Peel Mortuary Chapel | Curious Clwyd

The Peel Mortuary Chapel

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The view was once to die for - which was entirely the point. Built, consecrated and opened in 1872, the Peel Mortuary Chapel rests at the height of a small, steep, sloping series of terraces above the River Dee - a once splendid vantage point now entirely obscured by surrounding trees and thicket. It remains now as a deeply moving island of remembered grief within the woods that have risen to surround it, to hide it from all but those that know of it.

Edmund Peel of Bryn y Pys, the much loved squire of Overton, married Anna Marie Lethbridge in the September of 1854. He was 28 years of age, Anna 22. It seems certain, given the circumstances that this was no marriage of convenience, but rather a very real love match. But it was a marriage that lasted just 6 years, since in 1860, Anna died at the terribly young age of just 28. Edmund was devastated.

Despite remarrying in 1866, to Henrietta Margaret, a daughter of Hugh Williams, 3rd Bart of Bodelwyddan, and the mother of his children, it would seem that the memory of his first wife haunted him. Anna was originally buried at St Mary’s in Overton, but was moved in 1872 to the extraordinary little chapel that Edmund had commissioned in her memory. The site was then turned over to the parish of Overton for use as a cemetery, the churchyard of St Mary’s no longer able to accommodate the needs of the village.

The chapel itself is a little wonder. It was built to the design of William Milford Teulon[1] who had been employed in the renovation of St Mary’s Church in the Village. A small rock-faced building, boasting lancets, a stunning square turret with a rather lovely stone spirelet and an early English doorway, it is a light delight. It overlooks a linear thread of graves along the terraces to its north west and south east and once boasted stained glass windows by the celebrated firm of O’Connor, probably, in fact, the son, Arthur. The O’Connors were famous for their work throughout the word, but are perhaps best known for their stunning windows in St Margaret’s at Bodelwyddan - better known as the Marble Church. Six little windows depicted various scenes from the New Testament - the Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the raising of Lazarus, the Angel at the Sepulchre and the Ascension. The three light east window depicted The Good Shepherd, Christ bearing the Cross and Christ in Glory, while the west window depicted a heavenly choir of Angels.

There is perhaps a curious connection here. The O’Connors were known for their work at St Margaret’s at Bodelwyddan, which was consecrated in 1860. St Margaret’s was built largely as a memorial to the memory of Henry Peyto-Verney, the 16th Baron Willoughby de Broke who died in 1852, by his wife Margaret Willoughby de Broke, daughter of John Williams, 1st Bart of Bodelwyddan, sister of Hugh Williams, 3rd Bart of Bodelwyddan and rather fascinatingly, the aunt of Henrietta Margaret Williams, the second wife of Edmund Peel. Henrietta’s father, Hugh was an active participant in the building of St Margaret’s at Bodelwyddan. Is it possible that Peel’s building of his Mortuary Chapel was inspired by St Margaret’s, that he also commissioned O’Connor to create the stained glass at Overton having seen their work at Bodelwyddan? It is, at least to our eyes perhaps, somewhat strange that Peel would, six years into his second marriage to the mother of his children, so openly have built such a publicly obvious memorial to his first wife. One wonders what Henrietta made of it all.

For nearly a century, the Chapel remained a peaceful place of calm reflection. Not forgotten, but not entirely remembered, perhaps. But it was merely a matter of time. At some point in the 1960s, the Chapel was vandalised and set alight, reducing the site to a ruin and destroying the priceless O’Connor windows. One might have thought that given the damage, the obvious course of action was to simply finish what the knuckle dragging vandals had begun, and pull the Chapel down. But no. Thankfully, and rather wonderfully, the Chapel was saved, and now remains as the most romantic of ruins, hidden away in the words, whispering where once it shouted, of loss and memory.

Footnote

1. W. M. Teulon (1823-1900) was the brother of the better known architect, Samuel Sanders Teulon, and a founder of the City Church and Churchyard Protection Society.