Chapels: The Buildings of Nonconformity

Chapels commemorates the three-hundredth anniversary of the passing of the Act of (religious) Toleration in England in 1689 by celebrating varied local buildings which often receive little attention. The Act stimulated the building of chapels for all types of Nonconformist worship; the video compares the archaeology of remaining buildings of different denominations and asks what these reveal about the kinds of religious practices they sheltered and about how the chapels are related to the human and industrial landscape of villages and towns. Baptist and Unitarian chapels, for example, are compared with contemporary Church of England chapels of ease (built for the convenience of remote parishioners) and Quaker meeting houses. Early primitive Methodist houses in which the 'Ranters' preached are contrasted with the cavernous grandeur of Victorian Methodist churches built in major industrial towns like York. Chapels relates to a wide range of studies: history, geography, religion, conservation and social development. It is also of importance to planners and architects, and to chapel-goers in an age when many Nonconformist buildings face redundancy, and thousands have already disappeared.

This program is particularly suitable for teacher training.

Part of the series Frameworks of Worship