The Garrison Chapel: A Spiritual Home For Traditional Arts

Not too far from Sloane Square station you will find a relatively new kid-on-the-block of London’s art scene. 

The Garrison Chapel, housed in a converted Victorian army chapel, only opened its doors in 2022. Today it sits amongst a new luxury housing development, but was once the chapel for Chelsea Barracks. 

Chelsea Barracks

Chelsea Barracks was established in 1862 on a relatively underdeveloped 13 acre site sandwiched between Chelsea, Pimlico and Belgravia. 

After the Crimean War (1853-1856) British Army facilities were deemed unsuitable and unsanitary. Reports, such as the Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of the Army in 1858, revealed severe issues with the existing infrastructure. They were generally filthy, unhygienic and unventilated. The work of Florence Nightingale in improving conditions in barracks in the Crimean War and her subsequent ‘Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army’, were a key contributor to this drive.

A brand new barracks were therefore built in Chelsea. Chelsea had a longstanding link to the British army through the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the Chelsea Pensioners, which I have written about previously here.

Chelsea Barracks was designed by George Morgan as a British Army base for Guards regiments. It largely consisted of a long brick structure along Chelsea Bridge Road, designed to house two battalions. One battalion was housed in each wing, dining quarters were moved out of sleeping quarters and it was well ventilated with windows on opposite sides of the building. 

As you can see from the image below, it was broken up by two central towers.

In 1897, it was an important part of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The barracks became home to over one thousand soldiers from India and across the globe to be a part of the parade and other celebrations. 

The Original Buildings Demolished

After World War Two the Victorian barracks buildings were again deemed unsuitable. They were therefore demolished in place of two 1960s 13-storey towers, built to accommodate four companies of Guards. 

Only the barracks chapel and the iron railings were left from the original Victorian development. 

On 10th October 1981 members of the British Army Irish Guards regiment at the barracks were targeted by an IRA bomb. A remotely controlled bomb was hidden in a laundry van close to the Barracks at the corner of Ebury Bridge Road and St Barnabus Street. It was detonated as a bus passed by carrying 23 Irish Guards towards the barracks. Two civilians were killed and forty people were injured, twenty-three of whom were soldiers. 

The Site Sold 

In 2005 John Reid, the Secretary of Defence, announced that the site would be sold. It was apparently outdated and needed extensive renovations. The money from the sale was then ‘ring-fenced’ be used to improve facilities elsewhere. 

The site was vacated by 2008 and the soldiers moved initially to the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich. The Government initially hoped to get around £250 million for the site, but the eventual sale price was a whopping £959 million. It was sold to Qatari Diar, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority. 

A plan for the site by Squire and Partners was approved in 2011 with 448 residential units, around seven garden squares. They are mostly hyper-luxury, with prices for flats starting at £3.3 million. There is also a members club called the Garrison Club. It looks like there are 41 ‘affordable’ apartments for social rent, a new NHS centre and shops as part of the development. 

The Garrison Chapel

The original Victorian chapel was at risk of being demolished along with everything else, but thankfully was saved after it was given a Grade II listing in 2011. The Victorian railings mentioned previously were given a Grade II listing in 2009. 

The chapel was designed by George Morgan in a simple Romanesque-Byzantine style, with the contrasting colours in the brickwork. 

Since 2022, the chapel has been home to a wonderful little art gallery called the Garrison Chapel. 

It is the exhibition space for the King’s Foundation, previously called the Prince’s Foundation. The King’s Foundation was founded by King Charles III in 1990, with the aim to promote sustainable communities, education in traditional skills, and environmental harmony. Part of what the charity does is provide training in traditional skills such as stonemasonry and fine art, through the School of Traditional Arts. 

When I visited the chapel there was an exhibition on Icon Painting, using traditional methods and materials such as egg tempera. 

There is currently an exhibition on (until 22nd February 2026) celebrating the 20th anniversary of another charity founded by the King called Turquoise Mountain. The charity was founded in 2006 in Afghanistan to support artisans and communities to protect and revitalise cultural heritage. 

The display includes the work of master artisans and their work such as hand-woven carpets and textiles, embroidery, jewellery, hand-blown glass, woodwork, ceramics, tilework, stonework, miniature painting and lacquerware.

Details To Spot

There are a couple of details to spot in the gallery relating to the history of the building itself. 

Around where the altar would have once been is original tilework. This area now contains busts of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. 

There are also surviving tiled memorials in memory of individual private soldiers. 

I was really pleasantly surprised by my visit. I was the only visitor when I went (although it was a very wet and rainy day), which made it a very nice, relaxing experience. The chapel and its details are also a great surviving reminder of the story of the area and its historic links to the military.

Visiting Garrison Chapel 

The Garrison Chapel is free to visit and is open from 11am-5pm Monday-Friday and 11am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. 

The address is: Chelsea Barracks, 8 Garrison Square, London, SW1W 8BG.

You can find out more about visiting and their exhibitions here. 

Thank you for reading, more of London’s lesser-known historical spots below…