Chalfont St Giles

I have now been to see the corrugated iron chapel reconstructed at the Chiltern Open Air Museum at Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. It is well worth going to see.

It was found at Henton, a tiny suburb of Chinnor, a small Oxfordshire village at the foot of the Chilterns. It was supplied as a "Mission Room" by Boulton and Paul of Norwich who had considerable expertise in manufacturing timber framing, and appears to date from 1886 (a delivery label was found nailed to the floorboards). It was moved to the museum in 1993/94.

It is rather more slender than other examples I have seen, and, as a mere 50 seater, it is smaller than others I have seen. It is painted in an attractive red oxide colour, and it is perhaps a shame that the very ornamental barge-boards are not picked out in green, as in its former home. The ridge tiles extend to the bell tower and this adds to the "picturesque" qualities of the building. The roof is very steeply pitched, which also adds to its rather unusual appearance.

- Ned Williams, July 2003

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