Chapel at HMP Wormwood Scrubs

This is a prison chapel dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, recorded as completed by 1894 but essentially finished by 1889 and dedicated in 1957. It was built as the Anglican chapel for Wormwood Scrubs convict prison, constructed between 1874 and 1891 by Edmund Du Cane, who served as both Chairman of the Prison Commission and Director of Convict Prisons.

Construction and Materials

The chapel is built of Portland stone with slate roofs topped with cast-iron cresting. The interior features a timber roof, Portland stone fixtures and fittings, and mosaic tile floors throughout.

Plan and Design

The chapel follows a French Romanesque design. It comprises a seven-bay aisled nave with a continuous chancel terminating in a seven-bay apsidal east end containing an ambulatory. A narthex stands at the west end. There are entrances on the north and south sides to the nave, a west entrance to the narthex, and an east entrance at the rear of the apse.

Exterior

The aisles feature paired round-headed windows with margin-glazed lights beneath shallow hood moulds. Slender moulded impost bands are supported on engaged shafts, with each pair set back under a corbel table. The clerestorey has similar but taller windows positioned under a shallow arcade of round-headed arches on slender round shafts. The apse follows the same treatment with paired windows at ambulatory level but single clerestorey lights. Moulded cornices at aisle and gable height run continuously around the building.

The north and south gabled porches each have single-light windows in the returns and a pair of vertically boarded doors set under a moulded arch supported on paired shafts, with a moulded hood above. The doors feature elaborate strap hinges and door furniture. A small vestry on the north side has a tall offset stack with a rectangular shaft, its cap decorated with blind-arched panels. The east entrance has an undecorated shallow gable over a doorway with a reduced moulded architrave, the arch supported on a single shaft. The doors match those on the nave.

The symmetrical west front features a two-storey narthex under a pitched slate roof. The central round-arched doorway stands on shafts with cushion capitals similar to the east end, with a pair of vertically boarded doors bearing elaborate strap hinges and door handles like those on the nave. On either side, at both ground-floor and gallery level, are triple round-arched windows with margin lights. A similar single light sits above the doorway with a dropped sill. Each group is set back in a rectangular recess beneath a heavy corbel table with a moulded sill below. Above these rises a rose window beneath a shallow round-arched recess supported on slender shafts and under a slender hood mould. The gable is crowned by a bell tower with an arcaded cap and corbelled base. The nave and apse roof displays bands of plain and fishscale pattern slate, with foiled iron cresting and a small finial over the apse. The aisle roofs are of plain slate, while the vestry roof is half-hipped.

Interior

The roof is an arch-braced tie-beam structure with kingposts rising from the tie beam and scissor bracing from the principal rafters. The roof is diagonally boarded. The nave is very broad with narrow aisles. Each seven-bay arcade of moulded round arches is supported on drum piers with moulded bases and cushion capitals. The tie beams rest on engaged shafts with moulded feet that frame the clerestorey windows. The sanctuary is marked by paired shafts. At each end of each aisle is a single round-arched doorway in a flush stone surround with a vertically boarded door similar to the exterior doors. The inner north and south doors are similar, with robust hinges, handles and plates. Windows are set in flush stone surrounds with very slender moulded shafts.

The west gallery is supported on an eight-bay arcade below a corbel table, with a shallow arcade to the balustrade similar to the exterior arcade, all framed by a large moulded arch. The sanctuary, raised above the nave level, features a nine-bay reredos. Under each arch is a pair of round-arched panels, each painted with the figure of a saint, while the lunette above depicts a scene from the life of Christ. The central lunette on the rear of the apse depicts the Resurrection. All of these paintings are said to have been executed by prisoners. The octagonal pulpit stands on drum piers with a fine iron balustrade featuring twisted shafts. A small octagonal font now sits in the south aisle.

The floors are of black and white mosaic tile, with the narthex floors displaying elaborate geometrical patterns. Inside the west entrance, the floor mosaic depicts the head of Christ. The sanctuary floor is of red and black tiles. Tiles between the nave piers were replaced when the nave floor was lowered. The windows contain coloured glass.

Functional Design

The plan of the chapel and the shape of the nave, with its narrow aisles, provided optimum visibility and control. Prisoners entered through the east and west doors, which were linked to B and C wings by covered walkways in Romanesque style (these no longer exist). Visitors used the south door.

Significance

The chapel is probably the largest and finest prison chapel in England. It compares with a similar but less elaborate chapel at Portland Prison, also designed by Du Cane.

Historical Context

Wormwood Scrubs prison was designed by Edmund du Cane, Director of Convict Prisons, for the newly established national Prison Commission of which he was chairman. He was an experienced military engineer appointed to rationalise the prison system.

The prison was built between 1874 and 1891, originally to house convicts, but by 1891 it had become a local prison. It was laid out in parallel blocks, adopting the 'telegraph pole' plan, which was a new plan form in Victorian prisons unlike its predecessors such as Pentonville that were generally laid out radially. Some convict prisons already had simple parallel blocks but local prisons built under Joshua Jebb favoured the radial plan. The 'telegraph pole' plan provided a model for subsequent English prisons, such as Bristol and Norwich, following the 1877 Prison Act and was further developed in Fresnes, France and in the USA. Its origins may be found in the 'pavilion' plan hospitals advanced by Florence Nightingale after the Crimean War, based on European principles. These were designed to minimise the spread of infection allowing maximum circulation of fresh air. Wormwood Scrubs is very similar in general layout to the Herbert Military Hospital at Woolwich in that the blocks are aligned north-south to allow sunlight into each cell.

Designed and executed by the Prison Commission, the prison was built using convict labour living on site, using materials brought from other convict prisons or manufactured on site. Convicts lived in temporary accommodation on site until the cell blocks were habitable. As a result the cost was much lower than the norm, costing £97,155 — that is, £70 7/- per cell compared with £161 17/3 per cell at Pentonville, which opened in 1842. The chapel, dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, is probably the largest and perhaps finest prison chapel in England, completed in 1894. The gatehouse was built by 1885 and, although typical of the period, has become an iconic symbol of the English prison system and carries the emblems of prison reformers John Howard and Elizabeth Fry.

During the 1880s the demand for convict prisons fell and most reverted to local prison status or were demolished. Women were housed there until female prisons such as Holloway were established. From the early 20th century young offenders were housed in part of the prison, which provided a modified borstal system of education and training. The prison closed briefly from 1940 to 1942 when it became a military site. On reopening it again housed young offenders until specialist units such as Feltham took over. In the 1990s the prison was refurbished. Many of the 19th-century service blocks were demolished and the cell blocks were linked by new buildings at the north end of the site.