St Peter ad Vincula
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The Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula ("St. Peter in chains") is the parish church of the Tower of London, dating from 1520 and is a Royal Peculiar. The name refers to St. Peter's imprisonment under Herod in Jerusalem. The Chapel is probably best known as the burial place of some of the most famous prisoners executed at the Tower.
The existing building was erected for Henry VIII in 1519-20, but a chapel may have stood in its position since before the Norman conquest. At the west end is a short tower, surmounted by a lantern bell-cote, and inside the church is a nave and shorter north aisle, lit by windows with cusped lights but no tracery, a typical Tudor design.
The Chapel contains many splendid monuments. In the north-west corner is a memorial to John Holland, Duke of Exeter, who died 1447, a Constable of the Tower. Under the central arcade lies the effigy of Sir Richard Cholmondeley, who died 1544, a Lieutenant of the Tower. In the sanctuary there is an impressive monument to Sir Richard Blount, who died 1574, and his son Sir Michael, died 1596, both Tudor Lieutenants of the Tower, who would have witnessed many of the executions.
There is a fine 17th century organ, decorated with carvings by Grinling Gibbons.
The Chapel is perhaps best known as the burial place of some of the most famous Tower prisoners including three queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the 2nd and 5th wives of Henry VIII, and Lady Jane Grey, who reigned for nine days in 1553. Sir Thomas More and Sir John Fisher, who incurred the wrath of Henry VIII, and were later canonised by the Roman Catholic Church, are also buried here.
A list of those executed can be seen on the west wall.
The Chapel can be visited as part of a specific tour within the Tower of London.
[edit] Coggeshall
St Peter ad Vincula Church in Coggeshall, Essex, is one of a group of over-sized churches built following the success of the early wool-trade in the East Anglia area. The building now standing was completed in the first quarter of the 15th Century, and sits on a site where both Saxon and Norman churches stood previously.
[edit] Curdworth
St Nicholas and St Peter ad Vincula Church is located in Curdworth, Warwickshire. A church has stood on this site since Saxon times, the Saxon font is still used to this day. The present Church of St Nicholas and St Peter ad Vincula is of Norman origin (1170-1190), established in 1165 when the Augustinian Canons of the Abbey of St Mary de Pratis were granted the right to present a priest to the parish. The church was lengthened in the 14th Century and the Perpendicular style tower was added in 1460 by the Earl of Warwick, but it was never finished with its intended spire.
