Chapel Of The Royal High School

Chapel of the Royal High School, Lansdown Road

A chapel built in 1939 to a design by H.S. Goodhart-Rendel, with an unfinished west end, consecrated in 1950, and completed in 1957-1961 by H.H. Goldsmith and H.W.S. Tolson.

The chapel is built in stripped Gothic style with Tudor detailing, using coursed squared limestone with a Welsh slate roof. It has a simple single-cell plan-form with a small vestry attached to its south-east. The west end contains an entrance lobby with a gallery above.

The exterior features strip buttresses on the west end framing three two-light mullioned windows with leaded lattice lights. Above these is a large triple window of two-three-two lights with mullions and transom, and a small louvre. The east end has a large seven-light leaded mullioned window in a segmental arch, with a louvre above and a decorative stone cross at the roof apex. The side elevations have projecting semi-aisles with paired strip windows flanked by strip pilaster buttresses that rise to turrets at eaves level, flanked by blank walling above either two or four light windows. At the east end of each side elevation is a similar triple feature with two paired windows and an entrance below. The north elevation displays a foundation stone of 1939 inscribed: 'This stone was laid by the most honourable the Marquess of Bath K.G.P.C.C.B. on the 7th day of July 1939'.

The interior has a plain timber ribbed keel roof with a decorative, painted Canopy of Honour above the altar space to the east. Internal buttresses in plastered brick have stone-framed openings forming very narrow aisles and tall alcoves spanned at ceiling level by carved oak lintels. The nave floor is laid with Granwood-type blocks in a herringbone pattern, with broad shallow steps leading to the choir. The steps and choir floor are laid in coloured stone with the former altar site filled in with stone screed. A commemorative plaque to the left of the choir reads: 'The furnishings of this sanctuary are given by Alice Ramsay widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Ramsay C.I.E. in precious memory of their daughter Jean Ferelith Ramsay WAAF who gave her life that we might live Dover January 30th 1944.' The furnishings appear to have been removed.

The 1960s west end contains an entrance lobby with fixed wooden cupboards. The frame to the internal door to the nave was formerly decorated with regimental badges. The wooden gallery above, accessed via internal stairs on either side, contains its original pews and an organ by Geo. Osmond & Co of Taunton. A photograph of 1960 shows that the organ formerly stood in the choir. A commemorative stone plaque of 1961, situated near the stairs to the gallery on the north side, carries the inscription: 'The Chapel eastward of this stone was built in 1939 to the design of HS Goodhart-Rendel, Architect of London, and consecrated in 1950 after the War. The West end and gallery were completed in 1961 to a design by HH Goldsmith & NWS Tolson, Architects of Bath. Builders: 1939 E Chancellor & Sons 1961 FI Blackmore & Son.'

The Royal High School, completed in 1856 to a design by James Wilson in Gothic Revival style, originally opened as the Bath and Lansdown Proprietary College for boys. Following the school's failure, it was sold in 1863 and became the Royal School for Daughters of Army Officers, founded after the Crimean War. Work on the chapel began in 1939 by the builders E Chancellor & Sons, with the foundation stone laid by the Marquess of Bath of Longleat House in July that year. During the Second World War the school evacuated to Longleat, and the chapel's west end could not be completed. The chapel was consecrated in 1950. Due to the school's limited post-war resources, Goodhart-Rendel's original plan for the west end, which included an external stair turret, was not fully implemented. Instead, the west end and gallery were completed in 1961 to designs of 1957 by the Bath-based architects H.H. Goldsmith and H.W.S. Tolson, using Blackmore & Son as builders.

Goodhart-Rendel began his architectural career in 1909 and was commissioned in the special reserve Grenadier Guards in 1915, resuming his architectural practice in London in 1919. He served as President of the Architectural Association in 1924-5 and of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1937-9. During the Second World War he rejoined his regiment. In 1945 he established an architectural practice with partners H Lewis Curtis (since 1930) and FG Broadbent (since 1945). His work was greatly influenced by nineteenth-century architecture, particularly the Victorian Gothic revival, and he became known for successful restorations and extensions. Some of his work echoes the style of Sir Edwin Lutyens. He is best known for his church designs, mostly dating from after 1945.