The Independent Chapel at Ford

I stumbled upon this little gem completely by accident. I had no idea it existed and there is almost nothing about it on the internet either, so the narrative will be a short one.

I had seen this ruin from a distance but hadn't realised it was accessible, or that it was a former chapel. I had assumed it was just another tumbledown barn. On a recent walk, I took a detour to follow a green lane and ended up in the village of Ford. I am assuming that Ford got its name due to the fact that the road originally passed through a ford at this point. I certainly had to pass through a ford on the walk before I got to Ford, which I will post about separately. So I passed through a ford to get to Ford. Luckily I wasn't driving a Ford or you would have had to suffer a different sentence.

This was the first clue on my walk, that the chapel was right here.

There it is on the slope above the lane.

Although the building itself is a ruin, the graveyard is maintained and was neatly trimmed and full of wildflowers.

Wikipedia has this to say about Ford.

Ford is a hamlet about 6 miles from Stoke Fleming, in the civil parish of Chivelstone, in the South Hams district, in the county of Devon, England. Ford contains around a dozen houses and has a ruined chapel. In 1870-72 it had a population of 64. Ford was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Forde/Forda.

It had a recorded population of 3 households in 1086, putting it in the smallest 20% of settlements recorded in Domesday.

Ford was also known as "Ford juxta Alington" as far back as 1422.

The Independent Chapel was attended by nonconformists or Dissenters. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities.

Find a grave has this about our ruined chapel.

Constructed in the 18th-century to serve as an independent chapel, the ecclesiastical building of Ford was then enlarged in 1818. Though few records of the church survive to this day, the chapel was home to a largely dissenting congregation.

That is to say, many of the congregation in this part of the Parish of Stokenham were Protestant Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Truth be told, this is not surprising when one considers that influential dissenters, John Flavel and John Hicks, were prevalent in Stokenham during this period.

Western Times - Friday 05 February 1875

John Flavel, B.A., was ejected from the Rectory of St. Clement's, Dartmouth. This eminent divine was greatly beloved by members of his congregation, who flocked to hear him preach in the woods and fields after his ejectment. When persecution became very severe he went to London, where he preached with much acceptance, but he resisted all offers to settle and returning to Dartmouth when liberty of conscience had been decreed, continued to labour there until his death in 1691. At that time he was 64.

John Flavel was a bit of a thorn in the side of the traditional church. He was a nonconformist who originally preached in the town of Dartmouth from where he was expelled in 1662. Due to the increase of nonconformist preachers a parliamentary Act was introduced in 1665. The Five Miles Act did what you might expect in preventing trouble makers from preaching within a five mile exclusion zone around the place they had been expelled from.

Western Times - Saturday 23 August 1862

Dr. Oliver, in his History of Exeter, says that in 1638......."a petition in the State Paper Office records that thirty-eight men and four women were confined at one time in Exeter gaol for Nonconformity!" To shew that they were respectable middle-class persons, it is further stated "that they had been much engaged in the manufacture of serges (a durable twilled woollen or worsted fabric); and that they gave employment to five hundred persons in the trade, who, by their imprisonment, were thrown out of work." Among the more distinguished clergymen in other parts of the county who were ejected, were the celebrated John Howe, M.A., of Torrington, whose works are still a mine of theological lore ; and John Flavel, of Townstal, also an able writer;

Western Morning News - Wednesday 04 January 1939

Briefly, after his ejection from his living, John Hicks resided at Kingsbridge, Devon, where John Lucas, a constable, was killed in dispersing a conventicle (a secret or unlawful religious meeting, typically of nonconformists), and, with others, he was indicted before Mr. Justice Rainsford for murder, and, ably defending himself, was acquitted.

Although I cannot find any accurate dates for the founding or deserting of this chapel the national archive records for the building cover the period between 1772 and 1837. So we know that at the very least it was in existence as far back as 1772. I also spotted a tombstone marked 1891 so it was used at least to that date.

It is marked, although unnamed, at the top of this tithe map of 1847.

Named as The Congregational Chapel on this later OS map.

Then in this map, below, from as early as 1944 it is already an official ruin. What caused its demise? I cannot find out, but the likeliest cause would be demographic change. At the time of its founding dissenting beliefs were spreading fast and the rural population of this area was probably at its highest. There has been rural depopulation since and it was probably accelerated during the First World War.

Western Daily Mercury - Monday 16 September 1912

During the persecution the Nonconformists met at the Rock Saltstone, in the Kingsbridge Estuary, in the middle of Wide Gates, an islet about 100 feet in length and in breadth. It was extra parochial, lying nearly equidistant from the parishes of Charlton, South Pool, and Marlborough.

Flavel, of Dartmouth, and the Kingsbridge divines held services there, as it could he approached at low water.

Miss Cranch, in “Troublous Times,” gives an account of such a service from the notebook the Rev. John Hicks, one of the ejected ministers. “The white, taper-pointed spire of Kingsbridge Church was visible from where we stood; yet neither haughty magistrate, like Squire Reynell, nor blustering yeoman, nor long-armed constable might touch us there. True, our foes have sometimes been observed eyeing us from afar, and it might happen that when the boats containing divers parts of the congregation pushed off, and, having set these aland, returned for the rest, the tide had encroached upon the rook, so as to give considerable cause of mirth to those cruel watchers, who once, to judge by the exceeding liveliness of the gestures, would have liked nothing better than see us forced to swim.

