St. Peter's Anglican Church Château-d'Oex · Serving the English-speaking Community Since 1899

History of English Churches in Switzerland – Leysin

When Bishop Thomas Wilkinson visited Leysin in March 1907, the English sanatorium was still being built. Accompanied by Mr Lomas of Territet, he toured the sanatoriums and admired the view. The new English building particularly interested him: he thought it well situated and solidly built. The Journal de Leysin was pleased to report that the bishop had also spoken well of the village in a pastoral letter to the English community at Montreux.1 Leysin’s English Chapel had opened the year before, behind the Hôtel Belvédère.8

Leysin’s English community had grown around the treatment of tuberculosis. The village stands on a sunny terrace above the Rhône valley near Aigle, some 1,260 metres above sea level. From about 1890 it developed as a climatic station, with the support of the Territet hotelier Ami Chessex; the rack railway from Aigle followed in 1892. The Colonial and Continental Church Society had added Leysin to its chaplaincy list the year before, as the village began to attract tuberculosis patients. The English presence here owed much to people seeking treatment for their lungs.2 The story of this search for health in the Alps, including Auguste Rollier’s sun clinics at Leysin, is told in Wintering on the Swiss Riviera.

The English Sanatorium

Leysin was slow to become known in Britain. Reporting on the English Sanatorium’s inauguration, the Feuille d’avis de Montreux observed that, despite the publicity done in England, the English had still not come to Leysin. The new institution was meant to fill that gap.3

The proposal had taken shape in Montreux, where a committee headed by Chessex was being formed in March 1905. The following February, a charity ball at the Empress Rooms in Kensington was advertised in aid of the Leysin English Sanatorium Association. Its aim was to establish a sanatorium for British and American patients, run on “entirely English lines as regards accommodation, food, and cooking”. The association also intended to help patients who could not afford the journey.4

The Société climatérique of Leysin built the sanatorium below the Hôtel du Mont-Blanc. Ground clearance began in June 1905, and by October 1906 workmen were putting on the roof. Dr Hensler, who had been medical director of another Leysin sanatorium, was appointed to run it. He and his assistant moved into the building in November 1907, and the inauguration followed on the afternoon of 12 December. Among the speakers were a member of the Vaud government and Mr Carden, the English chaplain at Clarens. Guests toured the building in two parties, one led by Chessex, before sitting down to dinner. There were toasts to the King and Queen, and an English resident of Montreux proposed one to the President of the Swiss Confederation.5

Inside, the rooms were white or pale, with washable wall coverings and floors of polished mosaic or linoleum. Galleries, some connected directly to the bedrooms, allowed patients to take the open-air cure.6 Paul Schniewind records that the sanatorium initially offered fifty beds for British and American patients. He also quotes The Anglican Church Magazine, which described it as “erected for patients who cannot afford the more costly provisions of other sanatoria”.7

A chapel for the English community

The English Chapel had opened in 1906, behind the Hôtel Belvédère in the Feydey quarter.8 Leysin had a chaplain throughout the year, an arrangement less common in the mountain resorts. In its list of summer appointments for 1913, the Society named only three permanent chaplaincies in Vaud: Château-d’Œx, Vevey and Leysin. The Revd Hugh Teesdale had served at Leysin since 1910 and would remain until 1926. He later moved to Blonay and, in 1936, to Château-d’Œx.9

During Teesdale’s years, British soldiers joined the patients at Leysin. Switzerland began receiving sick and wounded prisoners of war in 1916, and the village was among the places that took them in. That July, some thirty British internees left Leysin to make room for others who were more seriously ill. They travelled down to Montreux and took the train towards Château-d’Œx. The YMCA also opened a foyer for internees in the Leysin region.10

By 1930 the chaplain was the Revd R. C. Harward, M.B.E. The chapel’s advertised services began with Holy Communion at a quarter past eight. Morning Prayer and a sermon followed at half past ten, another Communion at half past eleven, and Evening Prayer at five. Harward retired in 1937 after eight years in the village. Despite efforts to find a permanent successor in England, none had been appointed. An Australian clergyman, Mr Cherry, was to take the services that September and October, while on leave in Europe. By 1939, the English chaplain was J. A. S. Griffiths.11 During the Second World War, Leysin again received British and American internees.12

