Hms Drake Chapel of St Nicholas Plymouth, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

PLYMOUTH

SX45NW SALTASH ROAD, Devonport 740-1/4/163 (West side) 08/07/98 HMS Drake: Chapel of St Nicholas

GV II

Chapel on naval base. 1905-7. MATERIALS: Dressed Plymouth limestone brought to course and with limestone dressings; steep slate nave roof behind parapet and with coped ends; polygonal roof to chancel; lead roofs to porches and to half dome of baptistry. STYLE: Gothic Revival. PLAN: chapel orientated NE-SW the SW being the ritual E end, the following points of the compass indicating their ritual positions: tall nave, apsidal chancel and low aisles plus N and S porches at W end, S vestry at E end of nave and octagonal baptistery to W end. EXTERIOR: plinth, triangular buttresses flanking bays (except for diagonal corner buttresses at W end), mid-floor and parapet strings and round-arched openings with hoodmoulds; leaded glazing and V-jointed planked doors with original iron furniture. Aisle and baptistery windows are traceried lunettes on a sill string; nave N and S windows are tall 2-light and traceried like the aisle windows; chancel has tall single-light windows over crypt with small single-light windows. The crypt doorway is into the basement of the vestry which has quatrefoil window to gable above and small flanking lights lower down. The W window is 5 lights with heads as transom and 4 lights above. Surmounting the nave gable adjoining the chancel is a 3-bay stepped and shaped belfry with 3 bells and a cross finial. INTERIOR: 11-bay arcades with hexagonal piers with moulded round arches with hoodmoulds; arched-braced nave roof springing from moulded corbels plus tie beams; chancel has barrel-vaulted roof with painted ribs springing from turned marble shafts. The original space has been subdivided to form 3 separate chapels (Anglican, Roman Catholic and Scottish Free). FITTINGS: original pitch-pine pews with shaped ends and V-jointed boards; Octagonal freestone Gothic style pulpit and C20 freely shaped bronze font. This chapel has very clean lines appropriate to the naval tradition and the triangular buttresses and the section of the arcade piers are perhaps inspired by the shape of ships. In fact the way the whole building is set on the slope of the land makes it look like a ship being pushed before a following

giant wave. HISTORY: the earliest of 4 matching naval barracks churches, the others, both of brick, are at HMS Pembroke in Chatham and at the Marines barracks at Deal and Eastney. The architect is unknown, drawings are signed TNW and dated 1908. An impressive example of late Gothic Revival architecture within the context of one of the finest and most complete barrack complexes in England, manifesting the importance and status of the Royal Navy at this time. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 656).

Listing NGR: SX4485256796