Royal Memorial Chapel, Royal Military Academy

Royal Memorial Chapel, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst

A garrison church built in 1879 by Colonel R H Williams RE (with Captain Henry Cole credited by Pevsner), subsequently reorientated and extended with the addition of a nave in 1937 by Captain A C Martin, architect.

The building is constructed of red brick with polychromatic red and black brick dressings to the transepts, stone dressings to the nave, and a slate roof. It follows an aisled Greek cross plan and is designed in the Tuscan Romanesque Revival style.

The exterior is richly articulated. The nave aisles feature plain moulding below a moulded parapet coping, with round arched windows and sunken panels. The 1930s east gable has an apsidal end with half dome and lower parapetted sides, with a stepped central bay containing a blind round arched panel. The strongly articulated north side is symmetrical, with a central pedimented transept from 1879 that rises above the aisles, crowned by a belcote with a pitched roof and two round arched openings and finial. Below this is a round arched ground floor arcade of five bays with pilasters linked by an impost band; the tympana contain outer round and inner lozenge panels, with black bands to the spandrels above. An outer doorway has responds and white marble friezes over double doors; a similar central window appears in the upper section. The 1930s arcade above has three arches with paired central round arched windows and outer lozenges. The nave aisles either side feature three round arched windows, with the inner two positioned beneath a shallow clerestory gable with Lombard frieze and a moulded cill band to a seven-bay arcade with plain stone shafts. An end aisle window sits beneath double recessed panels with paired round arched heads. Two-light clerestory windows are set within round arched recesses. The 1930s west end has blind outer bays set forward with shallow clasping buttresses to a coped parapet and a small niche with a canted pedestal. These are linked by a narthex with steps up to a three-bay open stone arcade on Ionic columns, beneath a raking roof that rises to the west gable. This gable features three blind bays of round arches on alternate columns and brackets, set within a recessed gable between plain buttresses with a nine-bay arcade of windows on brick piers. The south side is similar to the north; the 1879 transept gable has a central five-sided canted apse with stepped round arched windows and bracketed eaves cornice, flanked by blind round arches with a similar three-bay arcade to the gable above and a pediment divided by seven recesses. A mid-twentieth-century single-storey parapetted vestry extends across the bottom on the south side.

The interior is richly decorated with marble and mosaic. Paired square nave piers rise to a cornice, linked across the nave by round arches between saucer domes at the crossing and to east and west. West projecting corner galleries have paired lower arches on Ionic columns with iron railings to the upper gallery. The aisles are timber panelled. The apse contains a marble aedicule with Corinthian pilasters to a pediment and round arch. The 1879 south apse, closed by a timber screen and lined with brown marble, has a round arch opening to a mosaic half dome. A marble octagonal pulpit with round arches on green columns stands in the interior.

Twentieth-century fittings include stands for remembrance books and an organ case from the 1950s by Sir Hugh Casson. Stained glass in the east part is by Powell's; the west part is by Laurence Lee.

The chapel represents a strikingly rich and complex composition. The original chapel, now the transept, was modelled on Siena Cathedral. The building was reorientated and extended during the 1930s when the nave was added.