ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

An edifice of remote antiquity’.  This is how John Thorpe in his ‘Custumale Roffense of 1788 describes St Lawrence’s cha An pel  a chantry suppressed during the reign of Edward VI.  He quotes William and John Bottlesham, sucessive Bishops of Rochester, who called it a free chapel, ‘Libern Capella Sancto Laurentii in Hallynge’.

 

A list of chaplains include three between 1317 - 55, regular incumbents from then until 1453, a gap until 1518 and none after 1531, just before Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.  

 

A member of the Kent Archeological Society has suggested that a stone cross would have marked the crossroads by the Chapel.

 

The Eastern end of the chancel held the altar where present Nos. 3 and 4 Chapel Houses share a vertical dividing wall.  Present Nos. 2 and 1 form the nave to the West of the chancel arch, which is now the wall between Nos. 2 and 3.

 

At the East end, looking from Pilgrim’s Way, the top of the central window of what was a typical three-fold altar light is still visible.  The 1826 sketch by William Twopenny already shows how these were crudely obscured by two rectangular windows.  See picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lancet windows: these referred to in The Lost Chapels of Kent by Alex Vincent as being on the South Wall are no longer visible, subsumed into first floor windows.  .

 

However, an original lancet window has recently been uncovered inside the North West nave in No. 1,  obscured on the outside by an 18th Century scullery chimney.  See Picture below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The outline of its corresponding lancet is visible at the rear of the present No. 4. 

 

High on the Western gable is an intact 6 foot lancet which awaits re-opening.  It has been obscured for decades, rendered over by Blue Circle Cement, the company which owned the Chapel until its conversion into 5 dwellings in 1985.  The present kitchen extension of No. 1 was the Pay Office for Blue Circle’s Houlder and South Hill Quarries until their closure in the 1920s.

 

St Lawrence’s Chapel measures 50 x 27 ft and is of uniform height end to end.  This two cell Norman archetype is similar to its two local sister chapels of St Benedict, Paddlesworth and Dode Chapel (measuring 45 x 17 ft).  This trinity of chapels form a triangle and was served by shared chaplains over many centuries.

 

No remains of a baptismal font have been found in the nave (Nos. 2 and 1) and nor has any trace of a rumoured tunnel with the ex Black Boy Pub.

 

What has mistakenly been called a font is the piscina or aumbry.  This remains intact  in No. 3 and is a small trefoil niche containing a a bowl shaped depression in the eastern wall to the right (South) of the altar position.  A piscina was used for the washing of the Communion vessels by the priest. 

 

The chancel arch is probably encased in the dividing wall between Nos. 3 and 2.  A large 17th or 18th century fireplace in No. 3 suggests this arch was filled in rather than demolished.  The medieval congregation would have been separated from the priest by a wooden rood screen under  the chancel arch.

 

A wheelright’s workshop occupied Nos 1 and 2 of Chapel Houses for many years during the 17th and 18th centuries.  It had an opening in the South wall large enough to accomodate wagons.  See picture below -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 William Twopenny’s sketch 1826

 

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                St Lawrence’s Cottages 1950s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Lawrence’s Cottages undergoing renovation 1985

 

 

 

Not sure of date of this photograph perhaps 1960s

 

H. Smetham in Around the Churches, 1925, states that the Western end of the chapel was formerly used as a stable and was seriously damaged by fire - he gives no date for this.  Fire damaged mortar can still be seen.

 

In 1976 the local Council served a closing order on No. 3 as being unfit for habitation.  Fire damage to the Western nave with its attached stables caused the West end to be derelict for long spells.

 

No burial ground has been unearthed around the chapel.

 

Taking a ruler to Ordnance Survey maps of the area, it becomes clear that St Lawrence’s Chapel lies on more than one so called ley line, the longest of which runs straight through Rochester Cathedral, Hoo St Werburgh (a church to the North East) and onwards through a church near the Essex coast.  To the South West, this line runs through St Lawrence’s Chapel, the neolithic Coldrum Stones, Dryhill neolithic hill fort near East Grinstead and onwards to Harrow Hill Fort near Worthing. 

 

C. Bryan.  2010

 

Sources gratefully acknowledged

 

The late Upper Halling historian E.S. (Ted) Gowers’ important book written with Derek Church.  Across the low Meadow,  Maidstone,  publ. Christine Swift,  1979

 

Coles Finch, William; In Kentish Pilgrim Land,  C.W. Daniel, 1925

 

Igglesden, Charles, A Saunter through Kent with pen and pencil Vol 12, Kentish Express, Ashford, 1915

 

Golding Bird in his History of Meopham  wrote that the chapel was used by shepherds driving flocks from the Downs to the water meadows of Halling via the Chapel Lane trackway - he gives no reference