Eton College Chapel, Eton

Eton College Chapel is the main chapel of Eton College, an independent school in the United Kingdom.

The chapel was planned to be a little over double its actual length, but this plan was never completed owing to the downfall of the founder Henry VI. A plaque on a building opposite the west end marks the point to which it should have reached. The Chapel is built in the late Gothic or Perpendicular style.

The fan vaulting was installed in the 1950s after the wooden roof (there was no money for a vault to be installed in the 15th century after King Henry VI was deposed) became infested with deathwatch beetle. It was completed in three years and is made of concrete, faced with stone, supported by steel trusses, with hand-carved Clipsham stone for the stone ribs supporting each bay.

Eton College Chapel is in frequent use, with at least one service a day during termtime, and many additional services which are in popular demand, ranging from Taizé to Roman Catholic Communion, to Compline. Almost every morning there is a compulsory service, attended by different 'Blocks' (school years) depending on the day, something which has been both criticised and defended by boys in The Chronicle (the school magazine). These last no more than twenty minutes.

Henry attached the greatest importance to the religious aspects of his new foundation and he planned that the services would be conducted on a magnificent scale by providing an establishment of 10 fellow priests, 10 chaplains, 10 clerks and 16 choristers. There were to be 14 services a day plus prayers that were said. There would also be masses offered for the Founder's parents and after his death for the Founder instead. This last custom reflected the belief in the Middle Ages that prayers said for a dead person's soul hastened the progress of that soul from Purgatory to Paradise.

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