Flavel Memorial Chapel

DARTMOUTH

SX874510 FLAVEL PLACE 673-1/8/126 (North side) 14/09/49 The Flavel Memorial Chapel (Formerly Listed as: Congregational Chapel)

GV II

Non-conformist chapel, United Reformed, formerly Congregational. Dated 1895. Snecked limestone with Bathstone dressings; slate roof with pierced crested ridge tiles. PLAN: Rectangular, with a vestigial east end at the actual west end, and a double porch at the actual east end. Vestry on the south side. EXTERIOR: Decorated style. 2 gabled porches project from the east end. The right one has a large outer arch, 2-centred with moulded surround and hoodmould with carved leafy label stops, to the main doorway which contains the original plank door with good wrought-ironwork. Larger left porch has a smaller doorway in the same style and a first-floor 2-light window with Decorated tracery. Behind is the main east front with large central 4-light window flanked by 2-light windows. Like all the others they have 2-centred arch heads and hoodmoulds with carved foliate label stops. Quatrefoil oculus under the apex of the gable which, like the west end gable, has obelisk finials over the shaped kneelers, stone coping and apex cross. Side walls are 6 bays divided by buttresses and central 4 bays contain 2-light windows. INTERIOR: Not inspected. Known to contain an unusually-early non-conformist memorial to John Flavel (died 1691), an inscribed brass plaque praising his virtues. Originally erected in the Church of St Saviour (qv) but removed to the Foss Street chapel in 1709, and brought here in 1895. HISTORY: Built at a cost of £1200 on reclaimed land close to the site of the C18 chapel which was thereafter used as a Sunday School (it was bombed in 1942). John Flavel was the minister at the Church of St Saviour (qv) until 1662, after which he led an eventful life as a dissenting minister; travelling in disguise, evading the authorities, preaching in secret and publishing 6 volumes of religious writing. His followers (from most of the leading mercantile families of the time) set up a dissenting meeting house in Foss Street in the 1670s. Several of these C17 dissenters are commemorated in a series of stone tablets set in the chapel walls. (Freeman, Ray: Dartmouth and its Neighbours: Phillimore: 1990-: P.112-3/P.165).

Listing NGR: SX8777751437