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A chapel of ease (sometimes 'chapel-of-ease') is a church building other than the main church (the parish church
Parish church

A parish church, in Christianity, is the local church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopalian church governance churches....
) of a parish
Parish

A parish is a local church; it is an administrative unit typically found in Roman Catholic, Anglican, United Methodist, and Presbyterianism churches....
.

Reasons for chapels of ease
Often such a chapel of ease is deliberately built as such, being more accessible to some parishioners than the main church. Such a chapel
Chapel

A chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large Church , a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds....
 may exist, for example, when a parish covers several dispersed village
Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
s, or a central village together with its satellite hamlet
Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural Human settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community....
 or hamlets.






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A chapel of ease (sometimes 'chapel-of-ease') is a church building other than the main church (the parish church
Parish church

A parish church, in Christianity, is the local church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopalian church governance churches....
) of a parish
Parish

A parish is a local church; it is an administrative unit typically found in Roman Catholic, Anglican, United Methodist, and Presbyterianism churches....
.

Reasons for chapels of ease


Often such a chapel of ease is deliberately built as such, being more accessible to some parishioners than the main church. Such a chapel
Chapel

A chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large Church , a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds....
 may exist, for example, when a parish covers several dispersed village
Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
s, or a central village together with its satellite hamlet
Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural Human settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community....
 or hamlets. In such a case the parish church will be in the main settlement, with one or more chapels of ease in the subordinate village(s) and/or hamlet(s).

Some chapels of ease are buildings which used to be the main parish church until a larger building was constructed for that purpose. For example, the small village of Norton, Hertfordshire
Norton, Hertfordshire

Norton is a small village in Hertfordshire, one of the three original villages which were absorbed into Letchworth Garden City, the other two being Willian and Old Letchworth....
 contains the mediaeval church of St Nicholas, which served it adequately for centuries; but when the large new town of Letchworth was built, partly within the parish, St Nicholas's became too small to serve the increased population. This led to the building of a new main church building for the parish, and St Nicholas's became a chapel of ease.

Chapels of ease are sometimes associated with large manor house
Manor house

A manor house or fortified manor-house is a country house, which has historically formed the administrative centre of a manor , the lowest unit of territorial organization in the feudal system....
s, where they provide a convenient place of worship for the family of the manor, and for the domestic and rural staff of the house and the estate. There are many such chapels in England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, for example that at Pedlinge
Pedlinge

Pedlinge is a hamlet on the edge of the village of Saltwood in Kent. It has its own church, though this is officially classified as a Chapel of ease since Pedlinge is part of the parish of Saltwood, and not a parish in its own right....
 in Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
.

Sometimes an ancient parish church is reduced in status to a chapel of ease due to a shift of population. An example is the churches of St Mary Wiston
Wiston

Wiston could be*Wiston, Pembrokeshire*Wiston, West Sussex*Wiston Castle, Pembrokeshire.* Wiston, South Lanarkshire...
 and All Saints Buncton
Buncton

Buncton is a small village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England, part of the civil parish of Wiston, West Sussex. It lies to the east of the A24 road road, about 20 miles south of Horsham....
 in West Sussex
West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial counties of England until 1974 and the coming into force of the Local Government...
. For centuries St Mary's was the parish church (located near to Wiston House and therefore the centre of population), whilst All Saints served the nearby hamlet of Buncton, as a chapel of ease. Today, however, the resident population of Wiston is tiny, whilst Buncton has grown, so that in 2007 the status of the buildings was reversed, with All Saints becoming the parish church, and St Mary's reduced to a chapel of ease.

When two or more existing parishes are combined into a single parish, one or more of the old church buildings may be kept as a chapel of ease. An example can be seen in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States....
, where, in 1987, the six parishes of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose in California
Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose in California

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose in California is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the northern California region of the United States....
 in the city were combined into a single parish, Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish
Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish

Started in 1901 and completed in 1902, St. Thomas Aquinas Church is the oldest church in Palo Alto, California and is a registered historic landmark....
. , St. Thomas Aquinas Church serves as the parish church, with Our Lady of the Rosary Church and St. Albert the Great Church as chapels of ease.

See also

  • Chapelry
    Chapelry

    A Chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England, and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th Century. It had a similar status to a Township but was so named as it had a chapel which acted as a subsidiary place of worship to the main Parish Church....