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

History of English Churches in Switzerland – Vevey

Long before the service was due to begin on Tuesday 22 August 1882, English visitors began arriving at a new church on the road from Vevey to St-Légier. They came from Clarens, Montreux and Lausanne, and many Swiss families came with them. The church stood in what had been a vineyard, not far from the Samaritan hospital. At eleven o’clock Bishop Stevens of Pennsylvania, acting for the Bishop of London, consecrated it as All Saints’ Church. Some ten English and American clergy stood around him in their white robes and hoods, with pastors from Vevey and the villages nearby. A correspondent for The Record noticed how “the light streamed in many colours through the windows given by different kind friends”. The Revd Alfred Cérésole, pastor of Vevey, read the deed that handed the building to the Colonial and Continental Church Society. The Feuille d’avis de Vevey counted between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people, adding, a little drily, that the congregation “could have been larger”.1

The bishop took as his text “Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary”. At the end of his sermon he explained why he had come. One reason was his late friend the Revd Dr Forbes, whom he had known for sixteen years. “Long and anxiously did he desire to see this church built,” Stevens said. “He assumed a large responsibility in securing the needed funds.” Forbes had not lived to see the day. The chaplain, William Phelps Prior, wrote afterwards: “The day to which we have been looking forward to for more than 15 years, has at last arrived”.2

A congregation without a church

By then the English had been worshipping at Vevey for almost sixty years. In a report of 1845 the chaplain wrote that “a congregation of the English Church has existed at Vevey since 1823”. A Lausanne historian, Michel Jéquier, found English services held that year in the church of La Tour-de-Peilz. What happened over the next twenty years is not known. In 1844 services began, or began again, in a room of the Hotel Monnet, now the Trois Couronnes. M. Monnet asked the town whether the English might use its churches. The pastors Étienne Chavannes and François Grenier agreed, and from July 1844 the Anglican service was held in St Martin or Ste-Claire.3

That October an advertisement in English appeared in a Lausanne newspaper. “The English Chaplain at Vevey” offered to take six pupils into his family. He would teach them science, the classics and “the usual branches of an English education”, and undertook to bring them up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. Letters were to go to the maison Brémond at La Tour-de-Peilz. The chaplain was almost certainly the Revd Barry O’Meara Dean, appointed that year. A few months later, answering a questionnaire sent to every English chaplain on the Continent, Dean reported that he had four pupils.4

His answers give a clear picture of the chaplaincy in its early days. In summer the congregation used St Martin, which Dean thought “much larger than the congregation requires”, and in winter a room at the hotel that held sixty. About forty English people lived in Vevey, “chiefly of the upper class”, and some five thousand visitors passed through between June and the end of September. On an average Sunday seventy came to church in summer and thirty in winter. The church was paid for by subscription, the chaplain was chosen by the resident heads of families, and there were, he noted, “no English poor settled”.5

People came for the lake and the view of the mountains. The painter Edward Lear, who stayed in 1861, declared that “Vevey is Paradise, and I don’t see how the people can have the impudence to suppose that they can go to Heaven after death.” How the whole shore from Vevey to Villeneuve became a winter home for English families is told on our page Wintering on the Swiss Riviera. For Vevey, it meant a congregation that grew but never had a building of its own.6

The Colonial and Continental Church Society took Vevey onto its list in 1855, and from 1862 the English held their Sunday service at eleven in Ste-Claire. For more than twenty years the chaplain was William Phelps Prior. The cantonal yearbook names “Rév. Prior” against Vevey in 1866 and still in 1880. For most of that time Vevey and Lausanne were the only two Anglican chaplaincies the yearbook lists in Vaud.7

Soirées, a vineyard and a bazaar

The effort to build began in earnest in the winter of 1877–78. The Vevey papers carried advertisements, in English and French, for a series of evening entertainments in aid of the “English Church Building Fund”. The second was at the Hôtel d’Angleterre on 7 January 1878. The third was in the Grande Salle of the Trois Couronnes on 21 January, lent by its owner, M. Schott. Reserved seats cost two francs and back seats fifty centimes, and on the night of the third concert there was “no half price”. Tickets were to be had from Mr Grimley, opposite the Hotel Monnet.8

