Saint Mary’s Church, Chislehurst, Kent.

Saint Mary’s Church, Chislehurst.

Picture Credit: SuzNut - Paul Keys.

The part of the building on the Right is the Clutton Chapel, built in 1874, to house the Imperial Tomb of Emperor 

Napoleon III and, later, his son, the Prince Imperial.

Illustration: SAINT MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH

SAINT MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH,
CROWN LANE, CHISLEHURST,
KENT.

ANNIVERSARY OF CONSECRATION.

SUNDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2012.

1100 HRS.

SOLEMN PONTIFICAL MASS

AND SOLEMN VESPERS AND BENEDICTION.

CELEBRANT:

THE MOST REVEREND

KEVIN McDONALD.

TRUMPET MINUET – HOLLINS.

ECCE SACERDOS MAGNUS – ELGAR.

CHRIST IS MADE THE SURE FOUNDATION – PURCELL/HAWKINS.

MASS IN C “CREDO MASS” – MOZART.

LAUDATE DOMINUM – MOZART.

PANIS ANGELICUS – FRANCK.

HOLY LIGHT ON EARTH’S HORIZON – CASWELL.

FINALE FROM ORGAN SONATA NO 1 – MENDELSSOHN.

1700 HRS. 

SOLEMN VESPERS

AND

BENEDICTION.

PSALMS – PLAINCHANT - GUERRERO.

MAGNIFICAT – PALESTRINA.

O SALUTARIS – ELGAR.

AVE VERUM – BYRD.

TANTUM ERG0 – VIERNE.

SALVE REGINA – PLAINCHANT.

FANFARE - LEMMENS.

Copilot states:

23 April 1943 — that’s the Consecration Date of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, Chislehurst, by Archbishop Peter Amigo.

The Church was originally opened in 1854, but, like many Victorian Catholic Churches, it wasn’t Consecrated until all debts were cleared, which finally happened during Archbishop Peter Amigo’s tenure in 1943.

Origins and Foundation (1853–1854).

Founder: Captain Henry Bowden, Scots Guards Officer and Catholic convert.

He hosted Mass in his home, Tudor Hall, before donating the land opposite for a permanent Church.

Foundation Stone laid: 8 December 1853 by Bishop Thomas Grant of Southwark.

Opening: 8 August 1854, after just nine months of construction.

Architect: William Wilkinson Wardell, a protégé and friend of A. W. N. Pugin.

Style: Gothic Revival; strongly Puginian in spirit — Steep Roofs, Lancet Windows, disciplined verticality.

Wardell later emigrated to Australia, where he designed major Churches including Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne.

St Mary’s Church, Chislehurst, is now Grade II Listed (designated 29 June 1973).

The Bonaparte Connection (1871–1888).

This is one of the most remarkable aspects of Saint Mary’s history.

The Exiled Imperial Family in Chislehurst.

In 1871, Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, and the Prince Imperial, settled at Camden Place, Chislehurst, near Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, where they attended Mass on Sundays and Feast Days.

After Napoleon III’s death on 9 January 1873, he was buried in Saint Mary’s Church, six days later.

In 1879, his son, Louis-Napoléon (the Prince Imperial), killed in the Anglo-Zulu War, South Africa, while an Officer in The British Army, was also buried here.

The Clutton Chapel (1874).

To house the Imperial Tomb of Emperor Napoleon III, a new Chapel was added in 1874.

Architect: Henry Clutton, a leading Catholic architect of the period.

This Chapel stood as a temporary Imperial Mausoleum until 1888, when both tombs (Emperor Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial) were transferred to Saint Michæl’s Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, where Empress Eugénie was also buried later on.

Graveyard and Notable Burials.

Graveyard opened 1864.

Includes the grave of Dr. Charles West, Founder of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Includes the grave of Michæl Treharne Davies, Catholic Author.

Address: 28 Crown Lane, Chislehurst BR7 5PL.

A comparison with other Southwark Gothic Revival Churches.

Here are the key Gothic Revival Catholic Churches in the Archdiocese of Southwark, starting with the most architecturally significant.

These are all grounded in the same 19th‑Century Gothic Revival Style that produced Saint Mary’s, Chislehurst — though each expresses the Style differently.

Saint George’s Cathedral, Southwark (1848). Architect: A. W. N. Pugin — the leading figure of the Gothic Revival.
Style: Early, Strict, Puginian Gothic.
Status: Cathedral of the Archdiocese.
Consecrated: 1894.
Notes: Considered the most important Catholic Church in England when built; heavily bomb‑damaged in World War II and restored.

Saint Peter’s, Woolwich (1843–1844).