The last chaplain

The Revd Sidney Baggott was at Leysin by 1954, when the English community gave the village a bench to commemorate the Coronation. It stood on the Belvédère road near the Aigle–Leysin railway bridge, facing the view. Baggott and an Anglican bishop attended the ceremony at which its plaque was unveiled. By the early 1960s, he also served the English communities at Montana and Villars.13

Baggott’s ministry brought him into contact with the American community too. In March 1966 he spoke at the graveside of the American climber John Harlin, whose friends from the Eiger and the American schools at Leysin had gathered for his funeral. In August 1967, his wife, Doris Irma, died suddenly in her sixtieth year.14

In January 1968, the English Chapel was to host an evening during a week of ecumenical prayer. Water damage moved the service to the Feydey chapel instead.15

Baggott had been appointed Rural Dean in Switzerland in 1966. In 1968 he moved to Berne, bringing the Leysin chaplaincy to an end, though he continued to return once a month to take services in the Protestant chapel at Feydey. These visits lasted until 1980. After that, 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.16

We do not know what became of the English Chapel behind the Belvédère, or of the English Sanatorium below the Mont-Blanc. If you know either building’s later history, or have memories of the English community at Leysin, please write to us at info(a)stpeters.ch. You can also read about the other congregations in our guide to the English churches in Switzerland.

  1. “Une visite”, Journal de Leysin, 16 March 1907, p. 6 (Scriptorium item 435420), read on the page image. The paper names only “M. Lomas, de Territet”, and we have not been able to identify him further. ↩

  2. Paul W. Schniewind, Anglicans in Switzerland (Berne, 1992), p. 105, for the 1891 listing and the connection with tuberculosis patients; Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, “Chessex, Ami” (Gilbert Marion, 2005): “Il participe à la création de la station climatique de Leysin en 1890 … Aigle-Leysin (1892)”. The altitude is from La Revue, 30 July 1883 (via the Feuille d’avis du district d’Aigle, 1 August 1883, read on the page image), which gives the church at Leysin as 1,264 metres. ↩

  3. “Hôtellerie”, Feuille d’avis de Montreux, 14 December 1907, p. 4 (item 453022), read on the page image. ↩

  4. “Un nouveau sanatorium”, Feuille d’avis de Montreux, 2 March 1905, p. 4 (item 456293), read on the page image; The Gentlewoman, 3 February 1906, p. 46 (British Newspaper Archive BL/0003340/19060203, art. 210), read on the page image. A correction of 17 February 1906 (snippet only) moved the ball to 23 February. ↩

  5. Journal de Leysin, 24 June 1905, p. 3 (item 435412); 13 October 1906, p. 4 (item 435417); 16 March 1907, p. 6 (item 435420), for Dr Hensler’s appointment; 9 November 1907, p. 3 (item 435446); Feuille d’avis de Montreux, 13 December 1907, p. 4 (item 452760), “Hier après-midi a eu lieu à Leysin l’inauguration d’un grand sanatorium, spécialement destiné aux Anglais, avec la collaboration des Anglais de Montreux”, naming the speakers “Morin, de Colombier; Virieu, conseiller d’Etat; Dr Kayser, de Genève; Dr Haenssler, de Leysin, et Carden, pasteur anglais de Clarens”; and 14 December 1907, p. 4 (item 453022), for the tour and the toasts. All read on the page image. The doctor’s name is printed “Hensler” and “Haenssler”; an English paper of 1912 (snippet only) spells it “Heusler”. Carden’s forenames are not given. Which sanatorium Hensler left is not stated in the notice; it sits beside a report on the Sanatorium populaire. ↩

  6. Feuille d’avis de Montreux, 14 December 1907, p. 4. ↩

  7. Schniewind, p. 105, quoting The Anglican Church Magazine, May 1907. Schniewind dates the opening to autumn 1906, but the contemporary reports cited in note 5 show construction continuing into 1907 and record the inauguration on 12 December 1907. The exact date on which patients were first admitted is not established. Snippets from The World in October–November 1907 (not read on the page) also say the sanatorium would open “next month”. ↩

  8. Schniewind, p. 105, for the Belvédère and 1906; Courrier de Leysin, 3 January 1930, p. 3 (item 401167), read on the page image, for “English Chapel Feydey”. We have found no local report of the chapel’s opening. ↩↩

