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

History of English Churches in Switzerland – Pontresina

Early on Saturday 19 August 1882, Princess Christian, Mrs Elliott, Mrs Bancroft and many other ladies began to decorate the new English church at Pontresina. They filled it with “Alpine roses, edelweisse” and other mountain flowers. That afternoon the Bishop of Bedford consecrated it as Holy Trinity, in the service by which a bishop sets a building apart for worship.1 In 1972, writing in a Swiss journal of archaeology and art history, André Meyer called it the most important work of English church building in Switzerland. It stood for ninety-two years and was pulled down in 1974 to make room for a block of municipal flats.2

The Engadine season

The second half of the nineteenth century brought new prosperity to the Upper Engadine. The railways now carried travellers through the first stages of their journey. Thomas Cook’s tours, from 1863, kept to the more accessible regions, but individual travellers came on to Pontresina for its peace, its scenery and its restorative climate. Some came to climb the peaks of the Eastern Alps in the golden age of alpinism. Guesthouses and hotels were enlarged or newly built for them, and most of the summer visitors were British. They brought new work for mountain guides, hotel staff, coachmen and shopkeepers. The guidebooks of Baedeker and Murray gave the practical information. The visitors’ own travel books, memoirs, articles and letters to the British press praised the Engadine, and Pontresina in particular, and encouraged others to follow.3

As the numbers grew, so did the need for places of worship. The Museum Alpin Pontresina describes how this was met across Switzerland. Hoteliers offered “chapel rooms” on their premises and often gave land for a church. The churches were paid for by the British themselves and almost always designed by British architects, and the Church of England appointed seasonal or full-time chaplains to serve them. By 1914, the museum reckons, there were more than twenty-one English church buildings in Switzerland.4 Paul Schniewind, in his history of the Anglican chaplaincies, records that services at Pontresina began in 1865. They were taken by the chaplain of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at St Moritz, who also served Pontresina.5

Building the church

By the late 1870s Pontresina had a summer chaplain of its own, the Revd J. W. Ayre, vicar of St Mark’s, North Audley Street, in London. In 1882 The Graphic wrote that he had been chaplain of the English colony for the last six years, and Schniewind gives his summers as 1877 to 1891. When Matthew Arnold wrote to Miss Arnold from Pontresina in September 1880, he found Mr Ayre “quite a power here”.6

A church had been talked of before. The architect Richard Popplewell Pullan stayed briefly at Pontresina in 1872, and proposals were made for a small church, but nothing came of them.7 The Graphic reported that Ayre turned the first sod in August 1879. Pullan himself wrote that the matter moved in 1880, when Ayre “took up the matter very warmly”, and that year Pullan was given the plans.8 Money was being raised that summer too. A concert given by English visitors at the Hotel Kronenhof brought in 2,500 francs “für eine neue englische Kirche”, for a new English church.9 The Builder later credited Ayre with starting the plan and collecting the funds, and said that many visitors had given generously. The St James’s Gazette wrote that the church had been built “to a great extent through the exertions of Mrs. Bancroft”.10

Pullan was, in André Meyer’s words, one of the best-known architects and archaeologists in England in his day.11 The walls of his church were of local stone. The piers, the arches and the clerestory, the upper wall of the nave with its windows, were of pine, which, he wrote, “gives a novel character to the interior”.12 Meyer dates most of the fittings to 1884, two years after the consecration, and thought that Pullan probably designed most of them himself. The Museum Alpin Pontresina, summing up Meyer’s view, says that the church had “one of the most beautiful interiors of the late 19th Century”.13

The consecration

The weather on 19 August 1882 was perfect. The service began at half-past two, when the Bishop of Bedford, acting for the Bishop of London, entered the church with the clergy. An amateur choir conducted by Mr Barnby sang as they came in.14 The accounts differ on the size of the gathering. Schniewind gives fourteen clergy and five hundred people, while the St James’s Gazette reported “About twenty clergymen”.15 The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, who was touring Switzerland, was there as well.16 So were Prince and Princess Christian and their sons. Schniewind identifies the princess as a daughter of Queen Victoria.17