Architect: A. W. N. Pugin.
Style: Early-English Gothic Revival.
Notes: One of Pugin’s purest Parish Churches; retains much of its original character.

Saint John the Baptist, Brighton (1835–1840). Architect: A. W. N. Pugin (major enlargement 1840–1841).
Style: Decorated Gothic.
Notes: A landmark of early Catholic emancipation; richly furnished in Pugin’s idiom.

Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Fulham (1848–1849). Architect: A. W. N. Pugin.
Style: Early-English Gothic.
Notes: A compact but textbook example of Pugin’s Parish Church model.

Saint Mary Magdalen, Mortlake (1852).

Architect: William Wardell — the same architect as St Mary’s, Chislehurst.
Style: Early-English Gothic Revival.
Notes: Shares the same disciplined, Pugin‑influenced vocabulary as Chislehurst.

Saint Francis de Sales, Hartley (1850s).

Architect: Edward Welby Pugin.
Style: Mid‑Victorian Gothic Revival.
Notes: A rural example with strong Pugin family influence.

Saint Joseph’s, Guildford (1860s–1870s).

Architect: Edward Welby Pugin.
Style: High-Victorian Gothic.
Notes: More elaborate than earlier Pugin works, with richer Tracery and vertical emphasis.

Saint Mary’s, Clapham (1851).

Architect: William Wardell.
Style: Early-English Gothic Revival.
Notes: Another Wardell Church, showing his characteristic restraint and clarity.

How these relate to Saint Mary’s, Chislehurst.

Saint Mary’s (1853–1854) sits in the second generation of Southwark Gothic Revival Churches: Wardell was a direct disciple of Pugin, so Chislehurst shares the same disciplined, Liturgically‑driven Gothic.

The Clutton Chapel (1874) adds a later, more refined, Victorian Gothic layer.

The Church fits stylistically between the early Pugin Parish Churches (Woolwich, Fulham) and the later, more elaborate, E. W. Pugin Churches (Guildford).

Absurd Victorian Occupations.

Cathedral And Metropolitan Church Of Saint Stephen And All Saints, Vienna, Austria. (Part Ten).

English: 

Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of 

Saint Stephen and All Saints, Vienna, Austria.

Deutsch: 

Dom-und-Metropolitankirche zu 

Sankt Stephan und allen Heiligen, 

Wien, Österreich.

Photo: 8 October 2017.

Source: Own work.

This File is licensed under the 

Creative Commons Attribution-

Share Alike 4.0 International licence.

Author: C.Stadler/Bwag

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia, unless stated otherwise.

When the Charnel House and eight Cemeteries abutting the Cathedral’s side and back walls closed, due to an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1735, the bones within them were moved to the catacombs below the Church. 

Burials directly in the catacombs occurred until 1783 when a new law forbade most burials within the City. The remains of over 11,000 persons are in the catacombs (which may be visited).

The basement of the Cathedral also hosts the Bishops, Provosts, and Ducal, Crypts. The most recent interment in the Bishop’s Crypt, completed in 1952 under the South Choir, was that of ninety-eight-year-old Cardinal Franz König in 2004.

Provosts of the Cathedral are buried in another Chamber. Other Members of the Cathedral Chapter are now buried in a special section at the Zentralfriedhof.

The Ducal Crypt located under the Chancel holds seventy-eight Bronze containers with the bodies, hearts, or viscera, of seventy-two Members of the Habsburg dynasty. 

Before his death in 1365, Duke Rudolf IV ordered the Crypt built for his remains in the new Cathedral he commissioned.

By 1754, the small rectangular Chamber was overcrowded with twelve sarcophagi and thirty-nine urns, so the area was expanded with an Oval Chamber added to the East End.

In 1956, the two Chambers were renovated and their contents rearranged. The sarcophagi of Duke Rudolf IV and his wife were placed upon a pedestal and the sixty-two urns containing organs were moved from the two rows of shelves around the new Chamber to Cabinets in the original one.

Organ Concert in Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna.

Available on YouTube

HERE

Organs.

Saint Stephen’s Cathedral has a renowned Organ Tradition. The first Organ is mentioned in 1334.[13][14]

After the 1945 fire, Michael Kauffmann finished a large Electric Action Pipe Organ in 1960 with 125 Stops and four Manuals, financed with public donations.[15]

PART ELEVEN FOLLOWS.

HMS Canada: The Last Surviving Dreadnought Battleship To Have Served With The British Fleet At The North Sea Naval Battle Of Jutland In 1916. She Was Sold For Scrap In 1959.

HMS Canada: The last surviving Dreadnought Battleship

to have served with the British Fleet at the North Sea

Naval Battle of Jutland in 1916.

