A Short History of St Peter’s Chapel - Now Milner Hall - TrustNews February 1989
The former St Peter's Chapel, now known as the Milner Hall, lies tucked away between St. Peter Street and Jewry Street. For more than three hundred years it was hidden from passing view by a heavy black door. This year the door was replaced by an elegant wrought iron gate through which the Hall stands framed by the arch. The plaque on the wall of 9 St Peter Street which, with its neighbours, 7 and 8, stands on the site of the first "St Peter's House", commemorates Rev John Milner, the eminent churchmman, scholar and historian, who built the Chapel in 1792. St. Peter's House was built by a Cavalier, Roger Corham, towards the end of the 17th century, possibly a little later than the date given on the plaque. He had previously owned the old Tudor House on the opposite side of what was then still called Fleshmonger Street. Known as "my lady West's" in the reign of Elizabeth I, it is now the Royal Hotel.
Corham at once installed a resident priest in his new house to serve the Roman Catholics of the Winchester district. This was without precedent in post-Reformation England. Priests were either "riding missionaries", taking the Mass and the Sacraments to Catholics scattered over great tracts of countryside, or chaplains living in the houses of the remaining Catholic gentry. Corham, whose grave may still be seen in the Catholic cemetery of St James' in Romsey Road, may be said to have founded the Roman Catholic parochial system in post Reformation England.
An upper room in "Peterhouse" was used for the celebration of Mass for over sixty years. Some time between 1736 and 1740, the parish priest of the day, Rev James Shaw, finding the Massroom inadequate for a growing congregation, converted the shed at the bottom of his garden into a makeshift chapel. His successor, Rev Patrick Savage, added a wing, supported on slender pillars, which ran the length of the East side, nearest the house. When John Milner took over the parish in 1779 it was his dilapidated shed which he inherited as his church. He described it as being 12 to 14 feet wide, 50 to 60 feet long and "exceeding low". He soon added a tribune, or gallery, at the North end, opposite the altar, installed an organ, said to have belonged to Handel, and started a choir.
In 1792 the Second Relief Act allowed Dissenters, legally, to build chapels, providing they had neither steeples nor bells. Bishop Douglass, Vicar Apostolic of the London District, visiting Winchester that year, declared the chapel unworthy of the congregation and the city. Milner immediately drew plans for a church which was "to imitate the models left us by our religious ancestors who applied themselves with such ardour and unrivalled success to the cultivation and perfection of ecclesiastical architecture." He rejected the "modern style of building churches and chapels which are, in general, square chambers with sash windows.
His chosen architect was John Carter, the leading advocate of the Gothic or, as he termed it, the Pointed Style. "beyond all doubt he is the most conversant in this style of any man in the kingdom", wrote Milner to his Bishop. Building began on 26th March, 1792, the old "shed" in which so many had worshipped being demolished except for Milner's addition. Funds were low and the local workmen unused to such work.
Milner was to apologies for the defects this caused. The chief carpenter was John Lingard of St Thomas Street, whose son was destined to become the distinguished historian and theologian, Dr Lingard. The workmen's wage sheets are preserved in the Parish archives. They make fascinating reading: contractors' bills came to £913.18.1 and the total cost was £1,031.15s. Milner put in £250 of his own money. His friend and neighbour, William Meader, who also acted as Clerk of Works, contributed £600.
On 5th December, 1792, the Chapel, free of debt, was consecrated by Bishop Douglass. It was dedicated to Our Lady, St Peter, St Swithun and St Birinus, whose Feast Day it was. In the following April, the Chapel was, sadly, the centre of another historical event, a Requiem for the executed Louis of France. The Mass was attended not only by many of the French exiles who had sought refuge in the neighbourhood, but also by the Mayor and leading citizens of the City and County. A regimental band was in attendance and the crowds were so great that the ends of St Peter Street had to be blocked off. A bust of the dead King stood on a pedestal, wreathed in black. Not long after there was a similar Requiem for Queen Marie Antoinette. These must have been among the first Civic Masses in England since the days of James II. Milner preached a great funeral oration in the style of Bossuet, which was translated into French, and both the English and the French versions were published.
The Chapel was the first Roman Catholic church to be consecrated in England since the Reformation and it was the first church built in England in the Gothic style since the Middle Ages. In The History of the Faith in Hampshire, written in 1926, Archbishop King wrote, "Between them Milner and Carter had designed a church in the Gothic style in an age when that style was quite out of vogue and even ridiculed. When it was fresh and new it was, undoubtedly, one of the finest churches the Catholic body possessed". Milner brought to his "Beloved Chapel" all his learned appreciation of the past. He filled it with highly symbolic decoration, linked to the story of Christianity in this land from the earliest days or with profound theological teaching. The interior was French grey, the pillars straw coloured. There was rich glass and paintings by William Cave and his son James, executed on canvas in chiaroscuro, a technique taught them by Milner. Not only did Cave paint v. the pictures, he paid for them himself.
