Rosslyn Hill Chapel, London NW3 - geograph

The Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel is a place of worship in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

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 ...

. It is a member of the

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (GAUFCC or colloquially British Unitarians) is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christians, and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom and Irelan ...

, the

umbrella organisation An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry-specific) institutions who work together formally to coordinate activities and/or pool resources. In business, political, and other environments, it provides resources and ofte ...

for British Unitarians. It is also 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 ...

Building

The chapel, which stands on

Rosslyn Hill Rosslyn Hill is a road in London, connecting the south end of Hampstead High Street to the north end of Haverstock Hill. It is the site of the Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, St. Stephen's Church and the Royal Free Hospital. It is served by the ...

, was at first a simple wooden structure. Said to have been built in 1692 by Isaac Honeywood who lived in the adjoining mansion, the Red Lion Hill meeting house was first replaced in 1736 and then, having become unsafe, rebuilt in brick on roughly the same site in 1828. The current building (using the old brick chapel as its hall) was built from 1862 to 1885 in the

Neo Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. Two of the building's stained-glass windows are by

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

and

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

and another is by

Henry Holiday Henry Holiday (17 June 183915 April 1927) was a British historical genre and landscape painter, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He is part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art. Life Early years and training Holiday was born ...

. It holds four

John Flaxman John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several ye ...

reliefs and plaques to previous congregants, such as

Helen Allingham Helen Allingham (née Paterson; 26 September 1848 – 28 September 1926) was a British watercolourist and illustrator of the Victorian era. Biography Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson was born on 26 September 1848, at Swadlincote in Derbyshire, ...

(the first woman artist admitted to the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

). Its stone arches and pointed ceiling vault give it an excellent acoustic, making it a popular recording venue.

Ministers

The minister is Kate Dean. Ministers who have served the Chapel include Stephen Lobb (1647?–1699), Richard Amner (1736–1803), Rochemont Barbauld, husband of the radical poet

Anna Laetitia Barbauld Anna Laetitia Barbauld (, by herself possibly , as in French, Aikin; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A " woman of letters" who published in mu ...

(1743–1825),

Jeremiah Joyce Jeremiah Joyce (1763–1816) was an English Unitarian minister and writer. He achieved notoriety as one of the group of political activists arrested in May 1794. Early life He was born 24 February 1763, the son of Jeremiah Joyce (1718–1788), ...

(1763–1816) and William Hincks (1794–1871). It was during the 45-year-long ministry of Thomas Sadler (1822–1891), who arrived at the Chapel in 1846 aged 24, just two years after being awarded his doctorate from the

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

in Bavaria, that the current Chapel building was constructed.

Congregation

Among the prominent residents of Hampstead who occasionally attended the Chapel in the years immediately after it was built in 1862 was the novelist

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...

. Politicians who were worshippers included John Wood (1789–1856), a trustee of the chapel, who was a Whig MP for Preston (1826–32) and a strong supporter of the Great Reform Act 1832,D.W. Beddington, Unitarian Members of Parliament in the Nineteenth Century. A Catalogue. ''Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society Supplement'', Vol. 24, No. 3 (April 2009), p. 53. http://www.unitarianhistory.org.uk/Unitarian%20Members%20of%20Parliament%20in%20the%20Nineteenth%20Century.pdf. Accessed 10/10/2012. and William Lawrence (1818-1897),

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...

(1863/4) and twice Liberal MP for the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

(1865–74, 1880–85).

References

External links

official site
{{Authority control Churches in the London Borough of Camden Unitarian chapels in England Chapels in London 17th-century Protestant churches Grade II listed churches in London Churches completed in 1885 Buildings and structures in Hampstead Anna Laetitia Barbauld 19th-century churches in the United Kingdom 1692 establishments in England