The gifts to the church were “handsome and costly”. Princess Christian gave the altar-cloth, a piece of art needlework. Mrs Bancroft gave the stained-glass window, which the reporter never tired of looking at, and she gave the bell as well. Others gave the lectern, the books, the chancel carpet and the harmonium.18 Four years later, in 1886, the site was made over to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel by Saratz and Zambail.19

A summer church

Schniewind sums up the church’s later life in a few lines. He records that a church library opened in 1883 and was kept at the Hotel Kronenhof, which he calls the leading hotel for English tourists. From 1895, he adds, Presbyterian services for British and American visitors were also held in the village church every Sunday morning in July and August.20 In 1921 Sir Henry Lunn bought two hotels there with five hundred beds between them. Through the Church Travellers’ Club large numbers of young people came each year to Pontresina and other Swiss winter resorts. The hope was to make Pontresina a winter resort as well, but summer remained the high season. Holy Trinity was the largest hall in Pontresina, and from 1957 the municipality was allowed to use it for evening concerts during the Engadine Concert Weeks.21

The end of Holy Trinity

The last sermon in Holy Trinity was preached about 1965. The municipality bought the church in the late 1960s, but the sources differ on the date. Schniewind gives February 1968, while the Engadiner Post later gave 1967 and a price of 90,000 francs.22 Schniewind says the building was in bad condition. In May 1974 the Engadiner Post reported that it was being pulled down to make room for a block of eleven flats owned by the municipality. The paper noted that for years the English had stopped coming as holiday guests, even to Pontresina, which had been known as a typical English resort. The small bell was to find a new home in the schoolhouse.23

Pontresina’s was not the only loss in the valley. Of the four English churches in the Engadine, two survive, at St Moritz and at Scuol-Tarasp. The church at Samedan, consecrated on 10 August 1872, came down in 1965.24 In 1992 Schniewind noted that the winter services at St Moritz were regularly announced in the Pontresina hotels.25

What survives

In 2016 and 2017 the Museum Alpin Pontresina held an exhibition on the nineteenth-century British visitors and their church. It was researched over three years by the amateur historian Diane Conrad-Daubrah, with the help of experts in Switzerland and England. Furnishings, stained glass and textiles were lent by the Rätisches Museum in Chur and the Kulturarchiv Samedan. Lukas Pfammatter made a model of Holy Trinity and small-scale copies of its doors, altar and east windows. Upstairs, a sequence of pictures of the church, inside and out, was shown to the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, who, the museum notes, was a regular visitor.26

We would like to know more about the first services at Pontresina in the 1860s and the end of Ayre’s time as chaplain. We would also like to know when the church was sold. If you can help, please write to us at info(a)stpeters.ch. How the English came to the Alps, and how Thomas Cook’s tours began, is told in The English experience of the Alps. The rise of the winter resorts is described in English clubs and the winter season. The other English churches are described in our guide to the English churches in Switzerland.

  1. “An Ideal Church Service.”, Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, Thursday 24 August 1882, p. 3 (British Newspaper Archive BL/0000376/18820824, art. 092), read on the page image, whose right-hand edge is slightly clipped: “The consecration of the little English chu[rch at] Pontresina, by the Bishop of Bedford, took pl[ace on] the 19th. At an early hour on Saturday morni[ng] Princess Christian, Mrs Elliott, Mrs Bancroft[, and] many other ladies began to decorate the buildin[g with] Alpine roses, edelweisse and other mountain fl[owers].” Words in square brackets are added where the edge is lost. The date and the Bishop of Bedford are confirmed by The Graphic (1882), The Builder, 2 September 1882, and the Illustrated London News, 11 November 1882 (see notes 6, 10 and 14). Paul W. Schniewind, Anglicans in Switzerland (Berne, 1992), p. 127, gives the date and the name Holy Trinity. 19 August 1882 was a Saturday. ↩