After World War I, she became the Chilean Battleship Almirante Latorre and in 1959 she was sold to a

Japanese Scrap Merchant for disposal.

Photo: 24 December 1921.

Source: This image is available from the United States

Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division

under the digital ID cph.3c03269.

Author: Underwood & Underwood.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Royal Navy Battleship HMS Canada 

underway during World War I.

Photo: Circa 1914-1918.

Source: This photograph SP 1938 comes from the Collection 

of the Imperial War Museums (Collection Number 1900-01).

Author: Surgeon Oscar Parkes.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The following Text is from Wikimedia - the free encyclopædia,

unless stated otherwise.

 “Almirante Latorre”, named after Juan José Latorre, was a Dreadnought Battleship built for the Chilean Navy (Armada de Chile). 

It was the first of a Planned Two-Ship Class that would respond to earlier Warship purchases by other South American Countries. 

Construction began at Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, soon after the ship was ordered in November 1911, and was approaching completion when it was bought by the British Royal Navy for use in the First World War. 

HMS Canada was a Royal Navy Dreadnought 

Battleship that the Chilean Government had ordered 

as “Almirante Latorre”. 

She was launched in 1913, but the British 

Government purchased her in 1914 after the outbreak 

of the First World War. 

The British Government resold her to Chile in 1920, 

and, as “Almirante Latorre”, she served the Chilean Navy 

until she was broken up in Japan in 1959.

Note: The Ship’s Bulldog Mascot (“Brutus”) 

in the Left-Hand 14-inch Gun Barrel.

Date: 26 July 2020.

Source: Battleship HMS Canada.

This File is made available by its copyright holder 

under the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Author: tormentor4555

(Wikimedia Commons)

Commissioned in September 1915, she served in The Grand Fleet as The Royal Navy’s Dreadnought Battleship, HMS Canada, for the duration of the War and saw Action during The Battle of Jutland.

Chile re-purchased HMS Canada in 1920 and re-named it “Almirante Latorre”. 

The ship was designated as the Chilean Navy’s Flagship, and frequently served as a Presidential Transport. 

Captain Ley, commanding HMS Canada, 

persuades the Ship’s Mascot (“Brutus”) to pose for 

a portrait. HMS Canada’s Aft 14-inch Guns are in the background, trained to Starboard.

Photo: February 1917.

Source: This image is available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number PA-006497 and under the MIKAN ID number 3398281.

This File: 15 June 2014.

User: Rcbutcher

Author: Castle, W. I. (William Ivor),

Official Canadian War Photographer.

(Wikimedia Commons)

She underwent a thorough modernisation in The United Kingdom in 1929 – 1931. 

In September 1931, crewmen aboard “Almirante Latorre” instigated a Mutiny, which the majority of the Chilean Fleet quickly joined. 

After divisions developed between the Mutineers, the rebellion fell apart and the Ships returned to Government control. 

The Crew of HMS Canada.

Photo: Circa 1914-1920.

Source: This image is available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number PA-066816 and under the MIKAN ID number 3393726.

This File: 11 June 2014.

User: Rcbutcher

Author: Not stated. Assumed to be Royal Navy.

(Wikimedia Commons)

“Almirante Latorre” was placed in Reserve for a time in the 1930s, because of the Great Depression, but it was in good enough condition to receive interest from the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

The Chilean Government declined the overture and the ship spent most of the Second World War on Naval Patrol for Chile. 

“Almirante Latorre”, the last Royal Navy Dreadnought Battleship to have fought at The Battle of Jutland in 1916, was scrapped in Japan in 1959.

Saint Hildegarde von Bingen (1098 - 1179). “Voice Of The Living Light”. Doctor Of The Church. Feast Day 17 September. White Vestments.

English: Eibingen Abbey, Germany, 

where Saint Hildegarde von Bingen is buried.

Deutsch: Benediktinerinnenkloster Eibingen.

Photo: 8 October 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: Moguntiner

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia, unless stated otherwise.

Hildegarde von Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegarde and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine Abbess and Polymath, active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.[1][2]

She is one of the best-known composers of Sacred Monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history.[3]

Hildegarde’s convent at Disibodenberg elected her as Magistra (Mother Superior) in 1136. She Founded the Monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165.

“Canticles Of Ecstasy”.

Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.

Sung by: Sequentia.

Available on YouTube

HERE

Hildegarde wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works,[5] as well as Letters, Hymns, and Antiphons for the Liturgy.[2]

She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg Manuscript of her first work, Scivias.[6]

There are more surviving chants by Hildegarde than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.[7]

Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,

Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.

Date: November 2010.

Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.

Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of Liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving Morality Play.[a] She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal Canonisation is complicated, Regional Calendars of the Roman Catholic Church have listed her as a Saint for Centuries.

