The Fair Mile Chapel

Today I am going to address a chapel I should have posted a long time ago. If you look at the churches in my maps you will find this one listed but it is attributed to another blog I have that is in long need of some work doing to it.The chapel was where patents and staff could go and worship and no doubt back when the place was first built you had to go to for Sunday worship as part of the job. No doubt part of the Victorian thinking was to healing that going to church  was for the good of your soul. One side chapel was consecrated as Catholic sometime in the 1950s before that they used a building nearby.My parents both worked at the Hospital from around 1942 till they retired in 1978. Dad died a couple of years later aged 60 Mum went on till she was 88 before joining him up at the local churchyard. After she died I as sorting out the old photos and came across a treasure trove of picture taken at Fair Mile. They became the reason I started writing Forgotten Fairmile. Many of the photos were used in a book a colleague wrote on the place and went towards a huge Exhibition we had on the place. Sadly the hospital closed in 2003 and lay empty till 2010 when they started converting the place to housing. I managed to get on site during all this time to photograph what was going on. I wrote a blog on the chapel for Forgotten Farimile but it never appeared on the Church Explorer, best part is it was one of the first explores I did. I have updated the original blog with more photos of the outside and tried hope you enjoy the story though you might find some of the photos a little disturbing.

The blog was written around some photos I found of my Mother and her friends I thought it would be good to find out where the picture was taken 

This is the photo of my Mother and friend that was taken outside the chapel

 It seemed a popular place to have a photo taken 

The Chapel would have been used for the salvation of the people who worked there and some of the patients who were able to go. From what I could see the place was not used that much and I think in the end the catholic  priest was the only one who had any service there though even that went out the window and he used one of the old rooms in the admin block after services could not beheld there because it was too cold in the winter.

The only photo I have so far of the old catholic chapel which can be see to the right of the arrow in the top of the photo. I suspect it was demolished sometime in the late 1970's

And it could get cold, this is what it looked like in Jan 2010 after the hospital closed 

Almost lost in the snow here 

Looking very cold an unwelcoming

I cannot say it looked a lot better during the day which is how I saw it for the first time in around ten years back in 2008

The Shrubbery around the East end had really gone wild

  I September 2010 the contractors moved in to begin converting the hospital, the offices were plonked in the car park beside the Chapel. I might add this is where the old security used to be sighted as well not that it was up to much from what I saw from the inside of it. Half the cameras did not work proplerly

 This was an old entrance  to the chapel

The area looked like this when it was cleared away 

It has some very nice Victorian brickwork decorating it

 Though it did not look that good after years of neglect. 

 Around the North side was a covered porch which no doubt was the main entrance, if you look to the left a little more you see another door which used to be the one we used to go to the Catholic chapel

 

 The West entrance which I cannot ever remember being used

 

 The door to the chapel was open when I visited the site one Friday so I wandered in and took a load of photos, it was the fist time I had been in the place for over ten years, I was pretty shocked I must admit. I went to the back where the West door is and took this shot down the nave

 

The one is near where I cam in and you can see both transepts right & left and the chancel. The left transept is where the catholic chapel was and a sliding screen could be pulled across. On the right was where the organ is

I used to remember a member of the congregation playing this at Mass

The keyboards looked like they wanted to be played 

 

The catholic Chapel

Over in the North transept where the Catholic chapel was I noticed the altar had gone and the tabernacle was missing the front.
That was left on the table where the altar wine used to be kept during mass

It was broken and ripped off the hinges, some (for want of a better word) Vandal had torn it off.

 

On the windowsill were a couple of metal vases, wonder they had not been thrown around

 

Inside the vestry and confessional 

 

 

The altar in the main chapel was there and the hangings draped over it

 

Looking back up the chapel the sunlight poured in and lit the aisle up

 

I took some more photos round the organ in the South transept, it looked proud and I hoped it would be saved
 

All it need is the music and an organist

 

Above the inside of the organ was on display

 

Left the clerks desk beside the choir stalls in the chancel 

The pulpit and clerks desk

 

 

A bible was still on the Pulpit lectern where you could see empty pews which no longer would seem people sat in them in this chapel

 

I had to wonder what would happen to the pulpit

Along on the south wall one of the windows had a hymn board in place with the number 193

 

Nearby on one of the pews hymn books were stacked

 

By the organ a vase and music waited 

Must have been a year or so later I found myself back in the chapel again. The organ had gone

taken away and in it's place flat pack kitchen units stored

 

The beautiful cross on which the switches used to be taken away
I left not wanting to see any more and felt deflated at the loss of the place

 

Back to my first photos of my Mother and friends, I'm sure it was here the pictures were taken all those years ago. 

 

I walked past the chapel in 2019 and got this photo, it was for letting though I could not say if any one and taken up the offer

Back across the lawn it looked a bit more welcoming in the sunlight.
Till Next time Take care and stay safe