The chapel of St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, can be stripped of its treasures ahead of being converted to secular use, but strict conditions have been imposed.
Members of the Southern Historic Churches Committee (SHCC) voted overwhelmingly on 10 December to allow furnishings to be removed after they saw pictures of scantily clad dancers at a Halloween party at what was clearly once a church. The building, in Liverpool, is now a restaurant and bar.
Wonersh’s rector, Mgr Gerald Ewing, showed the images during an on-site presentation on 9 December as an example of what can happen once churches are deconsecrated.
The SHCC gave the go ahead for the chapel to be emptied on condition that it is kept informed of the destination of each item. They also asked for details of removal to be given in advance to allow them time to raise concerns. This is the first time the committee has considered plans to strip a church of its contents. Objections were raised by the Victorian Society, Historic England and Waverley Borough Council. The SHCC is part of the Church’s in-house mechanism for determining applications for changes to listed buildings.
Wonersh is closing and the buildings will be sold. The seminary, near Guildford, trained men for the priesthood and permanent diaconate for dioceses in the south of England and beyond.
The late Victorian chapel is Grade II listed and was designed by FA Walters. The building has fine altars, statues and stained glass including three windows, done in 1960, by the celebrated Harry Clarke Studios, Dublin. A beautiful ironwork screen, installed in 1989, shows a crucifix flanked by harts and is by Faith Tolkien, daughter-in-law of JRR Tolkein.
Mgr Ewing, an old boy and former vice rector, described the seminary’s closure as heart-breaking, but said that falling numbers of students gave the trustees no choice. He said would be folly to leave the sacred items in place and asked for permission to remove them “in a timely, ordered and careful fashion – using the appropriate experts as required”.
As well as dancers, Mgr Ewing also showed pictures of a motorcycle on the sanctuary steps of a deconsecrated church, and a font and water stoups in a kitchen in Manchester. Another image from Manchester was of an altar, fitted with optics and used in a bar, removed from a convent prior to its demolition.
A number of churches have offered to provide homes for the Wonersh chapel furnishings. They include Southwark Cathedral which was rebuilt after it was bombed in the Second World War. The Archbishop of Southwark, John Wilson, would like Wonersh’s plate, vestments and other treasures to be placed in a new museum at the cathedral. For the moment, they are destined for the museum at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.
Wonersh’s library is going to a Catholic university and seminary in Macau, China.
Bishop John Butt of Southwark, founder of Wonersh, was buried in the seminary chapel. His body will be reinterred at Southwark Cathedral as will the heart of the Wonersh’s first rector, Fr Francis Bourne, who later became Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
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