Churches of the British Isles

The new church was located in a prominent position, facing the settlement along the existing road from Old Town but then well outside its built-up area. It was built in coursed granite ashlar with a stone-coped gabled slate roof, and consists of a single-vessel chancel and seven-bay nave with a north tower in the Early Pointed Gothic Revival style - an unusual style for the islands for which Augustus Smith was responsible in his dual role as 'Chaplain of the Isles'.

Hugh Town (First) Bible Christian Chapel is on Church Street. Bible Christian missionaries arrived in the 1820s and began preaching from the Bishop & Wolf Inn. They may have included Mary Ann Wherry, one of the early female itinerant preachers who was thought to be on the islands in 1822. The first chapel was built about 1836. Augustus Smith added an infant school extension to it in 1854. When the new chapel was built (below), this became the Sunday school.

Hugh Town (Second) Bible Christian Chapel is at the north-east corner of Church Street and Well Cross. Supposedly built about 1900 to replace the first chapel (above), other dates are also given for its construction, including about 1845, and with a reseating in 1876. It fully replaced the original chapel in 1900, and became St Martin's United Methodist Chapel in 1907. From 1932 it has remained St Martin's Methodist Church, now the only chapel on the islands.

The former Hugh Town Baptist Chapel building stands on the southern side of Lower Strand, four doors to the east of the Catholic church (see below). Records of baptisms exist at least for 1821-1837, while the chapel seems to have ceased before 1900 according to Victorian OS maps, although Bryher Nonconformist (Baptist) Chapel continued in use through much of the twentieth century. From 2011 the building was occupied by a hairdresser's called 'Cut Loose'.

Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church is on the south side of Lower Strand, opposite the western edge of Holgates Green. The building now housing this chapel was erected in 1860 as the island's primary school for girls, remaining as such until 1906. In 1931 the duchy of Cornwall was approached by the island's Catholic community regarding the use of a building as a chapel and it was offered the lease of this premises. The building was purchased outright in 1949.

Four photos on this page kindly contributed by Douglas Law (two), 'Lofty1965', and Antony Whitehead, all via the 'History Files: Churches of the British Isles' Flickr group, and one photo each copyright © Andrew Abbott and Steve Duncan, reused under a cc licence. Additional information from Isles of Scilly Historic Environment, Research Framework, Updated Resource Assessment and Research Agenda 2019, Cornwall Archaeological Unit.