  2. André Meyer, “Englische Kirchen in der Schweiz”, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 29 (1972), pp. 78 ff. (doi 10.5169/seals-165810): “Die Holy Trinity Church in Pontresina ist das bedeutendste Werk des englischen Kirchenbaus in der Schweiz” (“the Holy Trinity Church in Pontresina is the most important work of English church building in Switzerland”). Schniewind, p. 127, gives the same judgement, and he cites Meyer as his source for Pullan. André Meyer is described by the Museum Alpin Pontresina as a former President of the Swiss Commission for Built Heritage Conservation. For the demolition, see note 23. ↩

  3. Museum Alpin Pontresina, Nineteenth-century British visitors and their church in Pontresina: personalities, tradition and architecture 1860–1900, exhibition text, 25 November 2016 (www.pontresina.ch/museumalpin). A timeline of British tourists in Switzerland published by the University of Basel also places “Thomas Cook’s first conducted tour to Switzerland” in 1863. ↩

  4. Museum Alpin Pontresina, exhibition text, 2016: “Hoteliers offered ‘chapel rooms’ on their premises and often gave land for church buildings; these were paid for by the British themselves and almost always designed by British architects.” And: “By 1914 there were over 21 English church buildings in Switzerland.” We have not checked the figure against another source. ↩

  5. Schniewind, p. 126: “Services started in 1865.” His source is the Society’s file on Pontresina, which we have not seen. We have not yet found another record of these early services. ↩

  6. The Graphic, 1882, in the bound volume for 1880–1889 (archive.org item graphic-1880-1889): “by the Rev. J. W. Ayre, to whose energy, as Chaplain of the English colony for the last six years”. Illustrated London News, 11 November 1882, vol. 81, no. 2271: “the English Chaplain, the Rev. J. W. Ayre, now Vicar of St. Mark’s, North Audley-street”. Schniewind, p. 127: “Between 1877 and 1891 the Revd J W Ayre was chaplain during the summer months.” We have not confirmed the end date. Letters of Matthew Arnold 1848–1888 (1895), letter “To Miss Arnold. Pontresina, September 15 (1880)”, where the editor identifies him as “The Rev. J. W. Ayre, Vicar of St. Mark’s, North Audley Street”. The Notebooks of a Spinster Lady, 1878–1903 (1919), which has entries from Pontresina in 1884, notes that among the “frequent visitors at Pontresina has been Mr. Ayre, Rector of St. Mark’s, North Audley Street”. Joseph Foster’s Alumni Oxonienses 1715–1886 lists “Eyre, (rightly Ayre) Joseph Watson”, vicar of St Mark’s, North Audley Street, since 1851. That suggests the chaplain’s forenames, but we have not seen them next to Pontresina in any one source. All the English sources in this note have been seen only as search extracts. ↩

  7. Meyer, p. 78 ff.: “Im Jahre 1872 unternahm Pullan eine Reise in die Schweiz und hielt sich für kurze Zeit auch in Pontresina auf. Ein kleines Kirchenprojekt zerschlug sich damals” (“In 1872 Pullan travelled in Switzerland and also stayed briefly in Pontresina. A small church project came to nothing at that time”). Richard Popplewell Pullan, Studies in Architectural Style (London, 1883): “During a visit to this charming spot in 1872, proposals were made for the” (search extract). ↩

  8. The Graphic, 1882: “first sod was turned in August, 1879, by the Rev. J. W. Ayre”. Pullan, 1883: “the year 1880, when the Rev. A. J. Ayre, of St. Mark’s, North Audley Street, took up the matter very warmly”. “A. J.” is evidently a misprint for J. W. Meyer, p. 78 ff., and Schniewind, p. 126, both date Pullan’s commission to 1880. Both The Graphic and Pullan have been seen only as search extracts. ↩

  9. Zürcherische Freitagszeitung, 3 September 1880 (e-newspaperarchives.ch ZFZ18800903-01.2.3): “Ein von Engländern veranstaltetes Konzert im Hotel Kronenhof zu Pontresina ergab 2500 Fr. für eine neue englische Kirche”. Seen only as a search extract. ↩

  10. The Builder, 2 September 1882, vol. 43, no. 2065: “The Rev. J. W. Ayre, of St. Mark’s, Grosvenor square (the summer chaplain), who originated the present plan and collected the funds”, and “many of the visitors to the happy valley of Pontresina contributed largely to the funds”. St James’s Gazette, 26 August 1882, p. 9 (British Newspaper Archive). Both seen only as search extracts. The memoir Mr. & Mrs. Bancroft: On and Off the Stage (1888) mentions “the well-known chaplain at Pontresina, the Rev. J. W. Ayre”. ↩

