I instinctively expect churches to be grand, imposing buildings, fashioned from stone by craftsmen whose skills draw on centuries of tradition. Most of the churches Mrs P and I see on our travels around the UK do indeed fall into this category, but just occasionally we encounter one that challenges my conventional expectations. And as unconventional UK churches go, the tin tabernacle takes some beating.

Also known as “iron churches” or “iron chapels”, tin tabernacles emerged in the mid-19th century. Comprising a timber framed building externally clad in corrugated, galvanised iron and lined with boarding, they were basically prefabricated places of worship that were sold in kit form.

It was in the late 1820s that an English engineer came up with a way of mass-producing corrugated iron. By the early 1830s, it became apparent that his process made possible the production of a relatively cheap, lightweight system for cladding buildings. In 1837 the final piece of the jigsaw fell into place when another bright spark realised that galvanizing the iron with zinc would stop it rusting. The stage was therefore set for the development of tin tabernacles.

Demand for more churches and chapels was fuelled by the rapid population growth that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Existing buildings were simply not large enough, or in the right place, to serve new and emerging communities. Those communities often had no access to the materials, skills or financial resources needed to build “traditional” places of worship, but off-site prefabrication of tin tabernacles offered a practical and affordable way forward.

Tin tabernacles were intended to be temporary and portable, usually providing short-term accommodation for their congregations until they raised the money to build permanent churches. Luckily for us today, some of them survived a lot longer than expected.

Many tin tabernacles were built to house non-conformist groups like Wesleyans, Baptists and Moravians whose numbers expanded considerably during the religious ‘revivals’ of the 19th century. However, they were also used to accommodate Anglican congregations during an era of rapid population growth. Pre-fabricated iron churches were also exported to the British colonies, including Australia, South Africa and Canada

The first tin tabernacle anywhere in the world is believed to have been constructed in 1855 in London. They became increasingly popular towards the end of the 19th century, and a few were still being built in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, there are still around 80 scattered around England, although some of these have been re-purposed and others have been moved to museums in order to preserve them.

Mrs P and I were pleased to get up close and personal with a tin tabernacle during a recent visit to the Chiltern Open Air Museum. Henton Mission Room was erected in 1886 in Chinnor, a small village in the county of Oxfordshire. Here it served as a place of worship for the local community, who affectionately referred to it as their “little tin church”, until 1973.

Henton Mission Room was an intimate space, housing just 50 chairs arranged in rows either side of a central aisle. The altar was equally modest, just an ordinary table supporting a pair of humble brass candlesticks. In keeping with its modest design, the room boasted neither a sonorous organ nor a grand pulpit – a simple harmonium supplied the music, while the Rector of Chinnor’s monthly Sunday afternoon sermons were delivered from an unpretentious lectern.

Following its closure in 1973, the Mission Room remained unused for two decades, until in 1993 it was acquired by a far-sighted museum. Reversing the original process of assembly, the chapel was then carefully dismantled, loaded onto trucks and transported 20 miles for re-assembly at its new, permanent home, where it offers fascinating insights into social, religious and architectural history.

Another tin tabernacle is preserved for posterity at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. It originally stood in the Hampshire village of South Wonston. The village was created from scratch in 1892, but originally had no church. The Rector of Wonston determined that this was unsatisfactory, and so in 1908 paid £8 (USD 10) out of his own pocket for a plot of land with the intention of erecting a mission room upon it. Money for buying and fitting out a prefabricated building was raised largely through public donations. The total cost, including the laying of the foundations, was £102.50 (USD 133). The church, named St Margaret’s Mission Church, first opened for business on Sunday 7 February 1909.

Initially the tin tabernacle served its community well, but as the village of South Wonston continued to grow its small size (just 42 square metres) became an intractable problem. And so, in 1996, all services were transferred to the new church of St Margaret’s built in the centre of the village. Ten years later the tin tabernacle was offered to the Weald and Downland Museum by the Trustees of the St Margaret’s Mission Trust. It was dismantled the same year and opened as a permanent exhibit in 2011.

St Felix Chapel at Babingley in Norfolk is more unusual than the two tin tabernacles featured above in that it boasts a thatched roof and is cruciform in shape. It was erected in 1880 as a mission chapel, a response to the fact that Babingley old church was situated a mile from the nearest road and was in a poor state of repair. When the Church of England came to the conclusion that this pretty tin tabernacle was surplus to its requirements, ownership passed to the British Orthodox Church, which still holds services in the building today.

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This short essay demonstrates, I hope, that tin tabernacles are a fascinating piece of our heritage. They are not grand or imposing, but they have real character. And each has its own story to tell. Hopefully Mrs P and I will be able to visit many more examples in years to come as we continue our travels around the UK.