Tuxlith Chapel, Milland

Have you ever heard of the Friends of Friendless Churches? Neither had I till today. This is the body that looks after Tuxlith Chapel, Milland, later known as Milland Old Church. It sits in woodland behind the Victorian church that replaced it, and is open at the moment under the Heritage Open Days scheme. It has gone by various names during its long history, one being Tuck’s Hythe which gave rise to Tuxlith.

The chapel is Grade II listed and thought to have been a ‘chapel of ease’ to St George’s Church at nearby Trotton. But there are signs that there was an earlier building here, with a blocked up window dating from the 12th century and herringbone masonry dating to Norman times. The earliest document relating to the church is dated 1532. It remained in use as a Sunday School until the 1950’s. By 1959 it was described as ‘disused and neglected’. It wasn’t until 1974 that the Friends of Friendless Churches came along and saved it.

The Friends of Friendless Churches was originally formed as a pressure group but soon changed its constitution so that it could repair and renovate these unloved old buildings in its possession. In 2012, it owned 23 chapels or churches in England and 21 in Wales.

To take this picture I stood with my back to the ‘new’ church. I’ve never seen old graves in mounds such as these before. You can see them better in Large. A couple of features which show the nature of ‘add ons’ to the ancient building – the people using the 17th century gallery would have to enter from an external staircase, and the vestry too had only an external entrance, leaving the vicar to trot round the corner to the main door in every kind of weather.

The architectural historian Pevsner described the contrast between the ancient and the relatively modern churches as making "a very telling contrast between true piety and 19th-century religious advertisement". In defence of St Lukes’ Victorian version, it is quite an attractive and well kept building. We couldn’t go inside as there was a wedding taking place, we coincidentally arrived at the same time as the bride and bridesmaids! We got some strange looks from the guests as we turned up in our walking gear ….