From the outside, there is little to suggest what is hidden within the old building beside the Catholic church at West Grinstead.
Parts of the building may date from the 16th century and was once an agricultural cottage belonging to the Caryll family, local Catholic landowners. But climb upstairs, and tucked away beneath the roof is something altogether more extraordinary: a tiny secret chapel believed to have been used as a safe house for Catholic priests from around the 1630s.
“This was just an agricultural building,” my guide explains as we stand outside. “It would have been in woodland and used by agricultural workers.”
Its very ordinariness, of course, was part of the point.
Persecution
Following the Reformation, practising Catholicism in England became increasingly dangerous. The position ebbed and flowed through successive monarchs: Henry VIII’s break with Rome was followed by the Protestant reign of Edward VI, a return to Catholicism under Mary I and another reversal under Elizabeth I. Expectations that James I might relax restrictions were followed by the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and another crackdown.
For Catholic families such as the Carylls, faith increasingly had to retreat from public view. At times, Catholics were permitted to celebrate Mass privately in their own homes. At others, even that became dangerous. The penalties for recusancy (refusing to attend Church of England services) could also be financially devastating. The Carylls gradually sold land as their fortunes declined. And so, hidden away from their main house, this humble agricultural building appears to have taken on another life.
“We think they were using it as a safe house for priests,” my guide tells me, “and as a place to say Mass.”
We head upstairs.
A secret altar of repose
The chapel is tiny. Today, no more than 12 people are allowed inside at any one time. My immediate reaction on stepping through the door is one of astonishment. It feels almost impossibly intimate. And remarkably, this is not simply a historical exhibit. The room remains a consecrated chapel and is still occasionally used for private Masses. Priests (sometimes visitors from continental Europe who, apparently, know more about West Grinstead than many people living in England) ask to celebrate Mass here. Families occasionally request a special private service. The chapel also still plays a part in the church’s Holy Week observance. On Maundy Thursday, when the main altar is stripped ahead of Good Friday, the Blessed Sacrament is brought upstairs and rests here overnight.
“It’s very much an altar of repose,” my guide explains.
But perhaps the most compelling evidence for the room’s clandestine past lies beneath our feet and behind its walls. During work on the building, a flimsy false wall was discovered. Beneath the floorboards, meanwhile, a bundle wrapped in cloth was found. When the cloth was opened, it crumbled away, revealing objects believed to have been concealed there for centuries: a pewter chalice, a small altar stone, a bell and other items. They have subsequently been dated to the 16th and 17th centuries, and at least one of the objects is believed to be French.
The English Mission
Suddenly the idea of a secret chapel stops feeling romantic and becomes very real. These were people concealing the physical tools of their faith. An Englishman wishing to become a Catholic priest could not train or be ordained here. Instead, prospective priests travelled to seminaries on the Continent, including Douai in France and Valladolid in Spain, before some were sent back as part of what became known as the English Mission. And for the priests who returned to England, the consequences of discovery could be horrific.
“They knew they were going to be sent back,” my guide says. “England at the time was seen as a missionary outpost.”
Blessed Francis Bell
Among the men associated with West Grinstead is Blessed Francis Bell. Born Arthur Bell, he took the name Francis after his ordination and spent years ministering as a Catholic priest before being arrested. He was imprisoned at Newgate and executed at Tyburn in 1643.
Crucially for the story of this little Sussex chapel, the evidence against him included an accusation that he had said Mass at West Grinstead. He is also known to have had connections with the Caryll family. Today, relics associated with him are kept here, including one of his vertebrae, and part of his clothing and sandal. He was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1987. There is even a haunting image of him. While Bell was awaiting trial and execution in Newgate, a fellow prisoner, John Gifford, sketched him. Gifford was later released and the image survived. The copy at West Grinstead depicts a face that feels startlingly immediate, not simply a name from a history book, but a man awaiting his death.
The altar in the secret chapel provides another link with the Carylls. Originally from their private chapel, it is thought to date from around 1680. It can be dismantled (an unexpectedly practical feature in circumstances where an altar might need to be moved or concealed). Restored in more recent years, it looks remarkably pristine.
A place of pilgrimage
The story of West Grinstead, however, did not end when Catholic worship ceased to be clandestine. Beside the old building stands the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Consolation, opened in 1876. Its existence is directly connected with what happened here during the centuries before it. The church was created as a shrine in thanksgiving for the survival of Catholic worship at West Grinstead through the Reformation and beyond.
Its founder, the French priest Monsignor Jean-Marie Denis, served here from 1863 until 1900 and travelled on the Continent to raise support for the new church. There are fascinating French threads running throughout the West Grinstead story: émigré priests had themselves fled persecution during the French Revolution and travelled to England, with priests even said to have journeyed up the River Adur.
Today, West Grinstead remains a place of pilgrimage. People walk here, arrive in parish groups and collect stamps in British Pilgrimage Trust passports. A pilgrimage route from Arundel Cathedral to West Grinstead covers some 17 miles, while others arrive from much further afield.
It makes this tiny room beneath the roof feel part of something much larger. Centuries ago, people climbed into this room because openly practising their faith could cost them their liberty, their wealth and even their lives. Sacred objects were hidden beneath floorboards. Priests moved through the landscape in secret. Families quietly maintained a faith that the law sought to suppress and yet the chapel survived. Hidden away in the Sussex countryside, it is an extraordinary little place.
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