| Summary : Agapemonite Church, 1892-5, by Joseph Morris and Sons of Reading. Sculpture by AG Walker. Stained glass by Walter Crane. Minor later alterations. Strong contrasts of materials with rough coursed rubble and plentiful Portland stone dressings; stone spire. Aisleless nave with apse, west tower and south west vestry. Most striking of all are the superb windows by the Arts and Crafts painter and illustrator Walter Crane, which present Old Testament imagery, allegorical scenes and symbolic flora using thick, semi-opaque glass. Joseph Morris and Sons were selected as architects for their connections with the sect. Although a Quaker, Joseph Morris contributed to the purchase of the site on Rookwood Road and two of his daughters, Violet (also an architect) and Olive (a wood-carver and engineer) were residents at the Spaxton Agapemone. It is very likely that Violet was involved in the design of the Ark of the Covenant; she had assisted her father and brothers in commissions in the Berkshire area and was the sole designer of a number of houses in Spaxton including East Gate House at the Agapemone (surviving, unlisted). Olive is believed to have carved the pulpit, and possibly also the lectern, in the church. The church closed in 1926 and was reopened in 1956 as a `The Primatial See of the Antient Catholic Church'. |
More information : Documented. (1)
The Agapemonites, also known as the Community of the Son of Man, emerged in the 1840s among the followers of Henry Prince, an itinerant preacher, charismatic leader and renegade minister of the Church of England. Prince and his followers settled in Spaxton, Somerset, establishing a religious community or 'Agapemone', meaning Abode of Love. Those who joined the commune were encouraged to sell off their possessions and this income permitted the development of a large estate in Spaxton and, by the 1890s, a church in north London, the Ark of the Covenant. Built at a cost of some £15,000, the Clapton church was prompted by a group of non-resident followers who wished to meet and practise their religious observances in an appropriately lavish setting.
The sect attracted notoriety, largely through the activities and pronouncements of its leaders. By the 1860s Prince was proclaiming himself to be the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Scandals - and lawsuits - soon began to surround the group, as it became clear that the 'spiritual marriages' contracted between the sect's leaders and various female followers had a carnal dimension. After Prince's death in 1899, he was succeeded by an equally magnetic character, John Smyth-Pigott. Smyth-Pigott resided at Clapton in his first years as leader and the Ark of the Covenant briefly became the de facto headquarters of the sect. Smyth-Pigott's relations with the numerous women who fell under his influence continued to cause periodic outrage among the public. Things came to a head in 1902, when at a quiet service on 7 September, Smyth-Pigott declared himself to be Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Second Coming. When he repeated his claim a day later, an excitable mob of several thousand taunted the congregation and chased Smyth-Pigott's brougham across Clapton Common to shouts of 'hypocrite'. Smyth-Pigott soon retired again to Spaxton, where he died in 1927, not before being defrocked as a minister of the Church of England in 1909.
Joseph Morris and Sons were selected as architects for their connections with the sect. Although a Quaker, Joseph Morris contributed to the purchase of the site on Rookwood Road and two of his daughters, Violet (also an architect) and Olive (a wood-carver and engineer) were residents at the Spaxton Agapemone. It is very likely that Violet was involved in the design of the Ark of the Covenant; she had assisted her father and brothers in commissions in the Berkshire area and was the sole designer of a number of houses in Spaxton including East Gate House at the Agapemone (surviving, unlisted). Olive is believed to have carved the pulpit, and possibly also the lectern, in the church.
The Agapemonites were one of a number of sects active in Victorian society. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 had removed a legal barrier to non-conformist Christian worship and a plurality of beliefs emerged. The Anglican orthodoxy was shattered both from within, where Tracterians pitted themselves against the Evangelicals, and without. Some movements - the Methodists, Unitarians and Baptists, for example - traced their beliefs back to the dissenters of the mid-C17; others at the bizarre end of the spectrum - Spiritualists, Comteian positivists, Occultists to name a few - emerged from the philosophical theories of the day and were only popular for a few decades. Very few of the latter movements formed structured organisations and the Agapemonites are unusual in this regard, although they are representative of many religious movements of the late C19 in concocting a hybrid of beliefs from conventional Christian doctrine and other schools of thought. (2) |