In search of the Strangers’ Chapel that was St Faith’s
Students of the Civil War Battle of Maidstone (1648) will know it was in the churchyard of St Faith’s (near to what is now Maidstone Museum) the Royalist forces made their last stand before capitulating to the Parliamentary army.
But when the surviving Royalists emerged from to hand over their swords, it was not from the imposing St Faith’s Church we see today – that was not built until 1872 – but rather from a smaller and much older St Faith’s Chapel. Of medieval origins, the chapel by this time was known as the Stranger’s Chapel – Strangers being the term for the French Hugeonot and Dutch
Walloon refugees living in Maidstone. The Strangers were Protestant non-conformists who had fled prosecution in their Catholic home countries, particularly after the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France in 1572, in which an estimated 30,000 protestants were slaughtered. Their arrival was good news for Britain as they brought with them skills in cloth-making and weaving, and – of particular relevance to Maidstone – paper making, which helped kick-start those industries in Kent. The chapel and its churchyard had been part of the estate of the College of All Saints, but in 1573 it was bought by the Corporation
of Maidstone which granted its use to the refugees. A congregation of French-speaking Walloons (from Holland) thus established the first organised Non-Conformist church in the County Town.
The Church of England was none too happy with the arrangement, and Archbishop Laud in particular tried to impose various restrictions on St Faiths and even succeeded in having it closed from 1634 to 1646.
Ironically, it was the new religious tolerance introduced by the Civil War Parliamentarians that enabled the church to re-open and subsequently to provide shelter for the Royalists. St Faith’s Chapel continued as non-conformist church until around 1736, when falling numbers led to its closure. The building was used first as a storehouse for the West Kent Militia and then as a girls’ boarding school, but it fell into disrepair and was pulled down in 1858. All that remains of it are two stone pillars in the museum’s car park. There is a third column there too, which was rescued from Boxley Abbey when that was destroyed on the orders of Henry VIII. The museum’s own unconsecrated chapel was probably built with stone re-used from St Faith’s.