Queen's Chapel | |
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51°30′18″N0°08′13″W / 51.50500°N 0.13694°W | |
Location | London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Denomination | Church of England |
Architecture | |
Architect(s) | Inigo Jones |
Years built | 1623–1625 |
The Queen's Chapel (officially, The Queen's Chapel St. James Palace and previously the German Chapel) is a chapel in central London, England. Designed by Inigo Jones, it was built between 1623 and 1625 as an adjunct to St. James's Palace, initially as a Catholic chapel for the Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, Holy Roman Empress, who in the end never used it because she didn't marry King Charles I of England. Afterwards, it was used by the woman he did marry, Queen Henrietta Maria of England, a Catholic, and her retinue. In later years, it served various continental Protestants who were resident at Court. It is one of the facilities of the British monarch's household religious establishment, the Chapel Royal, but should not be confused with the 1540 liturgical building also known as the Chapel Royal , which is within the palace, just across Marlborough Road. Queen's Chapel is a Grade I listed building. [1]
The Queen's Chapel was built as a Catholic chapel at a time when the construction of churches for that denomination was otherwise prohibited in England, and was used by Charles I's wife French Queen Henrietta Maria, who imported chapel furnishings from France.[ citation needed ] During the English Civil War it was used as a stable.[ citation needed ] It was refurbished in 1662,[ citation needed ] and again in the 1680s by Christopher Wren. From the 1690s the chapel was used by the Continental Protestant courtiers of William and Mary. In 1718, the chapel was given over to German courtiers of George I who had moved to England with him. The chapel was then called the German Chapel.[ citation needed ] On 17 September 1782 the German organist Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann began work at the Royal German Chapel and he was there for the rest of his life. [2] He was succeeded by his son George Augustus Kollmann and his daughter Johanna Sophia Kollmann who died in 1849. [3]
It became an administered Chapel Royal again in 1938. [4]
The chapel was built as an integral part of St James's Palace, but when the adjacent private apartments of the monarch burned down in 1809 they were not replaced, and in 1856–57 Marlborough Road was laid out between the palace and the Queen's Chapel. The result is that physically the chapel now appears to be more part of the Marlborough House complex than of St James's Palace. [4]
The body of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother lay at the Queen's Chapel for several days in 2002, during the preparations for her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall before her ceremonial funeral. [5] [6]
The brick building is rendered to appear as if it were stone built. [1] It was built in a Palladian style. [7] It has gable ends with pediments. The interior vault is gilded and painted. [1]
Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, 12 miles southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Opened to the public, the palace is managed by Historic Royal Palaces, a charity set up to preserve several unoccupied royal properties.
Nicholas Hawksmoor was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principal architects of the time, Christopher Wren and John Vanbrugh, and contributed to the design of some of the most notable buildings of the period, including St Paul's Cathedral, Wren's City of London churches, Greenwich Hospital, Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. Part of his work has been correctly attributed to him only relatively recently, and his influence has reached several poets and authors of the twentieth century.
Greenwich is an area in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated 5.5 miles (8.9 km) east-south-east of Charing Cross.
Blenheim Palace is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. Originally called Blenheim Castle, it has been known as Blenheim Palace since the 19th century. One of England's largest houses, it was built between 1705 and 1722, and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Princess of Mindelheim, Countess of Nellenburg, was an English courtier who rose to be one of the most influential women of her time through her close relationship with Anne, Queen of Great Britain. The Duchess of Marlborough's relationship and influence with Anne were widely known, and leading public figures often turned their attentions to her, hoping for favour from Anne.
Inigo Jones was an English architect who was the first significant architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.
Marlborough House, a Grade I listed mansion on The Mall in St James's, City of Westminster, London, is the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Nations and the seat of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is adjacent to St James's Palace.
The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government.
Queen's House is a former royal residence in the London borough of Greenwich, which presently serves as a public art gallery. It was built between 1616 and 1635 on the grounds of the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London. In its current setting, it forms a central focus of the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames, a World Heritage Site called, Maritime Greenwich. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a retreat and place to display and enjoy the artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.
St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, and the London residence of several members of the royal family.
Kensington Palace is a royal residence set in Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has been a residence of the British royal family since the 17th century, and is currently the official London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank and their two sons. Kensington Palace is sometimes used as a metonym for the offices of royals who officially reside there.
A chapel royal is an establishment in the British and Canadian royal households serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the royal family.
St Etheldreda's Church is a Catholic church in Ely Place, off Charterhouse Street in Holborn, London. The building is one of only two surviving in London from the reign of Edward I, and dates from between 1250 and 1290. It is dedicated to Æthelthryth, or Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673. It was the chapel of the London residence of the Bishops of Ely.
Henrietta Maria of France was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She was mother of his sons Charles II and James II and VII. Under a decree of her husband, she was known in England as Queen Mary, but she did not like this name and signed her letters "Henriette" or "Henriette Marie".
Joseph Kendrick was a British sculptor.
Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann was a German-born composer and musical theorist who lived and worked in England from 1782 until his death. He has been called "The First Apostle of Bach in England".
The Savoy Vaults, or Queen Victoria Vaults, is an area of graves at New Southgate Cemetery in north London. The vaults contain the remains of those buried at the St Marienkirche Lutheran Chapel in Savoy Precinct, which was demolished in 1875 to improve access to the newly created Victoria Embankment on the northern edge of the River Thames. The chapel and many of the burials had links to the Hanoverians in England.