Transcribed from the 1909 edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries,
Local Studies department, for allowing their copy to be used for this
transcription.
The Chapel of the
Holy Spirit
in
The Church of St. Peter’s,
Cranley Gardens, S.W.
* * * * *
_Notes Descriptive of the Chapel_,
_its Furniture_, _and its Principal_
_Features_.
* * * * *
“I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of Saints and Holy men who died
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ’s Triumph and the Angelic Roundelays
With splendour upon splendour multiplied;
* * * * *
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
Sing the old Latin hymns of Peace and Love
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost.”
LONGFELLOW, _Divina Commedia_.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE consecration of the new Chapel of the Holy Spirit by the Bishop of
London, on Tuesday, the 25th May, 1909, marks the completion of the large
scheme for the enlargement and beautifying of St. Peter’s, upon which the
Church Council has been earnestly engaged for nearly three years. The
new organ has already been very fully described in the “Dedication
Service” booklets of last year, and it has been suggested that some
description of the chapel may be of interest to many who worship at St.
Peter’s. Those who read it must pardon the writer if from inexperience
or lack of knowledge he has failed adequately or accurately to describe
it, or if, in describing it, he may have been driven by the depth of his
own feelings to strike too personal a note.
The chapel has been erected to form at once an integral portion of the
church and a feature distinctive in itself. Ancient precedents for such
treatment are numerous, wherein a richness of material or ornament marks
the chapel as a pious memorial or its erection as an act of devotion. In
this case it is attached to the north side of the chancel, and opens from
the north transept by a wide and simply moulded archway in harmony with
the chancel arch. A short neck, lighted by a long lancet, connects it
somewhat more richly with the chancel.
Occasion has been taken to gain light in this corner of the building, and
the exigencies of lighting in a confined area have largely controlled the
form of the chapel. It consists upon the ground floor of three bays, in
the upper part of two only. The east window is thrown back from the
party wall, and carried by a rich segmental arch at the end of the second
bay. The recess thus formed at the east end shelters the altar and
reredos under a panelled vault into which the canopies grow.
The two loftier bays of the chapel have LIERNE and slightly domical
vaults, each compartment intersected by the figure of a cross formed by
the ribbing, which is brought down in an Ogee point to the wall rib. The
springers are arranged to form canopies over a series of sixteen
figures—Angels, Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs and Holy Church, the
Archangel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin in the Annunciation flanking the
east window. The head of our Lord crowns the eastern vault, and in the
surrounding bosses angels bear the emblems of the Passion. The Holy
Spirit in the form of a dove, surrounded by angels bearing the insignia
of the various learned societies with which the donors are associated,
decorate the western bay.
Upon the walls the ornament is confined to the lower parts, which are
richly arcaded on the north side, and occupied by Sedilia and Piscina on
the south. A bronze railing with gates separates the chapel from the
transept, and access is given to the chapel from the clergy vestry by a
narrow carved oak door. With the exception of the mullions of the
windows which are of Doulting stone, only fine Bath stone has been used
in the interior of the chapel, the exterior being finished in Doulting
and Kentish Rag.
The above is a concise general description of the chief features of the
chapel drawn from notes kindly furnished by Mr. W. D. Caröe (the
architect), of 3, Great College Street, Westminster, to whose designs and
under whose supervision the chapel has been erected. So far, therefore,
there is not much difficulty. The difficulty begins when we commence to
try and describe the many details of the chapel interior. It is almost
impossible to convey adequately to a reader _all_ the many thoughts and
ideas that have been worked up into and enwrapped in the carved stone or
painted glass or mosaic that will go with other things to complete the
little chapel. There is much that is very personal about it, perhaps too
deep for words, but the spirit of the chapel may be the more easily
comprehended, if only those who read this will remember three things. In
the first place, it is a _morning_ chapel primarily, nay, essentially,
intended for the administration of the Holy Communion. In the second
place, it is to be _dedicated to the Holy Spirit_, “the Spirit of Truth,”
the promised Comforter by whose light the hearts of all faithful people
were to be taught and all the sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ were to be
brought into remembrance. Lastly, it is a chapel which has been _built
to the glory and praise of God_, and _as a memorial_ by children and
descendants to their beloved parents and forefathers, of whom many,
though born in New England and educated at her Universities of Harvard
and Yale, have always valued and kept close the ties that bound them to
that older England in which their forefathers were born, and to those
older Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in which their forefathers
were nurtured. Those who in the days before the Commonwealth went forth
from the Old England across the broad Atlantic to lay the foundations of
a Commonwealth not unworthy to be called by the name of New England
carried with them from Oxford and from Cambridge the spirit of places
where Culture was not as yet largely dissociated from Religion, and where
faithful regard was as yet paid to a founder’s injunction: “Religionis
puritatem ac vitæ ad posteros nostros propagare.” Their descendants may
be pardoned if, looking back through the centuries to the great
Universities of those days, and regarding them as centres not merely of
culture, but also of religious light and truth, they picture them as
being the instruments by which the Holy Spirit has moved the world, and
have tried in the vaulting of the chapel roof to transmute this idea into
carved stone.
With these explanatory remarks it may now be possible to enable the
reader the more easily to catch the spirit of the place.