The chapel and estate life
The Aclands were a religious family who took their duties as role models very seriously. To Sir Thomas 10th, attending church was a public act of ‘witness’, and he had a seat for himself to underline his central role as benign patriarch, with everyone expected to know their place in the social hierarchy. However, he could also be unorthodox, often voting against his fellow MP’s, supporting causes like religious liberty. A keen supporter of Willberforce, he invited the anti-slavery campaigner Samuel Crowther to the chapel, who afterwards became the first black bishop.
Sir Charles Dyke Acland, who inherited the chapel in 1898, read the lesson in chapel every Sunday, and shook the hands of his farm tenants after the service. If they did not attend one Sunday, a groom would be sent to their house on Monday morning, and requested to explain their absence face-to-face with Sir Charles. What may have been a brisk conversation was softened by a glass of whisky. Even in the 1960s, the chapel bell still rung out to call the men to work every morning.
There were two significant Acland weddings in the chapel, Sir Thomas 10th’s daughter Agnes married Arthur Mills in 1848 when the local girls’ school lined the path holding palm leaves and the eldest daughter Amy who married the local vicar Rev Hart Davis who was attended by 8 bridesmaids.
