History of English Churches in Switzerland – Leysin
History of English Chapel, Leysin
Leysin was placed on the chaplaincy list of the Colonial and Continental Church Society in 1891 — the moment, as Paul Schniewind’s Anglicans in Switzerland, Past and Present puts it, when Leysin “began to be an important place for tuberculosis patients”. The high, dry air of the Vaud Alps had made the village a centre for the treatment of consumption, and the English who came for it were patients rather than tourists. That sets Leysin apart from almost every other chaplaincy in this list.
The English Chapel, behind the Hotel Belvedere, opened in 1906. In March 1907 the Rt Revd Thomas E. Wilkinson, Bishop for the Jurisdiction of Northern and Central Europe — the same bishop who had laid the foundation stone at Château-d’Œx eight years earlier — visited the English sanatorium that had opened the previous autumn. It offered fifty beds at the outset for British and American patients, and The Anglican Church Magazine, reporting the visit, described it as “erected for patients who cannot afford the more costly provisions of other sanatoria.”
British soldiers were interned at Leysin during the First World War, as they were at Château-d’Œx; British and American internees were held there again during the Second. The chaplaincy continued until 1968. Its last chaplain, the Revd Sidney J. Baggott, had been appointed Rural Dean in Switzerland in 1966; he left for Berne in 1968 but returned to Leysin once a month until 1980, holding services in the Swiss Protestant chapel at Feydey. After 1980 no Anglican chaplain could be found, and the Protestant pastor from Villars came from time to time to hold a service in English in the International Church.
Date of first Chaplaincy: 1891
Church dates: 1906
Patron: Intercontinental Church Society (ICS)
Hotel: Hotel Belvedere
Current Status: Unknown
Sources
Anglicans in Switzerland, Past and Present, Paul Schniewind
Further Reading
Questions answered
- Why was there an English chapel at Leysin?
- Because of tuberculosis. Leysin was placed on the CCCS chaplaincy list in 1891, at the point when it began to be an important place for tuberculosis patients. The high, dry air had made the village a centre for the treatment of consumption, and the English who came for it were patients rather than tourists. The English Chapel, behind the Hotel Belvedere, opened in 1906.
- Was there an English sanatorium at Leysin?
- Yes. It opened in the autumn of 1906 and offered fifty beds at the outset for British and American patients. Bishop Thomas E. Wilkinson visited in March 1907, and The Anglican Church Magazine described it as “erected for patients who cannot afford the more costly provisions of other sanatoria.”
- When did the Anglican chaplaincy at Leysin end?
- The chaplaincy continued until 1968. Its last chaplain, the Revd Sidney J. Baggott, left for Berne that year but returned to Leysin once a month until 1980. After 1980 no Anglican chaplain could be found.