William Grimley was president of the English congregation. On 11 February 1878 the town council ratified the sale to him of the western part of a vineyard at En Puey, on the road to Blonay and St-Légier. The vineyard belonged to the town hospital. The plot measured 1,756 square metres, and the chaplaincy’s history gives the price as 14,000 francs. When the Feuille d’avis de Vevey told the story for the centenary in 1982, it observed that the land had not been bought to go on growing vines.9

A Russian church was going up in Vevey at the same time. It was paid for by Count and Countess Pierre Schouvaloff, and was nearly finished in March 1878. The chaplaincy’s own history says the two churches were at first to have stood side by side on the same plot. The Schouvaloffs’ gift, it says, allowed the Russian church to be built on a separate site in the rue des Communaux, where its gilded dome still stands.10

The English church went up much more slowly. In July 1879 the Journal de Vevey announced “a bazaar in aid of the continuation of the work on the English Church”. It was to be held “God willing” in the middle of September. That summer Prior wrote to the town’s executive council to say that the work might stop for lack of money, and asked for a grant. The council replied that it was sorry to hear of the difficulties but could not set a precedent: it could not even afford the urgent repairs needed at St Martin.11

The walls still stood unfinished in June 1880, when the Revd J. N. Woodroffe, sent by the society to help Prior for the month, went exploring. He admired the market, where “colour, variety, animation and bright sunshine gave the old market-square great interest”. He admired too the Dent du Midi “rising like a giant above its compeers”. He noticed the new Russian church with its gilded cupola. “Naturally I asked where is the English church?” His guide pointed to a plot just below them, “and there on a nice piece of ground, stood the unfinished walls of what should long ago have been completed and consecrated as the English church at Vevey.”12

The money was found in the end, a little at a time. In October 1881 “A BAZAAR” was held at the Vevey theatre “in favour of the new English Church”, and the public were “cordially invited to attend”. One of the collectors was Caroline Lillian Taylor. “Lil worked hard collecting money to build the church,” Captain Taylor wrote, “which remained only a few feet high for a long time, until inch by inch they raised enough funds to complete it.” She died on 30 October 1882, ten weeks after the consecration, and the font carved by the Vevey marble-mason David Doret is her memorial. The chaplaincy puts the final cost at 103,000 francs, all of it raised by the congregation and its friends.13

All Saints has long been called a church by George Edmund Street, who had built Christ Church at Lausanne. Schniewind records that it was widely regarded as one of his best works. The local papers of 1882 saw it differently. Before the consecration the Feuille d’avis said it had been “built and finished by architects and contractors of our town”. Afterwards it congratulated “the architect of this charming building, our fellow citizen M. H. Lavanchy”. Henri Lavanchy was a Vevey architect and builder. The sources we hold do not show how the work was divided between the two men.14

The same paper noticed two small rose windows, “one showing the arms of our town and the other the federal cross”. On Sunday 20 August 1882 the town’s list of services still gave the English service at Ste-Claire. A week later it read “Eglise anglaise, All Saints Church”, at eleven and at four, with the Revd Prior.15 After the consecration the visiting clergy lunched at Prior’s house. Speeches thanked the town and its National Church, whose buildings had been lent to the English for so many years.16

Debts and windows

The church was consecrated in debt. The Record noted in 1882 that “a good sum” was still needed, and eight years later the chaplain was still working to clear it. In September 1890 he thanked “the Friends and Supporters of All Saints Church” in the Feuille d’avis for their help at a bazaar. It had raised £164 “towards reducing the Debt upon the Church of more than 8 years standing”. The chaplain by then was George Akehurst, who served from 1886 to 1901 and who, among other economies, sold the church’s first organ for £100.17

Of the three English churches on this stretch of shore, All Saints and Christ Church, Clarens, belonged to the Evangelical tradition, and St John’s, Territet to the Anglo-Catholic. Bishop Wilkinson, who came for a confirmation in 1886, called All Saints “our pretty little church, built by Mr Street”. Akehurst gave the church its eagle lectern in 1887. The principal window, of 1896, was given by the Revd Onslow Mangles to mark Akehurst’s second marriage. In 1909 a new organ was bought from Goll of Lucerne for £550, and central heating was put in the same year. The building is of sandstone, which wears badly, and bits of it have been falling off ever since.18

