There is a small chapel at Point in View, near Exmouth. It is Congregational, and it provides seating accommodation for eighty persons, and forms one side of a block, the other three sides being taken up by four little almshouses, each consisting of two rooms occupied by four elderly maiden ladies. Over the chapel door is this motto:—
"One Point in View
We all pursue."
The chapel contains a diminutive organ made by the pastor. In the vicinity there is a peculiar round house, the property of the Reichel family. It was a member of this family who founded the chapel and almshouses.
The little church of St. Nicholas at Hulcote should be mentioned. It is near Woburn, the seat of the Duke of Bedford. It is rather difficult to find, at any rate when the foliage is on the trees, so surrounded is it by them. It was built about the year 1610 by Richard Chernocke. Its measurements are: length, from the tower to the chancel step, thirty-nine and a half feet; chancel, eight and a half feet from step to east; width, sixteen feet three inches. There are carved oaken panels to many of the seats, and on the north wall, inside the chancel rails, are some valuable old monuments in memory of the Chernocke family. It is now between fifteen and twenty years since the church was used for divine service, but it is still used for funerals.
There is a little church, near London, known as Perivale. Although so near to the great metropolis, it is situated in a peculiarly lonely district. It lies in the valley of the Brent amid expansive meadows and hay farms. In 1871 there were only seven houses and thirty-three inhabitants in the parish. The midget church is situated at the end of a field near a low, semi-Gothic half-timber parsonage and a farmhouse. Although somewhat desolate, the spot is a restful one, and the hill and spire of Harrow in the distance make the scene pleasing to the eye. The little church is in the Early Perpendicular style, and consists of a nave, a narrow chancel, a rough wooden tower with short, pyramidal spire at the west, and porch on the south-west. The interior presents a well-kept appearance. The church was restored in 1875. In the windows is some late fifteenth-century glass containing figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Matthew, in fairly good condition, and of Mary and Joseph, which are not so well preserved.
The prettily situated ivy-clad church of St. Lawrence, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, is another edifice which might well be described as a midget church, although some years ago it was found necessary to enlarge it. The church originally was thirty feet eight and a half inches long, it is now forty feet eight and a half inches; and its breadth was formerly eleven feet, whereas it is now twenty feet. The height to the eaves is about six feet. The architecture is Old English, but not at all striking. The church dates back to about the year 1190.
(Photo: F. N. Broderick Hyde.)
THE OLD CHURCH AT ST. LAWRENCE.