Monksthorpe Chapel

Built in 1701 and refurbished in 1840, it has a modest interior and a rare open air baptistry in its grounds.  There are no records of what the chapel was originally like inside. The interior would have been plain and unfurnished. The present decor is typical of the 1840s when the chapel was refurbished.

When the building was built, baptists were persecuted, therefore the chapel building was erected in the form of a farmyard barn with a thatched roof; and an escape hatch above the pulpit so that the preacher might make a hurried exit on a horse tethered outside should that be necessary. The thatched roof was replaced with tiles in 1847, when the vestries were also added.

Monksthorpe is a hamlet about 7 miles inland from Skegness, and a couple of miles from Gunby Hall, near Spilsby. RAF Spilsby airfield is nearby, from where Lancaster bombers flew during World War II. Near the airfield’s huge hangar, but hidden by trees, sits the plain, brick built chapel. In the grounds of the chapel is an obelisk memorial to those who served at the airfield. The memorial is at the start of the tree lined walk to the Chapel, as close as possible to the site of the bomb dump fuzing shed, in which ten personnel lost their lives in an explosion in April 1944. Those ten people are commemorated on the memorial, three of whom have no known grave.