Hensley Memorial Chapel

Welcome to Hensley Memorial Chapel at King's-Edgehill School.

The Chapel is an integral part of the life of the School, its spiritual heart and soul as it were, reminding us that education should speak to the soul as well as to the mind, and reminding us, too, of the history and tradition of our School.

In keeping with the history and tradition of the School, the daily chapel service is a simplified form of (Anglican) Morning Prayer. We sing and say things together. We listen together to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. We wrestle together with the same momentous questions which also belong inescapably to our own contemporary world. Together we endeavour to see their connection to everything else in the adventure of learning.

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About Chapel

It was a 13th century tutor at Oxford University, Edmond of Abingdon, who advised his students, “study as if you were to live for ever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.” We can no longer take for granted the place of religion in our institutions; we have, instead, to understand it. Such is, perhaps, the flight of the owl of Minerva in the twilight of modernity, in the dusk of the late twentieth century and in the early dawn of the twenty-first century.
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Beginning Each Day

"In the beginning God." So begins the "book of beginnings", The Book of Genesis. Begin with God and everything else comes after. Part of what comes after is, of course, the daily round of classes and activities at King's-Edgehill. But we begin each day in Chapel with the contemplative activity of prayer and praise - a dance of the soul, if you will.

In keeping with the history and tradition of the School, the daily chapel service is a simplified form of (Anglican) Morning Prayer. First, there is a hymn - sung, if not fervently, at least heartily, we hope! - followed by a Scriptural sentence for the day or season, then Confession and Absolution, the Lord's Prayer, a Scripture Lesson from the Old or New Testament, an Homily which seeks to provide an understanding of the images of Scripture, a few prayers and a moment of silence before saying together the School Prayer, the Blessing and a final hymn. All rather simple, short and sweet. An important beginning to the "busyness" of the day. A reflective, contemplative moment.
Chaplain’s Corner

There will be a short Sunday Service of Holy Communion or Mass at 4:30pm offered on most Sundays during term time to which all are welcome.

In keeping with the educational principles of King’s-Edgehill School, religious instruction is also provided, apart from the daily Chapel Services held throughout the School year.

Fides quarens intellectum - Faith seeking understanding is a basic principle that guides and directs the entire educational programme.
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The Strong Shield

Shields are more than the artifacts of war; they may also serve as icons of identity, capturing some understanding of who we are as a community and a culture. The Shield of Achilles, for instance, conveys artistically and symbolically the entire world view of the Ancient Greeks. As Homer sees it, that world is a cosmos, an ordered whole within which the whole array of human actions find their place. The Shield includes the images of a city at peace and a city at war.

The Strong Shield, to be laid up in this Chapel, shall serve, I pray, as a kind of icon of the understanding about this School, its history and its traditions, and, in particular, about the role of the cadet corps. The Shield, as named and given in honour of Major Cecil V. Strong, reminds our young cadets of the sombre realities of war, but it does so within that larger understanding of sacrifice.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Anneal'd in Glass

Hensley Memorial Chapel can now boast of a complete set of stained-glass windows that provide a splendid narrative of history and education proper to the tradition and history of the School. Three new windows have been created and installed, courtesy of the graduating classes of 2005/06, the Wainwright family, and Mr. David Lamond.

The new windows depict respectively: St. Anselm, a great medieval Latin Scholar and Archbishop of Canterbury; Thomas Cranmer, the 16th century Archbishop of Canterbury, martyr, and architect of the Book of Common Prayer, one of three great monuments of the English language (along with the works of Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible); and, in the Chancel, Bishop Charles Inglis, the father-founder of the School and College.

Sattler’s Stained Glass Studio of West LaHave designed and executed the Chaplain’s plan and repaired the existing windows in the Chapel.

The windows enhance the quiet and contemplative beauty of the Chapel, capturing something of the larger legacy of learning of the School, “anneal[ing] in glasse” the story of Christ and the story of the School.
Commemorations of KJB and BCP

“Hearing his Most Holy Word”

The years 2011 and 2012 mark the special celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the ‘mother’ prayer book which travelled throughout the world for centuries and was a conduit for making familiar major portions of the New Testament in the King James translation. It is also the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Book of Common Prayer, the only post World War II prayer book which belongs explicitly to this Anglican tradition of Common Prayer. While of particular note to Anglicans and Anglican institutions, these anniversary commemorations speak to the larger and global world of the English language which extends beyond England’s “sceptred isle” and even beyond the complexities and complaints of the ventures of colonialism as well. Both works have played a role in the shaping of different forms of expression in English and continue to have a great influence.
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