The Watts Chapel, somewhere down the A3, England

[smokingboot]

A post for my scrapbook of the beautiful and bizarre, x-posted to 19th_century.


This chapel is quite extraordinary. It's got a touch of every influence you expect from the artistic imagination of Victorian England: Pre-raphaelite, Celtic, Egyptian and Indian all created by Mrs Watts, herself a curiously true-to-form Gaskellian archetype: a hardworking lady philanthropist/devoted wife/social liberal reformer/spiritualist determined to express herself through her visions and help the poor away from 'the gin palaces of Guildford' at the same time.

The Watts Chapel link is rich in info but poor on pictures, which is why, fascinating though it is, it's the last link I have added. When the_lore introduced me to the chapel I had no camera so I apologise for relying on other people's images.


Here's the Watts Chapel from the outside:

http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/northdowns/images/gallery/03-2021_g.jpg


These are interior details:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nouveau/14990846/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nouveau/14990296/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/castrovalva/63274425/in/photostream/

And here's the link with the info:
http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/wattschapel.htm



Still not writing what I want to write. That may have to wait till night time. Must try not to fall asleep.

Comments

[greatbigshowoff.livejournal.com]

This looks like a wonderful place - although not as great as Roslyn chapel, outside Edinburgh which is my personal favourite church. Lud's Church which we saw at the weekend was pretty special as well.

Where is it? Actually where is the A3 (please forgive crap knowledge of English geography). I want to go

R

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I have heard so much about Roslyn chapel and have yet to see it. It's definitely on my list! Lud's Church is a mystery to me - I have never heard of it before. Whereabouts is it?

Re getting to the Watts Chapel, I took this info off the Watts Gallery page; the Watts gallery was Mr Watts' gift to the art craving masses, and his wife's cemetary chapel is three hundred yards away in Down Lane:

By public transport : Take the train to Guildford (leaving London from Waterloo). You can either get a taxi from the station which takes about ten minutes (cost about £5.00) or there is an unreliable bus service. From the station walk toward the town centre, the bus station is signed. The number 46 bus goes through Compton and leaves at two minutes past the hour from Stand 5. The bus stops right outside the gallery. You can get back to Guildford by getting the same bus on its return journey, it stops outside the gallery at about fifty minutes past the hour (although the times change in the late afternoon - please ask at the gallery as we have a timetable)


By car : Compton is easily accessible by car as it is signed just off the A3 south of Guildford. Take the B3000 from the A3 signed to Godalming / Farnham and then Compton. At roundabout at the end of the slip road take the first left. Immediately after this take the first road on the left, Down Lane. There is a signpost saying 'Art Gallery', we are a few hundred yards on the right.