  9. The Record, 1 August 1913, p. 730; Journal et liste des étrangers de Montreux, de Vevey, 10 December 1910 (item 429757), read on the page image; Crockford’s Clerical Directory, 1939: “Chap. of Leysin 1910-26; Blonay 1926-36; Chateau d’Oex … from 1936”. ↩

  10. Messager de Montreux, 7 July 1916, p. 2 (item 463264), read on the page image; Schniewind, p. 17, for the internment and the YMCA foyer. ↩

  11. Courrier de Leysin, 3 January 1930, p. 3 (“British Chaplain Rev. R. C. Harward, M. A. M. B. E.”); “Leysin — Culte anglican”, Feuille d’avis de Lausanne, 20 August 1937, p. 10 (item 27499); Journal de Leysin, 25 March 1939, p. 3 (item 502461), “J.-A.-S. Griffits, M. A., English Chaplain” (the spelling as printed; “Griffiths” in the Courrier de Leysin, 21 July 1939, OCR text). All three read on the page image. Crockford’s records an unnamed former private chaplain to Earl Fitzwilliam as chaplain at Leysin 1937–45; whether he is Griffiths is not known. ↩

  12. Schniewind, p. 105. ↩

  13. Crockford’s 1961–62 (“Leysin (C.C.C.S.) S. J. Baggott · Montana, St. Luke (S.P.G.) S. J. Baggott · … Villars S. J. Baggott”); Schniewind, p. 106. “Le banc du couronnement”, Courrier de Leysin, 30 March 1954, p. 3 (item 335085), read on the page image; also Journal de Montreux, 29 March 1954 (item 445346). Neither names the bishop. Crockford’s 1949–50 lists D. W. C. Mossman as chaplain at Leysin. ↩

  14. Courrier de Leysin, 29 March 1966, p. 3 (item 334246), read on the page image for Baggott’s address; Harlin’s name, the Eiger and the American college from the OCR text of the same report. Death notices, Courrier de Leysin, 17 August 1967, pp. 3–4 (item 334099), read on the page image, where he is “le Révérend J. S. Baggott, clergyman de l’Eglise anglaise de notre station”, and Journal de Montreux, 11 August 1967 (item 441820). Schniewind gives his initials as S. J. ↩

  15. Courrier de Leysin, 16 January 1968, p. 4 (item 335494), OCR text: “à la chapelle du Feydey et non à la chapelle anglaise (dégâts d’eau)”. ↩

  16. Schniewind, pp. 105–106. Writing in 1992, Schniewind recorded more than a thousand students at Leysin’s American schools (p. 106). ↩

Questions answered

Why was there an English chapel at Leysin?
Leysin's English community grew around the treatment of tuberculosis. The village, on a sunny terrace some 1,260 metres above sea level near Aigle, developed as a climatic station from about 1890. The Colonial and Continental Church Society added Leysin to its chaplaincy list in 1891, as the village began to attract tuberculosis patients. The English presence there owed much to people seeking treatment for their lungs. The English Chapel, behind the Hôtel Belvédère, opened in 1906.
Was there an English sanatorium at Leysin?
Yes. A committee headed by Ami Chessex was being formed at Montreux in March 1905 to found it, and the Société climatérique of Leysin built it below the Hôtel du Mont-Blanc. It was still being built when Bishop Wilkinson visited Leysin in March 1907, and it was inaugurated on 12 December 1907. Paul Schniewind records that it initially offered fifty beds for British and American patients. He quotes The Anglican Church Magazine, which 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 Anglican chaplaincy at Leysin ended in 1968, when its last chaplain, the Revd Sidney Baggott, moved to Berne. He continued to return once a month to take services in the Protestant chapel at Feydey until 1980. After that no Anglican chaplain could be found.
Who were the Anglican chaplains at Leysin?
Leysin had a chaplain throughout the year. The Revd Hugh Teesdale served there from 1910 to 1926. By 1930 the chaplain was the Revd R. C. Harward, who retired in 1937 after eight years in the village, and by 1939 the English chaplain was J. A. S. Griffiths. The Revd Sidney Baggott was at Leysin by 1954 and was its last chaplain, until 1968.