When Jess and I first started teaming up, we first went to Cloud House and then the Cyclops Cavern, which was of course me sharing with her my locations. After this, it was her turn to share some of hers. The first was sadly being redeveloped and was unexplorable. The second was a delightful derelict chapel that we snuck out to in the night, because Jesus said "Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness" which means that if we commit blasphemy in the dark, Jesus won't be there to see!
While this obviously isn't the church of St Cadbury, it earned its nickname with its somewhat unconventional interior colour scheme, as we'll see.
Sadly the external shot was ruined by signs and a big obnoxious traffic light. Nevertheless the building looks quite ominous in the darkness.
The chapel was built in 1810, but rebuilt in 1820 and rebuilt again in 1876, presumably to make it larger as the community grew. It ended up with seating capacity for about 450 people. Following a sale in 2008, it was just left to become steadily more derelict. Plans were drawn up to convert it into residential accomodation or offices, but due to internal water damage such plans never came to be and the chapel has just been left to rot.
Inside, you can totally see the source of my Cadburys reference. For some bizarre reason this place has been painted bright purple and yellow. And this colour scheme isn't just isolated to the entry hall, but it's prevalent across the entire chapel area too. I like it. It suits my quirky tastes. However, for a chapel it's unusual.
As you can probably guess, the doors lead through to the main chapel, while the stairs lead to the upper pews which overlook it.
There was an old stained-glass window which looks into the chapel from the hall, but it's been smashed.
Of the two staircases, one was far more rotten, with the majority of the decay being on one side of the building. It was still possible to get upstairs though.
Unfortunately the fact that we were there at night meant that we couldn't really see the windows very easily, apart from the ones that were facing the streetlamp outside. On closer inspection we realised that the windows weren't genuine stained glass. No, the design is painted on. It's a little unusual, but for a very intricate design it's really well painted.
The pews still have numbers on them, reflecting an old outdated practice where church goers had allocated seating based on social rank. The pews closer to the front of the church were reserved for the higher ranking members of society, like Maggie Thatchers hot grand daughter Amanda, while towards the back of the church would be poorer people, the village eccentric, and me gazing longingly at the back of Amandas lovely head.
In some towns and villages there were even seating known as the "Negro Pews," where the black people would be confined. The Negro Pews would often be in the upper levels, so that the rich white church goers wouldn't have to actually see them. Although the Negro Pews would be monitored by white overseers.
Given the location of this particular chapel, I doubt any of these were negro pews. The population of the local area isn't that diverse even today, and probably wasn't in the 1800s either.
Numbering pews became an outdated practice towards the end of the 1800s, and now people can just park their buttocks anywhere in the house of Daddy G, but many old chapels still have the numbers on them, as a historic reminder that this religion that talks of a kind, loving, perfect God is still ruled over by very flawed fleshbag humans, and their silly intolerances.
Talking of silly fleshbag intolerances, the most famous one connected to religion is also in my opinion the oddest, and it's when some people use religion to justify their views against homosexuality. It's weird because in the bible, when asked to identify Jesus following his arrest, Judas gives him a big old smooch on the lips. As far as I'm concerned the only way to identify someone based on how they kiss is to have kissed them quite regularly, so Jesus and Judas were probably lovers, at least in biblical canon.
And anyway, theres only one line in the whole book that people refer to when they call homosexuality a sin, and that just says "Do not lie with a man as you would with a woman."
See, to me, that just means that if a man asks you if he looks fat, it's okay to say yes.
But I digress...
I think while the concept of believing in a deity is fine, centuries of book-editing to suit whatever agenda the penholder wants to push has turned religion into just another means of using fear to control what people think. As the world has turned away from God, regarding talking swans as more plausible, the mainstream media has filled the vaccuum, telling us what to fear instead. Centuries ago it was "Satan will get you if you're naughty" and now in 2019 it's an ever-changing stream of topics spewed by the mainstream media.
Still, for all their flaws, these fleshbag humans know how to make a cool looking church!
The yellow and purple though... what were these people thinking?
The ceiling of this building is in a beautiful state of decay.
It all looks very apocalyptic.
In regards to religion, I can wrap my head around the concept of intelligent design, or a God of some sort. But what I can't justify is the worship of it. Belief and worship are two very different things.
But what I really don't understand is the Christian misconception that their God loves them. In the bible God is angry, fearsome and vengeful. He's clearly the antagonist of the story. The humans are just doing their own thing and he swings by every few years to tell them off and punish them.
Read the book, and ask yourself, how would you react if the things being said and done by the Christian God were done by a human being. That human being would be called a sociopath.
If God exists then he does not deserve our blind worship, but our unquestionable resistance.
Doors at the back of the chapel led into this back room, which was much less church-like and full of litter.
In the kitchen were signs that someone had been squatting here.
If you're going to live in a church, at least live in the big pretty purple and yellow room. Why live in a church if you're just gonna lie in the bland kitchen every night?
There's a toilet right at the back of this long, narrow coridor, but it's a bit of a scramble to get to it.
It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.
Lastly, we have the cellar, which is very cluttered with rubbish bags piled up against a window. I think there's some fly-tipping going on here.
There's a really old coal shute here, which I assume would have helped provide heating in the church at some point. It's now filled with cement, but the door still opens and closes.
Curiously, there's a door at the back of the cellar which won't open. It's either locked or barricaded on the other side.
That's all I have for today.
To conclude, while I don't follow any particular religion, I still like churches and chapels for their architecture and atmosphere, and religion aside their importance as a communual hub in the past cannot be understated. What I love about abandoned and derelict buildings is that there was a time when they mattered to someone, and this can really be seen in religious sites, where the architecture itself is art, and so much effort has gone into their design. This is prevalent across most, if not all churches and chapels, from the massive gothic ones like this, to the teeny chapel at Denbigh Asylum. It's sad when we see them reduced to ruin, and the fact that one has to trespass to appreciate them is by far a greater crime than the trespass itself.
Next blog, we're darting off to one of the most bizarre locations in the UK, Jess will have a video, and a goose will fall. And after that, we get chased by llamas.
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