In 1869 a list of Exeter charities and their donations mentions the following.....

Connected with the Incorporation of Weavers, Tuckers, Pullers, and Shearmen, are gifts of 5s. each to poor freemen of the company; 2s. 6d. to widows and female orphans of deceased freemen ; of £4 to a Nonconformist minister at Ford, Stokenham, and suits of clothing and of apprenticeship premiums of £5 each.

It has interested me for some time that the family name of Tucker abounds in this part of the South Hams and I had no idea until now that a Tucker was an occupation, although it should have been obvious. Tuckers (West Country) or Fullers, were skilled in the fulling process which aimed to soften newly woven cloth by beating or tramping it in water. Pullers meanwhile plucked or sheared skins. The shearman you can probably guess was someone who sheared sheep, so we can safely assume that the weavers mentioned above were weaving wool. We have already seen that dissenters in Exeter were heavily involved in the production of woolen cloth.

The Trade Guild of Weavers Tuckers Fullers and Shearmen of Exeter was incorporated in 1499. Their guild hall still stands today.

As the years went by Nonconformists were met with decreasing levels of prejudice and suspicion. Society moved from congregations having to meet on islands at low tide to congregants having their place of worship celebrated by a future Bishop of Truro.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper - Sunday 02 September 1906

NEW BISHOP OF TRURO.

The King has been pleased to approve the appointment of the Very Rev. Charles William Stubbs, D.D., Dean of Ely, to be Bishop of Truro, in succession to the Right Rev. John Gott, deceased.......

......In 1881 Mr. Gladstone preferred Mr. Stubbs to the vicarage of Stokenham, Devon. It was a less exciting field of work, but his sympathies and Liberal ideas found a characteristic expression when, on the opening of a Nonconformist place of worship in his remote parish, the vicar himself participated in the ceremony, stood by the side of the Dissenting minister, and spoke from the platform.

In 1858 an interesting heated debate started in nearby Kingsbridge when the established church which was losing popularity needed funds to repair their building which was in a sorry state. The local historic charity, the Feoffees, had money and the church wanted it and believed that they were entitled to it, but there was now a powerful voice of Dissenters growing in the town, and independent as they were, they funded their own buildings. The Dissenters were not going to stand by while the established church purloined charitable money intended for the poor. A top Churchman and expert declared that the money belonged to the church and the deeds from 1626 made this clear. The Dissenters were not having this and after a lot of shenanigans......

Western Times - Saturday 25 September 1858

.....it leaked out that the deeds were to be sent to “ Mr. Earl, of Oxford,” for his interpretation of them. Mr. Earl is a native of this town, and a few years since he lectured in the Town Hall on Kingsbridge. On that occasion he borrowed one of the old deeds, and he stated that it took him many days to decipher the first line, after which he quickly discovered that the property (of the Feoffees) was given to the Church. Mr. Earl, no doubt, is a good antiquarian and Anglo-saxon scholar, but he unfortunately happens to be a “ High Churchman,” and therefore no attention will be paid by the Dissenters to his version of the deeds.....

As someone famously answered in a notorious court case in the 1960's "He would say that wouldn't he".

.......The fact that the Dissenters of this town have, within the last twelve years, subscribed between £9,000 and £10,000 (£800,000 today) for the erection of chapels and support of their ministers, has taken these Churchmen by surprise, and completely dumbfounded them. But whilst the Church is beating a retreat, the Dissenters are advancing with more determination, and documents that were known but little of by the present generation previous to this time, are now being brought to light, and amongst them is one of great importance which is found in the vestry book. In 1833 several stormy meetings were held on the question of the Feoffee property, and after a desperate struggle, the Dissenters compelled the Feoffees to produce the deed of 1626, and this resolution was passed— That this meeting is of the opinion that the property was given entirely for the use of the poor.

The Dissenters were adamant that the established church needed to stand on its own two feet, or have their church fall down around their ears.

....The church at Modbury is to be new seated, at a cost of nearly £500, and although, in that point, it is possible they might obtain a majority for a rate, yet they have adopted the more noble plan of raising the sum required by voluntary contributions. Kingsbridge churchmen should follow their example, but if they love their gold more than their church, and a falling, disgraceful building more than a safe respectable place of worship, they can please themselves ; but if they expect to take any more of the Feoffee property they will be woefully mistaken.....

By way of absolute irrelevance I include this news item from the parish just because it is highly amusing.

Western Times - Saturday 11 June 1859

Vagrancy.— Wm. Williamson was charged with begging in Stokenham. He appeared with a crutch and stick, and told such a pitiful tale to the magistrates, J. Allen and F. Wells Esqrs., that they let him off with one week's imprisonment. As soon as he got inside the gaol gates he was recognised by the keeper, and immediately threw away his crutch and stick, and walked across the yard without the least lameness. His wife was sent off for one week for hawking without a license.

I started this post by declaring that the narrative would be short. Well it ended up a little more expansive than I had expected, but it did take me down some interesting local history trails. I don't know what the fate of this ruin will be. At the moment it seems destined to collapse completely, judging by the major cracks and leans in the walls that remain. I suppose that it is in the nature of a ruin that it gradually becomes more of a ruin. The grounds around it, however, remain a beauty spot and a wildlife haven for now.