  11. Meyer, p. 78 ff.: “galt zu seiner Zeit als einer der bekanntesten Architekten und Archäologen Englands”. Meyer gives his dates as 1825 to 1888. Schniewind, pp. 126–127, repeats the description from Meyer. ↩

  12. Pullan, Studies in Architectural Style (1883), p. 9, as quoted by Meyer: “The walls are of local stone, but the piers, nave, arches and clerestory are of pith pine, which gives a novel character to the interior”. We give the wording as Meyer prints it and have not checked it against Pullan’s book. ↩

  13. Meyer, p. 78 ff.: “Die Innenausstattung datiert größtenteils aus dem Jahre 1884 und dürfte mehrheitlich von Pullan selbst entworfen worden sein” (“The fittings date for the most part from 1884 and were probably mostly designed by Pullan himself”). Schniewind, p. 127, says without qualification that Pullan designed most of the furnishings. Meyer praises the interior highly (“übertrifft jegliche Erwartung”), but the words about “one of the most beautiful interiors” are the museum’s, from its exhibition text of 2016. ↩

  14. Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 24 August 1882 (note 1): “The service began at hal[f-past] two, when the Bishop of Bedford, accompanied [by …] clergymen, entered the church, while an a[mateur] choir, conducted by Mr Barnby, sang the 215th [hymn] in a most efficient manner.” And: “The weather was perfect”. St James’s Gazette, 26 August 1882, p. 9: “The Bishop of Bedford, acting for the Bishop of London, has consecrated a church at Pontresina”. The Illustrated London News, 11 November 1882, also mentions the Bishop of London’s commission. The World, 30 August 1882, p. 13: “opened on the 19th, the ceremony of consecration being performed by the Bishop of Bedford”. The last three seen only as search extracts. ↩

  15. Schniewind, p. 127: “14 clergy and 500 persons attended”. St James’s Gazette, 26 August 1882, p. 9: “About twenty clergymen took part in the service” (search extract). The number of clergy is lost at the clipped edge of the Hartlepool report. We have not yet found another figure for the congregation. ↩

  16. Gloucestershire Chronicle, 2 September 1882, p. 4 (British Newspaper Archive): “The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, who is on tour in Switzerland, was present a few days ago at the dedication of a new English church at Pontresina.” Seen only as a search extract. ↩

  17. The Graphic, 1882: “Prince and Princess Christian and their sons are still at Pontresina, where they recently attended the opening of” (search extract). Schniewind, p. 127, calls her “Princess Christiane of Schleswig-Holstein, a daughter of Queen Victoria”. The papers of 1882 all call her Princess Christian. ↩

  18. Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 24 August 1882 (note 1): “The gifts to the church were ext[remely] handsome and costly. The altar-cloth, [pre]sented by the Princess Christian, is a [work] of art needlework, and the beautiful stained [glass] window, given by Mrs Bancroft, one never wear[ies of] looking at.” The same report lists the other gifts: the pulpit lectern from Mr Hunter, the books from Mr Cecil Blount, the bookmarkers from Mrs Elliot, the chancel carpet from Pierson, the bell from Mrs Bancroft and the harmonium from Mrs Wagner. The Builder, 2 September 1882, also mentions the bell. ↩

  19. C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G. (1901): “Pontresina (Holy Trinity—site conveyed by MM. Saratz and Zambail to the Society 1886)” (search extract). ↩

  20. Schniewind, p. 127. We have not yet found a contemporary report of the library or of the Presbyterian services. The Kronenhof was still advertising itself in the 1930s as “The traditional English house” (Illustrated London News, 1930s, search extract). ↩

  21. Schniewind, p. 127, for Lunn, the Church Travellers’ Club, the summer season and the concerts. He cites a letter from the municipality of Pontresina of 29 November 1991 among his sources, which we have not seen. ↩

