Chappel is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

City of Colchester The City of Colchester is a local government district with city status in Essex, England, named after its main settlement, Colchester. It is, with 194,394 people according to Office of National Statistics estimate for mid 2022, the most populous ...

district of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. The River Colne flows through the village. It is significant for its Victorian viaduct, which crosses the Colne valley.

Name and history

The present name of ''Chappel'' derives from the construction of a small chapel of ease, noted in 1285 AD as standing at the northern boundary of the parish of Great Tey. During the 16th century, because of concerns from Chappel residents about the distance to Great Tey's own church at festival time, this area was split from the parish and become a separate entity known as ''Pontisbright'' (lit. "Britric's bridge") that would eventually become known as ''Chappel''. In 1433, the vicar of Great Tey agreed that the inhabitants of Chappel could find and elect their own

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

. The

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

itself was united with that of the neighbouring village of

Wakes Colne Wakes Colne is a village in Essex, England which sits on the River Colne. It is situated next to the village of Chappel, with which it shares Chappel and Wakes Colne railway station. Location Wakes Colne is a scattered village on the nort ...

in 1938. The chapel itself, now the parish church of St Barnabas, is a grade I listed building.

Chappel Viaduct

The Chappel

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

was built between 1847 and 1849 for the Colchester and Stour extension of the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first at the London end. Co ...

. Originally planned to be a timber structure, the viaduct was built of locally made brick because of the additional cost of maintaining a timber structure. Approximately 600 men were involved in the construction, most of whom were local

East Anglian East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

s. The cost of construction was approximately £21,000 (approximately £2.2 million in 2016 money). The viaduct consists of 32

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

es of span, with a total length of , and a maximum height of . The

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

consist of two shafts, separated by a opening, and joined at top and bottom by arches; each shaft contain a hollow void by maximum, partially filled with concrete to the level of the bottom arch. The running level of the viaduct has a

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...

of 1 in 120 The viaduct became a listed monument in 1967, and is thought to be one of the largest brick-built structures in England after Ouse Valley Viaduct in Sussex and

Battersea Power Station Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in Nine Elms, Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) to the design of ...

. During the commemoration events to mark 50 years since the end of the Second World War, Chappel's beacon was transported by rail to a point on the viaduct where it could be seen from the playing field below, and lit after a ceremonial silence, the beginning and end of which were marked by the release of two maroons. The first passenger train to Sudbury, carrying an official party from Colchester, ran on 2 July 1849. The viaduct currently carries the

Marks Tey Marks Tey is a large village and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in Essex, England; it is located six miles west of Colchester. It is one in a group of villages called ''The Teys'', including Great Tey and L ...

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario ** Sudbury (federal electoral district) ** Sudbury (provincial electoral district) ** Sudbury Airport ** Sudbury Basin, a meteorite impact cra ...

branch railway (

Gainsborough Line The Gainsborough line is the current marketing name of the Sudbury branch line, a railway branch line off the Great Eastern Main Line in the east of England, that links in Essex with in Suffolk. It is in length and single-track throughout ...

), which connects regularly with trains to and from London's

Liverpool Street Station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...

Amenities

The village has a

pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

dating from the 13th century, a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

, a

United Reformed church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. The URC is a Trinitarian church whose theolog ...

, a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

and general store,

village hall A village hall is a public building in a rural or suburban community which functions as a community centre without a religious affiliation. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is a building which is owned by a local gover ...

and a railway station, Chappel and Wakes Colne station, which houses the

East Anglian Railway Museum The East Anglian Railway Museum is a museum located at Chappel and Wakes Colne railway station in Essex, England, which is situated on the former Great Eastern Railway branch line from Marks Tey to Sudbury. Services on the Sudbury Branch Line ...

. It also has a children's play area which was upgraded in 2007-08 by Chappel Parish Council. In celebration of the millennium, the Chappel Millennium Green was opened. The Millennium Green has two areas: a nature reserve with board walk and a mown grass area for general recreation is bordered by a gravel path. It has also hosted several events, including the burning of a beacon and Colne Valley Festival events.

Village sign

Chappel's village sign depicts a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

crossing a river, symbolic of the old bridge, dating from 1140 AD, which crossed the river Colne and connected the two halves of the estate of Crepping Manor. The

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

of the manor was, at that time, responsible for its upkeep.

Notable former residents

Margery Allingham Margery Louise Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English novelist from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", and considered one of its four " Queens of Crime", alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. All ...

(1904 - 1966), author of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

- mainly crime and mystery novels. *Al Barnes (born 1968), former guitarist in the seminal Black Metal Band

Venom Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a sti ...

References

External links

Chappel Parish Council websiteFootball teamViews of the village and railwayChappel Beer Festival Information Page
{{authority control Villages in Essex Borough of Colchester