By the early twentieth century the chaplain appeared in the visitors’ lists like everyone else. “British Chaplain at Vevey, Rev. G. W. Crawford and Fam.” arrived at the end of 1901, and the next summer he was to be found at the Hôtel des Trois-Couronnes. By then a funicular climbed from Vevey through Chardonne to the hotels on Mont-Pèlerin. By 1907 the English visitors up there had a Sunday service of their own, and the chapel they eventually built is described on our Mont-Pèlerin page. In 1922 a correspondent for The Record imagined a visitor asking “Is there an English church in the place?” He described All Saints standing “in its own beautiful grounds” near the Hôtel d’Angleterre, “where the Chaplain lives”. The chaplain then was Walter Legg, who stayed from 1921 until 1946.19

The soldiers at St Martin

The First World War brought Vevey its saddest link with our own valley. From 1916 wounded British prisoners of war were interned in Switzerland, many of them at Château-d’Œx, and those who died were buried wherever they had been living. In October 1921 the town of Vevey offered them a single resting place: a British military cemetery within the cemetery of St Martin. Nestlé and the chocolate makers Peter, Cailler, Kohler paid part of the cost of bringing the bodies there. The cemetery was consecrated on 5 December 1921 by Legg, the curé of Vevey and a Presbyterian minister from Lausanne. The British consul and the syndic of Vevey were present.20

It was formally inaugurated on Monday 4 June 1923. The Feuille d’avis described 78 limestone headstones made by a Vevey mason, A. Reymond, each carrying a soldier’s name and his regimental badge. They stood in four rows divided by a paved path that led to a cross bearing a bronze sword. Sixty-one of the men had died during internment, six as prisoners at Constance, and eleven had been sent to Switzerland sick by the British Red Cross. The paper thought the effect very fine, and said the uniformity of the stones strengthened “the idea we have of ultimate equality”. At the lunch that followed at the Trois Couronnes, the British minister thanked the people of Vevey, Leysin and Château-d’Œx for their kindness to his countrymen.21

Remembrance services were held at All Saints every year, with wreaths laid afterwards at St Martin. Airmen who crashed in Switzerland in the Second World War were buried there too. In 1947 or 1948 a wooden triptych with the names of all those buried at St Martin was put up in the north transept. From the 1960s the Royal British Legion took over the service at the cemetery.22

Lean years

In January 1948 the Feuille d’avis printed under “Church of England (All Saints)” only the words “Service Christ Church, Clarens”. The congregation was being sent along the shore to Christ Church. When the pound was devalued in 1949, many English residents could no longer afford to live in Switzerland and went home. The church had to ask its chaplain, F. E. Keay, to leave, and many of the smaller chapels in the district were closed or handed over to the Swiss. The chapel on Mont-Pèlerin was sold to the Reformed parish of Chardonne-Jongny in 1952. The wider story of those years is told on our page on the English churches in Switzerland.23

For more than a decade Vevey was served with Christ Church, Clarens, by the Revd A. Douglas Adams. He lived at La Tour-de-Peilz and for a time looked after Château-d’Œx and Les Avants as well. Money came from an annual church sale, begun in the early 1950s, which grew into one of the congregation’s main sources of income. Its first proceeds paid the deposit on a parsonage at Blonay.24

The congregation recovered. From 1973 the clergy lists style the post “Vevey with Château-d’Œx and Villars”, and the Vevey chaplain now looked after two mountain churches as well as his own. Because of the distances, Schniewind records, an assistant chaplain was employed. In the early 1970s the church had the only boys’ choir in Switzerland. In 1977 a Vevey architect, Georges Dufour, turned the old vaulted cellars under the church into a hall. The centenary was kept a little late, on 19 September 1982, when the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Coggan, came to Vevey for a confirmation service.25

Two years later All Saints held the funeral of the actor James Mason, who had lived at Corseaux, just along the shore, for about twenty years. Among the mourners were his family, the actor Brian Aherne and Oona Chaplin. The Revd Alex Ross of Basingstoke took the service in the absence of the chaplain, Tim Barlow, and the organist of St Martin played.26

