Odda's Chapel is a former

chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantry chapel, a b ...

chapel at

Deerhurst Deerhurst is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, about southwest of Tewkesbury. The village is on the east bank of the River Severn. The parish includes the village of Apperley and the hamlet of Deerhurst Walton. The 20 ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

. It is an 11th-century late

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

building, completed a decade before the

Norman Conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

. In the 16th century the chapel ceased to be used for worship and by the 17th century it was part of a farmhouse. It was rediscovered and restored late in the 19th century, and further restored in the 20th century. It is now managed by

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, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

. The chapel is the smaller of two Anglo-Saxon places of worship in Deerhurst. The larger and older is St Mary's Priory Church. Both buildings were part of a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

, whose site is now a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

Architecture

The building has a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

, linked by a Romanesque chancel arch. A smaller Romanesque arch forms a doorway on the north side of the chapel. The nave has small windows high in the north and south walls.

History

Earl Odda had the chapel built for the benefit of the soul of his brother Ælfric, who died on 22 December 1053.

Ealdred Ealdred may refer to: * Ealdred of Hwicce, 8th-century king of Hwicce * Ealdred I of Bamburgh, 10th-century ruler of Bamburgh * Ealdred (archbishop of York), 11th-century English ecclesiastic * Ealdred II of Bamburgh, 11th-century ruler of Bamburgh ...

Bishop of Worcester The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary (officer), head of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title can be traced back to the foundation of the diocese in the ...

consecrated it on 12 April 1056.

Secularisation

As a consequence of the

English Reformation The English Reformation began in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away first from the authority of the pope and bishops Oath_of_Supremacy, over the King and then from some doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church ...

, it would have no longer been possible to use the building for its original purpose. In the 1540s Kings

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

and

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

abolished chantries. Late in the 16th or early in the 17th century the chapel building was re-used as part of a timber-framed farmhouse, Abbot's Court, which was built against its east wall. The nave was converted into a kitchen. A first floor was inserted in the chancel. Three- and four-light domestic windows were inserted in the north and south walls of the chancel. In time the building's true age and its identity as a chapel were forgotten.

Odda's Stone

In 1675 Sir John Powell, a local landowner, discovered a stone slab near Deerhurst. Powell was a judge and would have been sufficiently educated to be able to decipher the slab's 11th-century Latin inscription concerning the dedication of the chapel. However, the chapel itself remained unidentified. The inscription translates:

"Earl Odda ordered this royal hall to be built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother Ælfric, taken up from this place. Ealdred was the bishop who dedicated the building on the second day before Ides of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, king of the English".

"Odda's Stone" is now in the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

, Oxford, and there is a replica in the chapel.

Discovery and restoration

In 1865 the then

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...

of St Mary's parish church, Deerhurst, Rev. George Butterworth, deduced from a chronicle of

Tewkesbury Abbey The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury, commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey, is located in the town of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Conside ...

and from the existence of Odda's Stone that there had been a chantry chapel in Deerhurst. In 1885 during repairs to Abbot's Court a blocked Anglo-Saxon window was discovered hidden behind plaster. In 1960 the Ministry of Works made the chapel a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. In 1965 the chapel was "disentangled" from Abbot's Court farmhouse and restoration of its roof was begun. Early photographs show that although the main part of the roof is 17th century there was an earlier design of 11th-12th century date which may be part of the original roof. There have been a number of archaeological excavations at Deerhurst since the 1970s. Items from the 1981 excavation led by

Philip Rahtz Philip Arthur Rahtz (11 March 1921 – 2 June 2011) was a British archaeologist. Rahtz was born in Bristol. After leaving Bristol Grammar School, he became an accountant before serving with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. D ...

are in Tewkesbury Museum.

References

Bibliography

External links

*{{cite web , url= https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/oddas-chapel/ , title=Odda's Chapel , publisher=

11th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures completed in 1056 Churches completed in the 1050s Chapels in England English Heritage sites in Gloucestershire Grade I listed churches in Gloucestershire

11th-century church buildings in England