Boone's Chapel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boone's Chapel is a single-storey building attributed to Sir Christopher Wren and built in 1683. The chapel is very small, measuring just 45 square metres and is constructed of red brickwork with Portland stone details to window architraves, rusticated quoins and a pyramidal roof with an open wood cupola. The chapel is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England.[1]
It is located adjacent to the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors almshouses on Lee High Road in Lewisham, London and is one of only two Grade I-listed buildings in the borough of Lewisham (the other is St Paul's, Deptford).[2][3]
Mausoleum
Christopher Boone, a member of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to design the chapel. The Boone family lived in Herefordshire and income from their estate was used to build almshouses for the elderly of Lee and also to educate twelve poor children.
Though Wren may have been commissioned to build both the chapel and almshouses, it appears that Robert Hooke, a friend and colleague and another member of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, actually undertook construction.
Although the almshouses that were built to the left of the chapel along Lee High Road were demolished in 1877,[4] the chapel itself was preserved as a reading room. There are remaining Grade II-listed almhouses dating from 1825 just up from the chapel. Following the end of the second world war, the chapel fell into disuse.
Both Christopher Boone (1616-1686) and his wife, Mary (c1638-1722) are interred within the chapel.
