Minsden Chapel is an isolated ruined

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

in the fields above the hamlet of Chapelfoot, near Preston, Hertfordshire. Today it is a roofless shell, partly surrounded by a small wood, and accessible only by footpath. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is Grade II Listed.

History

The chapel was built in the 14th century, and by the 17th century had fallen into disrepair. Marriages continued here into the 18th century, until the crumbling masonry became too dangerous. One story says that a piece of falling stonework knocked the prayer-book out of a curate's hand during the marriage ceremony of Enoch West and Mary Horn on the 11th of July 1738. In the 20th century the chapel was closely associated with the historian Reginald Hine from nearby Hitchin. He frequently visited here, and eventually obtained a lifetime lease of the building from the vicars of Hitchin. So fond of the chapel was he, that he even bade "trespassers and sacrilegious persons take warning, for I will proceed against them with the utmost rigour of the law, and, after my death and burial, I will endeavour, in all ghostly ways, to protect and haunt its hallowed walls". Contrary to popular belief Hine is not buried at Minsden. His body was cremated at

Golders Green Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...

(London) and his ashes were subsequently scattered at the chapel. His family erected a memorial stone at the site, which was subsequently re-laid in its current grave-like horizontal position by them after it was damaged by vandals in the early 1980s. In 1907, Thomas William Latchmore, a local professional photographer and friend of Hine, took a photograph that supposedly showed a ghostly monk at the Chapel. Rumours of

paranormal activity Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

first appeared around this time. The haunting most frequently reported is that of a single monk climbing stairs (which no longer exist) to the north-east area of the chapel; this is said to occur at midnight on Halloween. Other reported experiences include the sighting of a glowing cross on the wall, and the hearing of distant music or the ringing of the stolen bells. Legends also exist of a lost tunnel built during the time of the Crusades that extended to nearby

Temple Dinsley Preston is a village and civil parish about south of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census the population was 420. The village grew up around the Templar holdings at Temple Dinsley. The first church was mentioned in 1252, when ...

, and another of a murdered nun. In an interview given in 1930 to Elliott O'Donnell, a well-known contemporary writer on occult matters, Latchmore finally admitted that his 'Minsden Ghost' photograph was a hoax. He explained that the picture was the deliberate result of an experiment in the techniques of double exposures, a subject that interested him greatly at the time. Although Latchmore refused to disclose the identity of the individual who had posed as the ghostly figure, it seems likely that it was a young man well known for practical jokes, Latchmore's good friend Reginald Hine. Hine re-published the photograph in 1929 in his ''History of Hitchin'' but never admitted it was a fake nor his own part in it. Paranormal investigator

Peter Underwood Peter George Underwood, (10 October 1937 – 7 July 2014) was an Australian jurist and the Governor of Tasmania from 2008 until his death in 2014. He was the Chief Justice of Tasmania from 2004 to 2008, having been a judge of the Supreme Cour ...

once spent a night there in the late 1940s, during which he claimed to have heard the sound of distant music and to have seen a white glowing cross on one of the walls, which disappeared and then reappeared, although he suggested "it could possibly have been a trick of the moonlight, as a full moon was shining down through the trees at the time". The iconic arch of Minsden Chapel finally fell in 2008 due to time and erosion from the elements and by 2012 most of the North facing wall had also disappeared. In 2017, it was reported that the Church Commissioners for England, who own the site, were intending to sell it to a "surrounding landowner", sparking fears that the public could lose access to the site. Work to repair Minsden Chapel by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

started in March 2022 with the intention of stabilising the arch openings of the south wall, to conserve the overall structure and to install hard-capping over the wall head.

Gallery

File:Minsden Chapel Hitchin 2016.jpg, Minsden Chapel in 2016 File:MinsdenChapelMay2004.jpg, The overgrown ruins of Minsden chapel, in May 2004

References

{{coord, 51.906631, N, 0.259552, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Chapels in England Scheduled monuments in Hertfordshire Grade II listed churches in Hertfordshire Ruins in Hertfordshire Grade II listed ruins Paranormal hoaxes Reportedly haunted locations in the East of England