The Chapel of King's College London is a

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed 19th century chapel located in the

Strand Campus The Strand Campus is the founding campus of King's College London and is located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, sharing its frontage along the River Thames. The original campus comprises the Grade I listed King's Building of 1831 ...

King's College King's College or The King's College refers to two higher education institutions in the United Kingdom: *King's College, Cambridge, a constituent of the University of Cambridge *King's College London, a constituent of the University of London It ca ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Originally designed by

Sir Robert Smirke Sir Robert Smirke (1 October 1780 – 18 April 1867) was an English architect, one of the leaders of Greek Revival architecture, though he also used other architectural styles. As architect to the Board of Works, he designed several major ...

in 1831, the Renaissance Revival chapel seen today was redesigned by the prominent

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

architect

Sir George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...

in 1864.

History

King's College London Chapel 3, London - Diliff

The original college chapel was designed by

and was completed in 1831 as part of the College building (later known as the King's building). Given the foundation of the university in the tradition of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

, the chapel was intended to be an integral part of the campus.Heulin (1979), p. 1 This is reflected in its central location within the King's Building on the first floor above the Great Hall, accessible via a grand double staircase from the foyer. Although no pictures have survived, the original chapel was described as a low and broad room "fitted to the ecclesiological notions of

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

's reign." However, by the mid-nineteenth century its style had fallen out of fashion and in 1859 a proposal by the college chaplain E. H. Plumptre that the original chapel should be reconstructed was approved by the college council, who agreed that its "meagreness and poverty" made it unworthy of King's. The college approached

to make proposals. In his proposal of 22 December 1859, he suggested that, "There can be no doubt that, in a classic building, the best mode of giving ecclesiastical character is the adoption of the form and, in some degree, the character of an ancient basilica." His proposals for a chapel modelled on the lines of a classical

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

were accepted and the reconstruction was completed in 1864 at a cost of just over £7,000.

19th and 20th century

Scott had to overcome several structural difficulties since the chapel was situated above the Great Hall in the 19th century. He used a lightweight construction system for the arcade and upper nave walls. In the 20th century, there were many developments that changed the design of the chapel. The original pitched roof designed by Scott was covered with canvas decorated in bays with large star motifs, but these were lost when the ceiling was substituted in the 1930s. The low level windows, which were embellished with stained glass, were damaged during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The architect

Stephen Dykes Bower Stephen Ernest Dykes Bower (18 April 1903 – 11 November 1994) was a British church architect and Gothic Revival designer best known for his work at Westminster Abbey, Bury St Edmunds Cathedral and the Chapel at Lancing College. As an architect ...

was asked to produce proposals for the chapel in 1948 following war damage. Under his direction, the windows were glazed with tinted cathedral glass instead of stained glass. The arcade columns, original designs on the aisle and apse walls were repainted.

21st century

It was desired by the chaplaincy team of the college to have a chapel that is "sensitive to the tradition and relevant to the contemporary culture". The chapel was planned to be restored and refurbished from 1996 but was not restored until 2001.

Apse

The

semi-dome In architecture, a semi-dome (or half-dome) is a half dome that covers a semi-circular area in a building. Architecture Semi-domes are a common feature of apses in Ancient Roman and traditional church architecture, and in mosques and iwans in Isla ...

of the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

is a copy of one of Salviati's

mosaics A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

, depicting

Christ in Majesty Christ in Majesty or Christ in Glory ( la, Maiestas Domini) is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world, always seen frontally in the centre of the composition, and often flanked by other sacred figures, whos ...

surrounded by angels. Either side of the arch are elaborately decorated vertical panels which include figures bearing scrolls inscribed with the motto of King's College, (With Holiness and Wisdom), and other Christian inscriptions. The

spandrels A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

of the arches on each side of the nave feature the painted heads Doctors of the Church, and four 16th- and 17th-century Anglican Divines. These appear to have been an afterthought, as they do not feature in the original Gilbert Scott drawings.

Deans

Organists

The following is a list of organists of the chapel: * 1835 - Henry Bevington * 1854 - William Henry Monk (Director of Choir from 1849) * 1889 - John Edward Wernham (joined the college staff in 1886) * 1916 - Vacancy (Organ played by students under supervision of Department of Theology). * 1937 - Robert Linton Shields (Officially appointed Lecturer in Music as were all subsequent organists until 1980) * 1941 - vacant * 1945 - Harold Last * 1953 - Ernest H. Warrell * 1992 - David Trendell *2014 - Gareth Wilson * 2015 - Joseph Fort

Chaplaincy

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Official websiteKing's College London
{{Authority control 1831 establishments in England King's College London Grade I listed churches in London Chapels in London Churches completed in 1831 University and college chapels in the United Kingdom Strand, London