Langley Chapel

Chapel. Built circa 1564 on an earlier site, with a 1601 reroofing and a 1900 restoration by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings. The chapel is constructed of dressed grey sandstone with a sandstone slate roof. It consists of a single nave and chancel. It features a chamfered plinth, diagonal buttresses to the east with chamfered offsets, a coped parapeted gable to the east, and a weatherboarded west bellcote with paired louvred openings and a pyramidal cap. A central chamfered round-arched window is present on the south side, flanked by Tudor-arched doorways (the one on the right has a renewed lintel), both with nail-studded boarded doors. A chamfered pointed-arched window is on the west side, and a two-light double-chamfered stone mullioned square-headed window is on the north side. The east window has three pointed-arched lights with chamfered reveals, and a square recessed datestone above with a chamfered bottom edge (the inscription is illegible).

The interior features a four-bay nave roof dated 1601, with moulded arch bracing, moulded and carved pendants, ashlar pieces, pairs of through-purlins, and one tier of windbraces. The chancel has a trussed-rafter roof with fillet-moulded braces and ashlar pieces. The nave roof is inscribed with “1601”, “GH”, “HN” (or “NH”), and “IBAB”. Other features include a restored moulded rood beam, the framework supporting the west bellcote, and a plaster frieze above the ashlar pieces on the south side, decorated with fleur-de-lys, rose, and rosette motifs. Early 17th-century fittings include benches with chamfered drop-shaped poppyheads, a musicians' pew at the back, four box pews at the front with H-shaped hinges, fluted friezes, and turned knobs, a square reader’s pew panelled with a fluted frieze, H-shaped hinges, back boards to two sides, and a square tester with carved scrolled corner brackets, a moveable wooden hexagonal pulpit with a pierced fluted frieze and strap hinges, Laudian rails on three sides with moulded bases, shaped supports, and benches, and a communion table. Reused medieval floor tiles are located at the east end.

Records indicate a chapel at Langley was first mentioned in 1249, and the current building may stand on that original site; it was a dependent chapelry of Acton Burnell.