SITE OF UNITARIAN CHAPEL AT FILBY, near Caister-on-Sea (TG 466133)
| The Norfolk Archaeological Trust manages the small meadow at Filby where the Unitarian chapel stood before it was demolished after suffering severe bomb damage in the Second World War. It is an interesting site with the foundations of two chapels, along with some fine eighteenth century grave slabs which are set in the grass. |
Newspaper photo of the bomb-damaged second chapel in 1940 before demolition. |
The two chapels
It was here that one the oldest Dissenters’ chapels in Norfolk, founded in 1705 by Henry Daliel, its first minister, was built. At the early age of twenty-three, with five other Dissenters, he started work on the chapel, and it was completed in 1709, two years before his death. The chapel, built of brick and flint, was designed to seat about 200 people.
On Henry Daliel’s grave slab it says:
“He happily accomplished the work of constructing this chapel which he even more happily adorned.”
This chapel was replaced shortly before 1900 by a smaller brick building standing on the area now marked in gravel. This was badly damaged by a bomb in 1940, making the structure so unsafe that it had to be demolished. The site then became overgrown until 1990 when it was rediscovered and cleared of debris by the Filby Society, assisted by an Employment Action Team led by Eric Vaughan of the Great Yarmouth Old Meeting House congregation, who exposed the foundations and the grave slabs as you see them all today.
The grave slabs
Seven fine eighteenth-century grave slabs survive. They are in their original positions, except for the one nearest the path, to Thomas Deverson “30 years Collector of Salt Duties, Yarmouth” (1786), which was probably moved to form a central feature within the later chapel.
The rest are for:
Henricus (Henry) Daliel (1711), the founder
Mary Spencer (1770) and her daughter Mary Spencer (1770)
Elizabeth Alderson (1791)
Mary Hurry (1792)
Robert Allen (1794) and his wife Margaret (1810)
Samuel Haw (1799)
When the first chapel was demolished it is said the walls were retained at a height of five feet to form an enclosure around the burial ground for these burials adjacent to the new building.
History of the Dissenters
Dissatisfaction with the creeds and rituals of the Church of England grew during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, and this led to groups of “dissenters” (or nonconformists) meeting to worship, but they had to meet in secret to avoid persecution. With the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, their meetings were no longer illegal and more groups sprang up, mainly in the towns.
Only after the Act of Toleration in 1689 could they build their own meeting-houses or chapels which had to be registered with the Bishop. Quakers, Baptists, Independents (later called Congregationalists) and Presbyterians were among the first, becoming more numerous in the favourable eighteenth-century “Age of Enlightenment”.
When the 1844 the Dissenters’ Chapels Act was passed Unitarians could then own their own chapels.
The Filby Unitarians
The first chapel on this site was licensed as a Meeting House for “Protestant Dissenters” on 11th July 1706. By 1723 it was described as a “Congregational Church”. About a century later it became one of only six Unitarian chapels in the county. The Unitarians rejected the concept of the Trinity (the Father, Son and Holy Ghost) and instead stressed the unity or “oneness” of God. They believed that the divine spirit is in every individual who should follow the dictates of his, or her, own reason and conscience.
The symbol of a flaming chalice on the gate into the site is the universal sign of the Unitarian Church. It represents the flame of the living truth within the chalice of shared faith. The Unitarians have three main principles, Freedom, Reason and Tolerance. While they accept many of the traditional church teachings, they believe that no doctrine is too sacred to be questioned. Their faith is “a religion of questions and not answers”.
Access
From Filby main street turn south at the school onto the Thrigby road. Then look out for a field gate on the left with the words “Unitarian Heritage Site” written in gold along the top. Walk through the small meadow along the public footpath to the chapel site at the back.
Newspaper photo of the bomb-damaged second chapel in 1940 before demolition. |
Site plan showing two phases of chapels on the site in relation to position of the interpretation panel. |
Photo of the site with the foundations of the later chapel and the interpretation panel on its brick plinth.
|
The interpretation panel.
|
|
