The Bodenham family's private chapel near Hereford, part medieval, part Elizabethan, with Victorian decoration added by the Pugins
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Rotherwas Chapel was built for the Bodenham family, Roman Catholic landowners whose grand house once stood beside it until its demolition in 1926. Its oldest fabric is medieval, but the eye-catching Elizabethan roof, a web of timber beams and carved pendants, was fitted around 1589 when Sir Roger Bodenham rebuilt the nave; the chapel became the family’s own place of Catholic worship after his conversion in 1606. The tower was rebuilt in the 1730s. In 1868 Edward Welby Pugin, son of the architect behind much of the Houses of Parliament’s Gothic interior, gave the chapel its ornate Victorian altar, screen and stained glass. The chapel is a couple of miles from Hereford; you’re free to see it from outside whenever you like, though viewing the inside means arranging a key locally in advance.