  22. Engadiner Post, 11 May 1974, “Pontresina” (e-newspaperarchives.ch EDP19740511-01.2.4.3.2), OCR text: “die letzte Predigt wurde um 1965 gehalten. 1967 kaufte die Gemeinde das Gotteshaus für 90 000 Franken.” Schniewind, p. 127: “In February 1968 Holy Trinity was sold to the municipality.” The two dates may be the decision and the completion of the sale. A report of the Pontresina communal assembly of 16 December 1967 in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (e-newspaperarchives.ch NZZ19671218-03.2.41) may settle it, but we have not read it. ↩

  23. Engadiner Post, 11 May 1974 (note 22): “Abbruch der Englischen Kirche. Wie wir der «NBZ» entnehmen, wird gegenwärtig die Englische Kirche von Pontresina abgerissen, um einem gemeindeeigenen Wohnblock mit 11 Wohnungen Platz zu machen. Die Engländer bleiben seit Jahren als Kurgäste aus, just in Pontresina, das als typischer Engländerort bekannt war.” And: “Die kleine Glocke soll im Schulhaus einen neuen Platz finden.” An agency report of the demolition appeared in the Thuner Tagblatt, 30 May 1974 (TTB19740530-01.2.16.1), and Der Bund, 4 June 1974 (DBB19740604-01.2.16.8), seen only as search extracts. All three papers say the church was built in 1875, which is wrong: it was consecrated in 1882. Schniewind, p. 127, gives the bad condition of the building and says the flats were for municipal employees. The museum’s exhibition text of 2016 also dates the church 1882–1974. ↩

  24. Museum Alpin Pontresina, exhibition text, 2016: “Of the four in the Engadine, two remain, in St. Moritz and Scuol-Tarasp; the churches in Samedan (1872-1965) and Pontresina (1882-1974) were demolished.” Schniewind, p. 128: “On 10 August 1872 Immanuel Church was consecrated by Bishop Anderson.” He also records that Christ Church, Tarasp, was consecrated on 3 September 1883. We have not checked the Samedan demolition date against another source. ↩

  25. Schniewind, p. 127: “At present Anglican services during the winter season in St Moritz are regularly announced in the hotels in Pontresina.” We have not checked the present arrangements. ↩

  26. Museum Alpin Pontresina, exhibition text, 2016. The museum calls Diane Conrad-Daubrah a “hobby historian”. The exhibition ran from 19 December 2016 to 15 April 2017 and from 5 June to 21 October 2017. The museum’s text says of Sullivan only that he “was a regular visitor”. ↩

Questions answered

What was Holy Trinity Church, Pontresina?
It was the English church at Pontresina, in the Upper Engadine. The English architect and archaeologist Richard Popplewell Pullan was given its plans in 1880, and it was consecrated on Saturday 19 August 1882 by the Bishop of Bedford. In 1972 André Meyer, writing in a Swiss journal of archaeology and art history, called it the most important work of English church building in Switzerland. The Museum Alpin Pontresina, summing up his view, says that it had one of the most beautiful interiors of the late nineteenth century.
What happened to the English church at Pontresina?
It was demolished in 1974. By then the English visitors had stayed away for years, and the last sermon had been preached about 1965. The municipality bought the church in the late 1960s: Paul Schniewind gives February 1968, and the Engadiner Post gave 1967 and a price of 90,000 francs. The church was pulled down to make room for a municipally owned block of eleven flats. Of the four English churches in the Engadine, only those at St Moritz and Scuol-Tarasp remain.
How many English churches were built in Switzerland?
By 1914 there were more than twenty-one English church buildings in Switzerland, according to the Museum Alpin Pontresina. The museum notes that hoteliers often gave land for them, that the British paid for them themselves, and that they were almost always designed by British architects.
Which famous people visited the English church at Pontresina?
Prince and Princess Christian and their sons attended the opening of the church in August 1882, and Princess Christian was among the ladies who decorated it and gave its altar-cloth. Paul Schniewind identifies her as a daughter of Queen Victoria. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol was also present. Matthew Arnold wrote from Pontresina in 1880, and the Museum Alpin Pontresina records that the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan was a regular visitor.