Savoy Chapel, Strand, London

The Savoy Chapel is a unique place of worship, and a site with special significance to the Duchy of Lancaster.

The walls of the current chapel incorporate part of an earlier chapel from the great hospital or almshouse founded nearby by Henry VII in 1512.

The chapel is located in the Savoy, a small district in central London, covering half the Strand and bordered in the south by the river Thames. Peter of Savoy was given the estate by Henry III in 1246. On Peter's death, the Savoy was given to Edmund, 1st Earl of Lancaster, by his mother, Queen Eleanor.

Edmund's great-granddaughter, Blanche, inherited the site. Her husband, John of Gaunt, built a magnificent palace which was destroyed during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

At the start of the sixteenth century, Henry VII planned a great hospital for "pouer, nedie people", leaving money and instructions for it in his will. The hospital was licensed in 1512. Drawings show that it was a magnificent building, with a dormitory, dining hall and three chapels.

Henry VII's hospital lasted for two centuries but suffered from poor management. The sixteenth-century historian Stow noted that the hospital was being misused by "loiterers, vagabonds and strumpets".

In 1702 the hospital was dissolved, and the hospital buildings were used for other purposes. In the nineteenth century the old hospital buildings were demolished and new buildings erected.

Only the hospital's main chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, remained. After fires in the middle of the nineteenth century gutted the chapel, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1865. Most of the present building dates from this time; only part of the outer wall dates from 1502.

The Savoy Chapel remained important. In 1890 it was the first church in London to be lit by electricity. During the Victorian period it was also a fashionable venue for weddings.

The Savoy Chapel has never been a Chapel Royal or a Royal Peculiar in the usual sense. It is a private chapel of the sovereign in right of the Duchy of Lancaster, exempt from any Bishop's jurisdiction but firmly within the Church of England. It is also the chapel of the Royal Victorian Order, an order of chivalry in the personal gift of the monarch and the spiritual and symbolic heart of Duchy affairs.

The Duchy maintains the Savoy Chapel and bears its running costs. Extensive renovation work in 2000 restored the ceiling to its earlier glory. More recently, the garden has been redesigned.

Members of the public are welcome to attend church services held on Sundays and at lunchtime every Wednesday (except in August and September).

The church is open to visitors every day except Monday. Opening times; Tuesday - Friday 11.30-15.30. Admission is free.

Anyone wishing to know more about this historic area can purchase Robert Somerville's book 'The Savoy Manor: Hospital: Chapel' available from the Duchy of Lancaster office in London.