Between 1996 and 2001 a series of legacies came to the church. Among them was more than half a million francs from Felix Jacobs, whose modest apartment had given no sign of his wealth. With further gifts from the congregation, from Nestlé and from charitable trusts, over 1.2 million francs was raised. The council built a new church hall, restored the organ, the north window and the tower. While the work was done, the congregation went back to worship at Ste-Claire.27

All Saints today

All Saints still stands in its own grounds at 40 avenue de la Prairie. The service is at half past ten every Sunday morning, and the congregation comes from many countries and many churches. The chaplain of All Saints is also the chaplain of St Peter’s, Château-d’Œx. He works at Vevey during the week, and every Sunday he travels up the valley for our 5.30 evening service. Writing for Schniewind’s history in the early 1990s, John de Bruin, a warden of the church, called it “a very live congregation”.28

Inside are the font that Lil Taylor’s friends gave in her memory and the small rose window with the arms of Vevey. A short walk away, in St Martin’s cemetery, are the rows of headstones of the soldiers who died during their internment in Switzerland.

If you have memories, photographs or family papers connected with All Saints, or know who Dr Forbes was, please write to us at info(a)stpeters.ch.

  1. “Foreign and Colonial Church News”, The Record, 8 September 1882, p. 9 (British Newspaper Archive BL/0006265/18820908, art. 026), read on the page image; Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 23 August 1882, p. 4, “Consécration de l’église anglaise de Vevey” (Scriptorium item 248998), our translation: the church “que nos lecteurs ont vu s’élever non loin de l’hôpital du Samaritain près de la route de St-Légier”; “une dizaine d’ecclésiastiques anglais ou américains”; “une assemblée composée de cent à cent-cinquante personnes”; “un auditoire — qui aurait pu être plus nombreux”. The Feuille spells the bishop “Stewens”. His forename is not given in the sources we hold. ↩

  2. The Record, 8 September 1882, p. 9; Prior’s report in the Greater Britain Messenger, January 1883, as reprinted in Graeme Livingstone-Wallace, All Saints’ Vevey (Vevey: All Saints’ Anglican Chaplaincy, 2011). The bishop said there were “two things” that led him to accept; the paragraph as printed gives only the first. Dr Forbes is not yet identified. ↩

  3. Paul W. Schniewind, Anglicans in Switzerland (Berne, 1992), p. 52, quoting Dean’s return to the Biber inquiry of 1845 and Jéquier; Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for Monnet’s request, the pastors Chavannes and Grenier and July 1844; the same account in Fédia Muller, “L’église anglaise de Vevey va bientôt fêter ses cent ans”, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 24 August 1982, p. 1 (Scriptorium item 225174), which gives the service as “les dimanches ordinaires dès 11 heures le matin”. ↩

  4. “English Education” and “Leçons d’anglais”, Le Courrier Suisse (Lausanne), 4 October 1844, p. 4 (Scriptorium item 733238), read on the page image. It gives terms of “L. 55 per annum” for pupils under ten and “L. 70” for older pupils. The advertisement does not name the chaplain; Dean’s appointment in 1844 and his four pupils are from Schniewind, p. 53. ↩

  5. Schniewind, p. 53, quoting Dean’s return of 1845. ↩

  6. Schniewind, p. 53, for Lear. ↩

  7. Schniewind, pp. 53 and 56; Almanach de Lausanne, “Culte anglican”, editions of 1861, 1866, 1869, 1878 and 1880, transcribed from the page images at Scriptorium. Schniewind dates Prior’s appointment to 1861, the chaplaincy’s history to 1862. ↩

  8. Nouvelle Feuille d’Avis des districts de Vevey, 31 December 1877, p. 4 (Scriptorium item 249457), “The Second Entertainment in aid of the English Church Building Fund … Hotel d’Angleterre, Jany 7th 1878”; Journal de Vevey, 15 January 1878, p. 4 (item 244237), for the third soirée on 21 January at the Trois Couronnes “by the kind permission of Mr F. Schott”. Two further soirées followed in February and March; the sixth was postponed (Journal de Vevey, 5 March 1878, item 244051). ↩