On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the Liturgical cult of Hildegarde to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as “Equivalent Canonisation”.

“11,000 Virgins. Chants For The Feast Of Saint Ursula”. 

Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.

Sung by: Anonymous4.

Available on YouTube

HERE

On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of The Church, in recognition of “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.”[8]

Hildegarde was born around 1098. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim.[9]

Sickly from birth, Hildegarde is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child,[10] although there are records of only seven older siblings.[11][12] In her “Vita” [Editor: “story of her life”], Hildegarde states that from a very young age she experienced visions.[13]

The Nave, Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,

Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.

Date: November 2010.

Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.

Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

From early childhood, long before she undertook her public mission or even her Monastic Vows, Hildegarde’s Spiritual awareness was grounded in what she called the “Umbra Viventis Lucis”, “the reflection of the Living Light”. Her letter to Guibert of Gembloux, which she wrote at the age of seventy-seven, describes her experience of this light:

“From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my Soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old.

“In this vision, my Soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of Heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places.

Hymns and Songs (12th-Century).

Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.

Sung by: Ensemble Vocatrix.

Available on YouTube

HERE

“And because I see them this way in my Soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my Soul, alone, while my outward eyes are open.

“So, I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now.

“The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it “the reflection of the Living Light.”

The Nuns in Choir.

Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,

Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.

Date: November 2010.

Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.

Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

“And, as the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam”.[14]

Perhaps, because of Hildegarde’s visions, or as a method of political positioning, or both, Hildegarde’s parents offered her as an Oblate to the Benedictine Monastery at Disibodenberg, which had been recently reformed in the Palatinate Forest.

The date of Hildegarde’s Enclosure at the Monastery is the subject of debate. Her “Vita” says she was eight years old when she was Professed with Jutta, who was the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim and about six years older than Hildegarde.[15]

The Nave, Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,

Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.

Date: November 2010.

Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.

Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

Today, the Catholic Parish and Pilgrimage Church of Saint Hildegarde, rebuilt between 1932 and 1935 after a fire, and incorporating earlier stylistic elements, stands on the foundations of the former Monastery Founded by Hildegarde of Bingen in 1165.

The Church houses Hildegarde’s Shrine, with the

Relics of Saint Hildegarde von Bingen. Every year on 17 September, the Feast Day of Saint Hildegarde, large numbers of Pilgrims flock to Eibingen to participate in the procession of Relics in honour of the Saint.

However, Jutta’s date of Enclosure is known to have been in 1112, when Hildegarde would have been fourteen.[16]

Their Vows were received by Bishop Otto of Bamberg on All Saints’ Day 1112. Some scholars speculate that Hildegarde was placed in the care of Jutta at the age of eight, and that the two of them were then Enclosed together six years later.[17]

The following Text is from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
   Volume 14.
   Time After Pentecost.
   Book V.

At Bingen, in the Diocese of Mayence (Mainz), Germany, Saint Hildegarde, Virgin. Let us salute the “Great Prophetess of The New Testament”.

What Saint Bernard’s influence over his contemporaries was in the first half of the 12th-Century, that in the second half of the 12th-Century was Hildegarde’s, when the humble Virgin became the oracle of Popes and Emperors, of Princes and Prelates.

Multitudes from far and near flocked to Mount Saint Rupert, where the doubts of ordinary life were solved, and the questions of doctors answered.

At length, by God’s command, Hildegarde went forth from her Monastery to administer to all alike, Monks, Clerics, and Laymen, the word of correction and salvation.

The Spirit indeed breatheth where He will [Saint John iii. 8]. To the “massy” [Editor: Massive. Gargantuan] pillars that support His Royal Palace, God preferred the poor little feather floating in the air, and blown about, at His pleasure, hither and thither in the light [Hildegarde. Epist. ad Eugenium Pontificem].

In spite of labours, sicknesses, and trials, the Holy Abbess lived to the advanced age of eighty-two, “in the shadow of the Living Light”.

Her precious Relics are now at Eibingen Abbey, Germany. The writings handed down to us from the pen of this illiterate Virgin, are a series of sublime visions, embracing the whole range of contemporary science, physical and theological, from the creation of the World to its final consummation.

May Hildegarde von Bingen deign to send us an interpreter of her works, and an historian of her life, such as they merit !

PRAYER.

O, God, Who didst adorn Thy Blessed Virgin, Hildegarde, with Heavenly gifts; grant, we beseech Thee, that walking in her footsteps, and according to her teachings, we may deserve to pass from the darkness of this World into thy lovely light.

Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who lives 

and reigns with Thee in the union of The Holy Ghost, 

One God, World without end.

Amen.