Loughwood Meeting House is a historic
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...
chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
, south of the village of
Dalwood
Dalwood is a village and county parish in the East Devon district of the English county of Devon. It is approximately away from the nearest town, Axminster, and away from Honiton. Dalwood can be accessed by the nearby A35 road. The village is ...
,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
in England.
There was a meeting house on this site in 1653, although the current building may date from the late 17th century or early 18th century. It is one of the earliest surviving Baptist meeting houses. Since 1969 it has been owned by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
.
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
have designated it a Grade II*
listed building
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 ...
.
Origins
The meeting house was founded by the Baptists of
Kilmington, Devon, a village away to the southeast. Prior to the
Act of Toleration 1689
The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689.
The Act allowed for ...
, the meeting house was illegal, but its location made it suitable as a refuge. It was built into a hillside, at that time surrounded by woodland and accessible only by narrow paths.
Furthermore, it lay within a
detached outlier of the county of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
, as the parish of
Dalwood
Dalwood is a village and county parish in the East Devon district of the English county of Devon. It is approximately away from the nearest town, Axminster, and away from Honiton. Dalwood can be accessed by the nearby A35 road. The village is ...
belonged to Dorset until 1842.
From the outside it resembled a farm-worker's cottage apart from the gravestones surrounding it. It is still used for worship twice a year by the congregation of nearby Kilmington Baptist Church.
[
]
Architecture
The building is of stone rubble with buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...
es and a thatch
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...
ed roof. The interior dates from the mid 18th century to early 19th century. The interior is set up as a preacher's house with a high pulpit at the centre front. On the left are box pew
A box pew is a type of church pew that is encased in panelling and was prevalent in England and other Protestant countries from the 16th to early 19th centuries.
History in England
Before the rise of Protestantism, seating was not customary in ch ...
s at right angles to the wall, and on the right some are square pews and the others are parallel with the wall. The musicians sat in the front pews of the gallery
Gallery or The Gallery may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Art gallery
** Contemporary art gallery
Music
* Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s
Albums
* ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album
* ''Gallery'' (Gr ...
where they had their music rests. A notch in the floor was used for the foot of the bass viol. Two small rooms at the back of the meeting house were used for cooking the midday meal when the congregation met on Sundays for the entire day. Outside is the graveyard, the first interment being in 1659, and in the corner of the graveyard is a stable for the horses of those members who had come from far afield. There was also a baptismal
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
pool.
Membership
The earliest records go back to 1653, but the church had been in existence for some time before that. Two of the earliest members were John Vernon and William Allen who had been part of the victorious Parliamentary forces under General Fairfax in the English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
in 1645. Other early members had escaped from France, mostly being Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
s, and because their names were difficult to pronounce, were known as "French". This remains a common surname among church members and in the vicinity.[
]
References
External links
National Trust Visitor Information
{{commonscatinline
National Trust properties in Devon
Churches in Devon
Baptist churches in England
Grade II* listed churches in Devon