  9. Nouvelle Feuille d’Avis, 8 February 1878, p. 1 (item 248158): the council’s agenda for 11 February, “ratification de la vente par l’Hôpital à M. William-Henri Grimley, de la partie occidentale d’une vigne en Puey”; the auction notice in Journal de Vevey, 8 January 1878, p. 4 (item 244298). Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for 1,756 m² and 14,000 francs; Muller (1982) for the same area, a price of 12,779.78 francs and “Ce n’était pas pour continuer la culture de la plante à Noé que cette acquisition avait été faite”. ↩

  10. Nouvelle Feuille d’Avis, 1 March 1878, p. 8 (item 248093), on the watercolours of the “Église russe construite dans notre ville” (plans by Monigatti of St Petersburg, work supervised by the architect Keser-Doret; inauguration hoped for in May); Muller (1982) for the Schouvaloffs and the rue des Communaux; Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for the plan to build side by side. Muller dates the Russian church to 1878, a few weeks after the English land was bought, so the shared-site plan, if there was one, must have been earlier. We have not found that plan in the papers of the time. ↩

  11. Journal de Vevey, 22 July 1879, p. 4 (item 245799), our translation: “Un bazar en faveur de la continuation des travaux de l’Eglise Anglaise aura lieu, Dieu voulant, vers le milieu du mois de septembre.” Livingstone-Wallace (2011) dates Prior’s letter to July 1879, Muller (1982) to June 1879. ↩

  12. J. N. Woodroffe in the Greater Britain Messenger, October 1880, as reprinted in Livingstone-Wallace (2011). ↩

  13. Journal de Vevey, 29 September 1881, p. 4 (item 246210), advertisement for the bazaar on 5 and 6 October; Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for Captain Taylor’s letter, the font and its inscription, and the building account (land 14,000 francs, foundations and building 89,000). Muller (1982) spells the sculptor Doret; the chaplaincy’s history, Dore. ↩

  14. Schniewind, pp. 53–54; Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 9 August 1882, p. 5 (item 249095), “construite et achevée par des architectes et entrepreneurs de notre ville”; Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 23 August 1882, p. 4, “l’architecte de ce charmant édifice : notre concitoyen M. H. Lavanchy, à Vevey” (translations ours). Livingstone-Wallace (2011) says Street’s plans “were passed to” Lavanchy “for final implementation”; Muller (1982) that Lavanchy built it “d’après les plans d’un célèbre architecte londonien Mr. Street”. No source of 1878–82 that we have read names Street. ↩

  15. Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 9 August 1882, p. 5, “deux rosaces d’un fort joli effet, dont l’une représente les armoiries de notre ville et l’autre la croix fédérale”; Journal de Vevey, 19 August 1882, p. 4 (item 244471), and 26 August 1882, p. 4 (item 244485), lists of services. Muller (1982) and Livingstone-Wallace (2011) describe the second rose as bearing the royal coat of arms; it may have been changed later. ↩

  16. Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 23 August 1882, p. 4: “au presbytère de M. le Rev. Prior”. Those who spoke were Stevens, the pastors Cérésole, Dean of Neuchâtel, Cornell of Nice, Prior and Vodoz of Noville, and the banker Glas for the committee. ↩

  17. The Record, 8 September 1882; “The English Church, Vevey”, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 12 September 1890, p. 3 (item 252224); Schniewind, p. 56, and Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for Akehurst’s dates and the organ sale. ↩

  18. Livingstone-Wallace (2011); Schniewind, p. 54, for Wilkinson’s journal, and p. 57 for the three traditions. The present organ, by E. Dumas et Fils of Romont, replaced one by Kuhn of Männedorf, which had replaced the Goll. ↩

