St Anne’s Chapel

St Anne’s is set in a green, pedestrianized oasis in the very heart of Barnstaple; a Gothic building in miniature, charming and unassuming, in the middle of the Parish Church cemetery. St. Anne’s is one example of an extraordinary group of historic buildings concentrated in between Barnstaple’s two main shopping streets and now hosts a programme of community arts activity with ThePlough@StAnne’s

The Chapel is Barnstaple’s last surviving Chantry Chapel. Although there is no record of when St. Anne’s was built it is thought to date predominately to the early 14th century.

A Chantry Chapel was a place where a mass was held for the soul of the chantry founder to ease the soul’s passage through purgatory. A wealthy family, or a guild, would hire a priest specifically for this purpose. The first recorded chantry at St. Anne’s was in 1459. This does not mark the founding of St. Anne’s; the building was already in existence as evidenced by an earlier document regarding maintenance.

In addition to the Chantry Chapel, St. Anne’s has a ground floor or undercroft. There has been much debate over what the purpose of this room was. It could have been the site for the tomb or burial of the building’s founder, or it could have been a charnel house. A charnel house is a place where the bones disturbed by later burials could be stored with respect.