OCTAGON CHAPEL, NORWICH
By Roger Morgan
The chapel in Colegate, Norwich, was designed by the architect Thomas IVORY who also built the city’s Assembly House.
It was built for the English Presbyterians with the first stone being laid on 25th February, 1754. It was completed in 1756. The striking octagonal design won over a committee chaired by John Taylor, a member of an influential Norwich family.
The building had a simple aura of a 17th century meeting house but Ivory added a raised palladian entrance portico. Inside, the chapel stayed true to the ideas of purity and simplicity of worship, but its eight columns, high windows, domed ceiling and raised gallery made it a splendid achievement without being showy.
It cost more than £5,000 which was raised by the congregation and it could hold up to 1,000 people. Initially it was called the New Meeting House to differentiate it from its neighbour further along Colegate, but it soon became known as the Octagon.
John Wesley visited in 1757, and wrote “I was shown Dr Taylor’s new meeting house, perhaps the most elegant one in all of Europe”. The Octagon became the model for a number of octagonal Methodist chapels, including a more modern one at King’s Lynn.
The original Presbyterian congregation gave way to the growth of Unitarianism and a number of leading Norwich families like the Martineau’s were associated with the Octagon. The original pews were high, with doors, but these were changed by the Victorians, who undertook a major overhaul in 1889. They enlarged the pulpit and darkened the woodwork in the fashionable taste of the time. Today it is famed for its excellent acoustics that make it ideal for the musical concerts which are often held there.
By Roger Morgan
The chapel in Colegate, Norwich, was designed by the architect Thomas IVORY who also built the city’s Assembly House.
It was built for the English Presbyterians with the first stone being laid on 25th February, 1754. It was completed in 1756. The striking octagonal design won over a committee chaired by John Taylor, a member of an influential Norwich family.
The building had a simple aura of a 17th century meeting house but Ivory added a raised palladian entrance portico. Inside, the chapel stayed true to the ideas of purity and simplicity of worship, but its eight columns, high windows, domed ceiling and raised gallery made it a splendid achievement without being showy.
It cost more than £5,000 which was raised by the congregation and it could hold up to 1,000 people. Initially it was called the New Meeting House to differentiate it from its neighbour further along Colegate, but it soon became known as the Octagon.
John Wesley visited in 1757, and wrote “I was shown Dr Taylor’s new meeting house, perhaps the most elegant one in all of Europe”. The Octagon became the model for a number of octagonal Methodist chapels, including a more modern one at King’s Lynn.
The original Presbyterian congregation gave way to the growth of Unitarianism and a number of leading Norwich families like the Martineau’s were associated with the Octagon. The original pews were high, with doors, but these were changed by the Victorians, who undertook a major overhaul in 1889. They enlarged the pulpit and darkened the woodwork in the fashionable taste of the time. Today it is famed for its excellent acoustics that make it ideal for the musical concerts which are often held there.