Langley Chapel
Encyclopedia
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
church, built in 1601, located in a remote area approximately 1.5 miles to the south of Acton Burnell
Acton Burnell
Acton Burnell is a village and parish in the English county of Shropshire. It lies at 110m above sea level and is near to Park Wood.-Attractions:...
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is now in the care of English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
, and is notable for having a complete set of original 17th century wooden furniture, and its lack of a chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
, in line both with its small size and Protestant attitudes to worship. It is one of the few new churches built in England in the Elizabethan period. Despite being built at the start of the 17th century, the east window tracery
Tracery
In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...
is in a simplified Gothic style, though the doorways are in plain vernacular styles, one with a flat lintel and another round-headed. The window on the north side is also plain and rectangular. It is a Grade I listed building.
Built on the site of an earlier medieval chapel, it provided worship for the nearby Langley Hall, whose ruins are contained within a nearby private farm. The Chapel was built with wooden box pew
Box pew
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 century.-History in England:...
s, a musicians desk and Communion
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
table bench seats. It has no known dedication.
The 19th century saw the disappearance of Langley Hall, followed by the loss of the local population. The chapel became disused. In 1914, it became one of the first buildings to be taken into the care of the state, the Ministry of Works as it was. The fact it was abandoned meant it escaped modernisation and remains a rare time capsule of the 17th century.