Their Majesties Chappell, St. Peter's Church, in St. George's, Bermuda, is the oldest surviving Anglican church in continuous use outside the British Isles. It is also reportedly the oldest continuously used Protestant church in the New World. A UNESCO World Heritage Site (together with related fortifications), St. George's Town is the oldest surviving English settlement in the New World, having been settled by the Virginia Company in 1612 (in the aftermath of the wrecking of its flagship, the Sea Venture, in Bermuda in 1609).
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👉 St. Peter's Church, St. George's in the context of Chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to travel distance.
Often, a chapel of ease is deliberately built as such, being more accessible to some parishioners than the main church. Such a chapel may exist, for example, when a parish covers several dispersed villages, or a central village together with its satellite hamlet 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). An example is the chapel belonging to All Hallows' Parish in Maryland, United States. The chapel was built in Davidsonville from 1860 to 1865 because the parish's "Brick Church" in South River was 5 miles (8 km) distance which took an hour to walk each way. A more extreme example is the Chapel-of-Ease built in 1818 on St. David's Island in Bermuda to spare St. David's Islanders crossing St. George's Harbour to reach the parish church, St. Peter's, on St. George's Island.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: St. Peter's Church, St. George's
- 👉 St. Peter's Church, St. George's in the context of Chapel of ease
- St. Peter's Church, St. George's in the context of St. George's Island, Bermuda
St. Peter's Church, St. George's in the context of St. George's Island, Bermuda
St. George's Island is one of the main islands of the territory of Bermuda and lies within St. George's Parish (originally designated the General Land, in distinction to the other eight parishes subdivided as private shares) at the East End of the archipelago (actually the northeast of the territory). St. George's Town, the original colonial capital, is located on the southern shore near the eastern end of the island. The island covers 703 acres (284.5 hectares), and is one of the six principal islands of Bermuda.
Originally called King's Island, it was the first part of Bermuda to be extensively colonised, and the town of St. George's contains many of the territory's oldest buildings. Notable among these are St. Peter's Church, and the State House. The island also is the site of the St. George's Garrison and many forts, including Burnt Point Fort, Coney Island Fort, Ferry Point Martello Tower, Gate's Fort, Alexandra Battery, Fort Victoria, Fort Albert, the Western Redoubt, Fort George, and Fort St. Catherine's, the last of which is at St. Catherine's Point, the island's (and the archipelago of Bermuda's) northernmost point, and is a 19th-century construction built upon a 17th-century base. It is beside Gates' Bay, where the first English settlers ship wrecked in the Sea Venture in 1609.
View the full Wikipedia page for St. George's Island, Bermuda