Dedication of the Chapel

BY DAVID WALSH

DEDICATION OF THE CHAPEL OF ST AUGUSTINE

‘Through the ages, Almighty God has moved his people to build houses of prayer and praise, and to set apart places for the ministry of his holy Word and Sacraments. With gratitude for the rebuilding of the Chapel of St. Augustine, we are now gathered to dedicate it in the name of God’. With these words from the Bishop of Newcastle, Alec Graham (OT), on 20 October 1995, a spectacularly joyous and unforgettable service of ‘Dedication of the Restored Chapel of St. Augustine of Canterbury’ began for a congregation of nearly 900 people, including the whole school and its wider community. Eighteen clergy were present, including seven bishops, and five of these clergy were OTs – Rt. Revd. Timothy Dudley-Smith, Rt. Revd. Edward Evans, Rt. Revd. Alex Graham, Revd. Canon John Halliburton and Revd. Norman Evans. The Bishop of Rochester, Rt. Revd. Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, presided at the service.

Twenty-five years on, a plan to celebrate this anniversary had been made by holding a weekend service in October 2020. That plan, like so much else in these most unusual school years, had to be shelved, but it is fitting that the memories of 20 October 1995 should be shared with all those whose generosity and commitment contributed to that singular act of faith, as the restored chapel has again become the central feature of life at Tonbridge for each successive generation.

Ruth Gledhill, religious correspondent of The Times, attended the service and explained the context of the 1988 fire and subsequent re-building: ‘Tonbridge School Chapel burnt down before an assembly of appalled and fascinated boys and local people who gathered on the cricket ground to watch. Nothing remained of the stained glass, organ, panelling, pews, high altar and reredos, and the walls and floor were badly damaged. Under architect Donald Buttress,

surveyor for Westminster Abbey, the once dark and gloomy building emerged from its ordeal transformed into a magnificent arena of music, light and sacramental worship’.

It was a glorious late October day of blue skies and warm sunshine. The planning for the service was meticulous, under the watchful eye of Martin Hammond, who came as headmaster to Tonbridge in September 1990, two years after the fire, and whose initial years were dominated by the process of restoration. The guest list included every part of the wider school community, along with representatives from the businesses and trades which had built and furnished the Chapel, including the architect, Donald Buttress; the main contractors, James Longley and Co. Ltd; and the builders of the new Marcussen organ.

Martin Hammond paid tribute to James Bell, Chaplain, and Hilary Davan Wetton, Director of Music, for ‘designing a service of immense richness of both music and liturgy’. The Order of Service, an extended Choral Eucharist, was twenty-three pages long and the service lasted an hour and three-quarters, a testing experience for the assembled school. Martin Hammond recollects that ‘the boys were magnificent, clearly gripped by the splendour and significance of the

occasion and aware that they were participating in something special. I was very proud of them’. The Head of School was Ross Avery (MH 91-96), now Director of Strategy at John Lewis and Waitrose. He had spent his first four years at Tonbridge worshipping in the Quad Chapel and remembers how special it was to move into the new Chapel: ‘I remember feeling the significance of the event and the weight of history surrounding it. It was the fullest I ever experienced the Chapel and, in reading the first lesson (Genesis 28, vv 10-19), I remember the sense of nervousness of doing justice to the occasion and feeling the atmosphere created by the silence of so many people on a day that mattered so much’.

Before the service James Bell has the poignant memory of assembling with the other officiants, as David Williams played Marcel Dupré’s organ piece Resurrection: ‘A poignant choice as ‘’Resurrection, Resurrection’’ were the last words that the late Charles Searle-Barnes, Vicar of Tonbridge, said to Christopher Everett, David Kemp and myself as we watched the old Chapel burn itself into extinction. Charles died the following day, unexpectedly, and his words became more than a hope and prayer for us’.

The music was described by Ruth Gledhill as ‘difficult to equal outside a cathedral’ and included five of the best hymns in the hymnal for their fine words and tunes, Charles Stanford’s congregational setting of Psalm 150 and Jonathan Dove’s new setting of the Gloria, with trumpets and timpani in the organ loft. Christopher Everett generously commissioned Dove to write this significant new work which became a focal point of the service. Hilary Davan Wetton had collaborated with Dove on previous projects and liked the piece as ‘one that gave plenty of opportunity for ebullience’. He conducted several extended congregation practices for the school to learn the piece (do you remember those yah, yeh, yah, yeh warm-ups?) and recalled that it ‘went quite high for the congregation which made me nervous, but in the event the School rose to it with aplomb’. Leading the singing was the magnificent new 67-stop Marcussen organ about which David Williams has written in a separate piece. Luke Streatfeild (WH 92-97), a chorister writing about the service in The Tonbridgian, described it as ‘one of the most thrilling experiences of my life’. Processing into Chapel with the choir, the whole congregation singing the Old Hundredth hymn at full volume, ‘the effect was simply magical’.

During the Offertory, the architect, Donald Buttress, and representatives of the contractors and the organ builders processed to the altar steps to present symbols of their work respectively to the presiding Bishop, to the Master of the Skinners’ Company, Julian Haviland, and the Headmaster. The presence of the craftsmen was particularly noted by John Taylor, Head of Classics, who remembered coming to Tonbridge for interview in Michaelmas 1991, ‘when the chapel was a creeper-covered ruin. Four years later I was sharing a pew at the re-dedication service with some of the men who had worked on its restoration and they took an evident and proper pride in what had been achieved’.

It was an occasion, to quote James Bell, ‘filled with celebration, spiritually enthralling, a unique event in the life of a school’. Those of us who were there will remember the power generated by a school and all its constituent parts preparing for a service in which every element came together in total accord, involvement in something larger than any single one of us. It was followed by a series of further services for OTs, the local community, those who built the Chapel and, most importantly, for the three generations of boys who passed through the school between 1988 and 1995 and who only experienced services in the temporary Quad Chapel.

Let us leave the last memory to Ruth Gledhill who wrote of that day ‘unseasonably warm. The chapel had smelt only of new oak and incense, and we had spoken and sung in English and Latin; but, as we left, our hearts were full of thoughts of fire, and of those who enter into that school speaking in tongues of boys and who emerge as men’.

David Walsh (CR 72-09)