Minsden Chapel

The chapel was built in the 14th century, and by the 17th century had fallen into disrepair. Marriages continued here into the 18th century, until the crumbling masonry became too dangerous. One story says that a piece of falling stonework knocked the prayer-book out of a curate's hand during the marriage ceremony of Enoch West and Mary Horn on the 11th of July 1738. In the 20th century the chapel was closely associated with the historian Reginald Hine from nearby Baldock. He frequently visited here, and eventually obtained a lifetime lease of the building from the vicars of Hitchin. So fond of the chapel was he, that he even bade "trespassers and sacrilegious persons take warning, for I…