St Benet's Chapel

St Benet's Chapel

St Benet's Chapel is a Grade II listed building comprising a domed circular chapel with a connecting section containing a small vestry (now used as an office) and lobby leading to an entrance from Mile End Road.

The exterior consists of a blind drum of white sand-lime facing bricks, above which sits a rendered concrete ring beam supporting a tall dome faced in aluminium. Light steel trusses support the structure. At the apex of the dome is an oculus and a hexagonal aluminium flèche. The entrance from Mile End Road features an oak door with a glazing slit, flanking panels, and a white-painted timber canopy bearing a Chi Rho symbol.

The interior is a circular room with a continuous wall bench of black Staffordshire bricks incorporating regular openings, possibly vents for an underfloor heating system. The floor, now carpeted, is laid in Staffordshire paviours. The dome has a plastered soffit with a fibreglass oculus. Suspended from the apex is a curved timber rail, cusped in plan, to which the lighting is attached. A folding screen partition originally separated the chapel from an adjacent meeting room; this has since been removed and the intervening space partly enclosed. A stone altar was removed at an early date. The chapel contains no other fittings or fixtures.

The principal feature of the chapel interior is the continuous sgraffito mural scheme titled 'Apocalypse of St John', executed in 1964 by Polish-born artist Adam Kossowski (1905–86). The mural is formed of coloured layers of render: a back undercoat and white topcoat, scraped away with various tools to create the design. The execution recalls Romanesque church art and twentieth-century influences such as Picasso's Guernica mural of 1937. Above the chapel entrance is an inscription, also in sgraffito by Kossowski: '+ SURELY I COME QUICKLY + AMEN + EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS. Rev 22/20'.

The mural scheme is divided into seven panels arranged from left to right, depicting scenes from the Book of Revelation. The panels are separated by figures of St Peter (a self-portrait of the artist), St Paul, and the four evangelists.

The first panel, to the left of the chapel entrance, shows St John on the island of Patmos and his vision of the seven candlesticks, representing the seven churches of Asia, depicted perhaps as lighthouses. The second panel represents John's vision of the throne of God, with the Lamb of God bearing the marks of sacrifice standing on the throne. Before the throne are the twenty-four elders casting down their crowns, a codex inscribed with the Greek letters Alpha and Omega (representing the beginning and the ending), and the seven lamps of fire. Above are roundels depicting a lion, eagle, calf and a man, symbolising the four evangelists.

The third panel shows the four horsemen—Conquest, War, Famine and Death—along with the moon, a black sun, and buildings devastated by earthquakes, lightning and floods. Martyrs shelter under an altar while men take refuge in caves. An angel rolls up a scroll representing the departure of the heavens.

The fourth panel depicts the seven trumpets with six angels sounding trumpets and a seventh swinging a golden censer. As the trumpets sound, another angel unlocks the bottomless pit, releasing a plague of locusts appearing as horses.

The fifth panel represents the war in heaven, witnessed by the woman clothed with the sun and the moon at her feet. A seven-headed dragon is cast out by Michael and his angels.

The sixth panel shows the Pantocrator sitting in judgement, surrounded by trumpeting angels. Before him are the resurrected martyrs, with death and hell cast into the lake of fire on the other side.

The seventh and final panel depicts the New Jerusalem standing upon twelve foundations representing the apostles, with light emanating from the Lamb of God at the top. Two angels appear in the foreground, with the new earth below, including the river and tree of life.