LAVATORIES, parking, heating, comfortable seats if possible, maybe some carpet. PCCs around the country are under pressure to attract new worshippers who would never think of going anywhere without such amenities. It is paradoxical, therefore, that some of the places deemed most spiritual have absolutely naught for your comfort.

One such is St Aldhelm’s Chapel, close to the edge of a cliff on the Dorset coast. It is a small, square building, dating from the 12th century. In its 800-year history, it has gained one or two amenities: a new roof or two, some glass for its one thin window, and two buttresses that make it look more like a bunker than a church — albeit a Grade I listed bunker.

But there is no electricity, no heating — and certainly no parking. To reach it, you drive through the small village of Worth Matravers (not omitting to visit St Nicholas’s, with its dog-tooth chancel arch and medieval squint), and find a small farm car park, before taking the shortish walk along a chalky farm path. Or you can take the long way round: it is on the South West Coastal Path; so, in theory, you could start from Minehead.

THE chapel’s origins are obscure, but earthworks near by suggest an early, pre-Conquest monastery. It is first mentioned in the pipe rolls of Henry III (d.1272), and a chaplain was employed, suggesting that the building was used as a chantry. Its position also suggests some sort of beacon for ships; so perhaps the chaplain prayed that sailors would see the beacon before they struck the rocks below.

The dedication to St Aldhelm (c.639-709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey and Bishop of Sherborne, hints at a link to a religious community further inland. Confusion about the name — presumably map-makers were unacquainted with Aldhelm’s writings on the virtue of virginity, or his 100 Latin riddles — led to the naming of the promontory St Alban’s Head. If this adds to the feeling of obscurity and neglect, then so be it. The chapel’s isolation means that it will never be overrun by tourists.

THE attraction to me is its austerity. I admit to preferring my Christianity warm and preferably well-padded. St Aldhelm’s is not that. Dark, even if you leave the door open, cold, windswept, unadorned (unless you include the 17th-century graffiti), it makes only very grudging concessions to any humans who might want to use it. It feels closer to the God who was around at Stonehenge than to the God of its contemporary Early English churches. It warns me not to humanise God too readily.

There are occasional services during August, when it can be cool rather than cold, and less windswept. But the greatest privilege is to attend the 6 a.m. service on Easter Day, walking from the car park in the pitch dark, grateful for the paleness of the path, marvelling at the singing of the unseen larks. At the end of the candlelit service — in what feels much like Christ’s tomb — we go outside, and see the sun rise out of the sea.

Paul Handley was Editor of the Church Times from 1995-2024.

For details of St Aldhelm’s, visit the benefice website: staldhelm-purbeck.org