching half the space for a music therapy area would give better value than prayer. Quite possible that he was an atheist, the church hating sort of atheist of my father's generation; people old enough to remember an established church with too much power in the land.
Another view of the new catering arrangements. With the electrically lit wreath on the cross beam being trim to the memorial plaques for hospital staff who died in the two world wars which is presently being restored.
In the body of the chapel there was a modest display about the mental hospitals, the people who worked in them and the people who lived in them. Inter alia, we learned that this chapel was the only one of the cluster not to be gothic revival.
A chap with the same job title as FIL. He looks like a slightly older and more avuncular version of the original.
I dare say they do need some site security, but hopefully someone will dream up something a bit easier on the eyes than this. Hopefully something more cunning than just growing creepers up the present fence.
With the state of the bus shelter opposite the entrance to the chapel being evidence for the need for some site security. While just beyond the bus shelter, a small gang of workmen were spraying weed killer on the low earth banks intended to deter the parking of unwanted caravans. They just said weed killer, so maybe that was going to kill everything, generally speeding up the sinking of the earth banks, back into the ground from which they were raised. I also noticed that the sprayers came from Stihl, the people we didn't, in the event, buy our battery powered hedge trimmer from. No doubt good, but far too expensive for our modest needs, the remarks in reference 5 notwithstanding. Settled for Bosch on click & collect from Robert Dyas. Less than half the price.
All in all, the impression was of good work in progress. They are making something good of the old place. But there is still plenty to do. Hopefully we will be able to investigate their light lunches before the year is out.
Then having done the chapel, we proceeded the Horton Retail (top of the aerial view above), where we had parked the car and where we were able to pay a visit to the Dr. Barnardo's charity shop there.
Where I was well pleased to be able to buy two bags of general purpose Duplo for a tenner. Got enough now for serious construction projects. Interestingly, BH took it all apart and put it into a pillow case to put it through the washing machine. During which process a surprisingly large proportion of it got stuck back together again.
But we failed to get a serving spoon for 10p which I could use to spoon out paint when I only needed a small amount and did not want to be carrying a pint pot of the stuff up a ladder. Nothing doing on that front at all, so that will probably have to wait until we get back to the Isle of Wight, where they still have old style charity shops.
PS: as a child, I only knew of Barnardo's as the name of a children's home on the edge of the village where my primary school was. Children, who, I am sorry to say, were the subject of some unnecessary teasing and ragging, perhaps worse. But the charity, to judge from their website, has moved on a long way from being a provider of homes.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=horton+chapel&max-results=20&by-date=true.
Reference 2: https://thehortonepsom.org/.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/shopping.html.
Reference 4: https://www.barnardos.org.uk/.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/fake-125.html.
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