In his History, Civil and Ecclesiastical and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester, first published in 1798, Milner describes the Chapel in minute detail, illustrated with drawings by James Cave. The 1839 edition has a print by G S Shepherd which shows the interior in early Victorian days. Kenneth Clark, in The Gothic Revival: An Essay in the History of Taste, says of the Chapel, "It is usually considered the first instance of Gothic applied to ecclesiastical architecture during the Revival, certainly the first chapel built in that style from what we may call Gothic motives." Woodward, in his History of Winchester, written in 1860, remarks that "Gothic ecclesiastical architecture has, of late, been so critically and minutely studied that what was, in Milner's day, a most praiseworthy attempt to follow the old models is now to be found far behind them." He added, "It was exceedingly elegant and even ornate when first built but much of the original ornamentation has now disappeared." This was something Milner himself had feared and foreseen.
Elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1790 for his efforts to study and revive Gothic, Milner had to turn away in 1803 to duties which were to leave him no time for such enthusiasms. On 22nd May of that year, he was consecrated Bishop in his own Chapel, the first such consecration in Winchester since that of Bishop White in 1557. Before leaving the city to become Vicar Apostolic of the Midlands, he left detailed instructions for the care and maintenance of St Peter's. He was worried about damp and suspect foundations. The gutters were to be cleaned out regularly lest they become "choaked" with "fatal results". He predicted that the pinnacles, parapets and doors "being made of deal will inevitably decay and crumble into dust if they are not frequently painted and the crevices filled with putty". His injunctions, it seems, were not heeded. In 1826, Peterhouse was demolished and replaced by the present block, 7, 8 and 9, the latter becoming the priests' house. To anyone who has seen the drawing which exists of Corham's house, this destruction must be a matter of everlasting regret. The Chapel was also in bad shape; in 1875 extensive repairs proved necessary. In the process even more of the original ornamentation was certainly lost. By the turn of the century, the Chapel was proving as inadequate as the room in Peterhouse had become over a century and a half before. Repairs were also becoming too costly. The future Archbishop, John Henry King, became parish priest in 1923 and within a year, the foundation stone of the present church had been laid. The new St Peter's was opened in 1926. The old Chapel was left unused until the 1950's when it was gutted and converted into the Parish Hall, the Milner Hall. Conservationists were dismayed, even outraged, but the alternative at that time was demolition.
In 1983, Canon Nicholas France came to Winchester as Parish Priest. Just as John Milner had done one hundred and ninety years before, he found a most dilapidated building at the bottom of the garden. By this time it had ceased even to be a hall and was in use as a warehouse. Like Milner, he recognised its immense significance. The first four years following Canon France's arrival saw the implementation of an ambitious programme of reordering and rebuilding. During work on the church, the old Chapel was once again used for the purpose for which it 'lad come into being and daily Mass was celebrated within its walls for the first time for over sixty years. It was the beginning of its resurgence. The restoration of the Chapel commenced in 1987. It was not the intention to restore it completely to its original condition as this would have left the parish with a building with very limited use. The plan was to achieve an intermediate stage, leaving scope for further restoration should it ever be considered that it should become St Peter's Chapel once again.
For the architect, James Lunn Rockliffe, of the Winchester partnership of Plincke, Learning and Browning and the builder, David Freeborn, it was a formidable challenge. As the work progressed, Milner's dire warnings soon proved only too accurate. Damp rose everywhere. Roof timbers were rotten. New problems surfaced daily. But the challenge was met and overcome. Enough of the old vaulting ribs were found beneath the flat ceiling, put up in the 1950's, for a full size template to be made. Modern technology replaced the old wood and plaster with steel. The new vaulting was so constructed as to be independent of the old structure. The steelwork was brought in through the back of Jewry Street in the small hours of a Sunday morning and inserted through holes cut in the roof. The windows introduced into the formerly blank West wall in the 1950's were now filled in. Sadly, the paintings had not survived to go back on this wall. Nor had the stained glass, the last of which had found its way via a rubbish tip to the City Museum, where it joined the painted roof bosses. But when plaster was removed from the canopies of the windows on the Eastern side, sufficient fragments were discovered from which a talented and enthusiastic glazier, Mr Wright from Southampton, was able to create copies which glow with all the exuberance of Milner's glass.
The gallery at the North end was restored. Walls, pillars and vaulted ceiling were painted exactly as Milner had described them. New cherubs replaced their lost brethren and fibreglass replicas were substituted for the wooden emblems of St Peter on the exterior wall. It all took ten months, the time it took to build the Chapel in 1792. On 11th December, 1987, the hall was reopened and dedicated by the late Bishop Emery. Milner's successor, Archbishop Maurice Couve de Murville of Birmingham, delivered the address. Canon France wrote in the programme that "its reconstruction was an act of valuable conservation to preserve for the city one of its historical buildings".Winchester and St Peter's now possess a truly elegant and beautiful hall. It is a delight both to the eye and, as musicians will testify, to the ear. It is a worthy memorial to the illustrious priest who conceived it.