I was heading somewhere else a couple of weeks back and spotted what I thought at first was a disused church as it was very overgrown at the front. After pinning it I did some research back at home and I still wasn't sure whether it was empty or not but decided to go back and have a proper look, and inadvertantly found something pretty cool.
St. Charles Borromeo Church in Weybridge is a very peculiar building as far as churches go. The original Greek Orthodox-style chapel was constructed in 1834 by James Taylor, an important architect involved in the construction of many pioneering Catholic building projects, and the attached Presbytery constructed in 1880 by A E Purdie for James Molineux Taylor and Marianne Taylor. In 1880 the Church of St. Charles of Borromeo was constructed, it too attached to the original 1834 Greek Orthodox chapel. The building is currently Grade II* listed, with the church described as an unusually unaltered example of a late 19th Century High Victorian church.
Now here is where the history gets somewhat more interesting.
In 1848 French King Louis Phillipe and his entire family fled the Paris Revolution in exile and were housed by Queen Victoria at her Claremont Estate in nearby Esher. Queen Victoria, despite the political dangers, of which she was warned by her Prime Minister, was very supportive of the exiled King and his family, whom she had first met in France in 1843. This event was celebrated as the first meeting between French and English monarchs since 1520. As well as offering shelter she encouraged courtiers to write letters to 'The Times' sympathising with the plight of “these poor exiles”. The Royal Family became regular worshippers in St. Charles Borromeo, and it was decided to use the crypt underneath the chapel as their own. Between 1850 and 1876 a dozen members of the Orléans family were interred in the crypt including KIng Louis Phillipe himself in 1850, and his wife, Queen Maria Amalia in 1866. The Orléans family tombs remained in the Weybridge chapel until the French royal family were allowed to return to France in 1876 and all the royal remains, excepting those of the Duchess of Nemours, were removed and re-interred at the royal chapel of the Orléans family at Dreux in Normandy. The Duchess of Nemours remains stayed at Weybridge until 1979 when they too were removed and re-interred in Dreux. The effigy atop her tomb, carved by Henri Chapu was removed from the church in 1989 and sold at Sotheby's in 1993, then was acquired by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where it remains to this day.
The crypt was divided into two sections. On one half the tombs are still there in their entirety, and include members of the Taylor family who constructed the original chapel as well as a couple of the Orléans family. The other side is largely empty except for one double tomb, I presume most of the empty space in there was at one point filled with the rest of the tombs which are now no more as the remains are long since removed. I would assume that the tombs belonging to the Taylors still house their remains.
St. Charles Borromeo closed in the late 1980s and was bought by the World Mission Korean Presbyterian Church in 1993. The church was awarded a £251,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 in order to restore the building, works which included completely rebuilding the Presbytery as at the time it was a ruinous shell, as well as re-tiling the whole thing to make it watertight. These works appear to have gone ahead, and the building, although unkempt looking from the road is a different story on the other sides, with new doors, grills over the windows, and new flooring in the church which you can see in places when down in the crypt. One of the original plans was to restore entry into the crypt, however this doesn't appear to have ever materialised.
Thanks for looking
St. Charles Borromeo Church in Weybridge is a very peculiar building as far as churches go. The original Greek Orthodox-style chapel was constructed in 1834 by James Taylor, an important architect involved in the construction of many pioneering Catholic building projects, and the attached Presbytery constructed in 1880 by A E Purdie for James Molineux Taylor and Marianne Taylor. In 1880 the Church of St. Charles of Borromeo was constructed, it too attached to the original 1834 Greek Orthodox chapel. The building is currently Grade II* listed, with the church described as an unusually unaltered example of a late 19th Century High Victorian church.
Now here is where the history gets somewhat more interesting.
In 1848 French King Louis Phillipe and his entire family fled the Paris Revolution in exile and were housed by Queen Victoria at her Claremont Estate in nearby Esher. Queen Victoria, despite the political dangers, of which she was warned by her Prime Minister, was very supportive of the exiled King and his family, whom she had first met in France in 1843. This event was celebrated as the first meeting between French and English monarchs since 1520. As well as offering shelter she encouraged courtiers to write letters to 'The Times' sympathising with the plight of “these poor exiles”. The Royal Family became regular worshippers in St. Charles Borromeo, and it was decided to use the crypt underneath the chapel as their own. Between 1850 and 1876 a dozen members of the Orléans family were interred in the crypt including KIng Louis Phillipe himself in 1850, and his wife, Queen Maria Amalia in 1866. The Orléans family tombs remained in the Weybridge chapel until the French royal family were allowed to return to France in 1876 and all the royal remains, excepting those of the Duchess of Nemours, were removed and re-interred at the royal chapel of the Orléans family at Dreux in Normandy. The Duchess of Nemours remains stayed at Weybridge until 1979 when they too were removed and re-interred in Dreux. The effigy atop her tomb, carved by Henri Chapu was removed from the church in 1989 and sold at Sotheby's in 1993, then was acquired by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where it remains to this day.
The crypt was divided into two sections. On one half the tombs are still there in their entirety, and include members of the Taylor family who constructed the original chapel as well as a couple of the Orléans family. The other side is largely empty except for one double tomb, I presume most of the empty space in there was at one point filled with the rest of the tombs which are now no more as the remains are long since removed. I would assume that the tombs belonging to the Taylors still house their remains.
St. Charles Borromeo closed in the late 1980s and was bought by the World Mission Korean Presbyterian Church in 1993. The church was awarded a £251,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 in order to restore the building, works which included completely rebuilding the Presbytery as at the time it was a ruinous shell, as well as re-tiling the whole thing to make it watertight. These works appear to have gone ahead, and the building, although unkempt looking from the road is a different story on the other sides, with new doors, grills over the windows, and new flooring in the church which you can see in places when down in the crypt. One of the original plans was to restore entry into the crypt, however this doesn't appear to have ever materialised.
Thanks for looking
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