  19. Journal et liste des étrangers de Montreux, de Vevey, 28 December 1901, p. 15 (item 397778); Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 14 June 1902, p. 8 (item 214012), “British Chaplain at Vevey: Rev. Crawford, Hôtel des Trois-Couronnes”; for the funicular, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 17 August 1954, p. 4 (item 220114), which has “le funiculaire Vevey-Chardonne-Pèlerin” running by 1905, and for the services of 1907 the sources on the Mont-Pèlerin page; “A Vision of Vevey”, signed G. H. A., The Record, 28 September 1922, p. 639 (BNA BL/0006265/19220928, art. 036), read on the page image, where the chaplain is printed “Rev. W. P. Legge”; Schniewind, p. 56, for Walter Patterson Legg, 1921–46. ↩

  20. “Cimetière militaire britannique”, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 12 October 1921, p. 4 (item 213524); “Inauguration du cimetière militaire britannique”, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 5 June 1923, pp. 4–5 (item 201180); the council report in Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 12 May 1923, p. 5 (item 201067), which says the cemetery was “créé en octobre 1921”. Schniewind (p. 54) and the chaplaincy’s history date the transfer to 1922, give 76 soldiers, and name the Presbyterian minister as from Montreux; the 1923 report names him as from Lausanne. ↩

  21. Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 5 June 1923, pp. 4–5, our translations (“renforce et précise encore la notion que nous avons de l’égalité suprême”; “la générosité intarissable dont un grand nombre d’habitants de la ville de Vevey ainsi que de Leysin, Château d’Oex et d’autres régions du Canton de Vaud et de la Suisse ont fait preuve à l’égard de nos soldats”). The minister also thanked Major de la Harpe, head of the British section of the Swiss internment service, for his work to bring together the graves “jusqu’alors réparties dans toute la Suisse”. ↩

  22. Schniewind, p. 54; Livingstone-Wallace (2011). In the centenary article of 1982 Muller mentions memorials in the church to Lieutenant Abingdon Baily of the Royal Navy, killed at Taranto in November 1940, and to airmen who crashed in Switzerland in 1943–44, “notamment les pilotes qui périrent au Grammont”. ↩

  23. Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 3 January 1948, p. 2 (item 221690); Schniewind, pp. 55 and 106; Feuille d’avis de Lausanne, 7 July 1952, p. 18 (item 31860), for the Mont-Pèlerin sale. The chaplain in 1946–47 was Walsingham Good, and Keay was appointed in 1948 (Schniewind, p. 56). ↩

  24. Crockford’s Clerical Directory, 1957–58 to 1961–62 editions, Adams’s entry (“Ch. Ch. Montreux and Vevey”; in 1961–62 “Montreux, Vevy, Chateau d’Oex and Les Avantes”); Schniewind, p. 55; Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for the sale and the parsonage. ↩

  25. Crockford’s, entries for R. I. Thomson (1973–78) and later chaplains; Schniewind, p. 55, including the assistant chaplain; Livingstone-Wallace (2011) for Dufour’s hall and the Coggan weekend; Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 25 August 1982, p. 1 (item 225204), “ce n’est que le 19 septembre prochain que l’ancien archevêque de Canterbury, Lord Coggan, viendra présider aux cérémonies commémoratives veveysannes”, and the programme in the issue of 18 September 1982, p. 11 (item 225032). Schniewind also gives 19 September 1982. The chaplaincy’s own history remembers Coggan and his wife as guests for the weekend of 18–20 August; the local paper, writing in August 1982, said the anniversary would be kept a little late, in September, because that was when he could come. ↩

  26. “A «All Saints Church» — Emouvantes obsèques de l’acteur James Mason”, Feuille d’avis de Vevey, 1 August 1984, p. 9 (item 227750), signed J.-L. R. The report gives the funeral as “en fin de matinée” without naming the day; Mason had died in Lausanne the previous Friday. ↩

  27. Livingstone-Wallace (2011): legacies of 513,000 francs from Felix Jacobs, 33,000 from Betty Junod and 155,000 from Ruth Taylor, and a total of 1,213,918 francs by 2001. ↩

  28. All Saints Church Vevey, allsaints.ch, home page, read 21 September 2026 (“Our services are at 10.30 every Sunday morning”; “a church family of many nations, representing many denominations”); the chaplain’s page on stpeters.ch (Revd Mark Fletcher), which gives the 5.30 p.m. Sunday service at St Peter’s, and the Intercontinental Church Society, both read 21 September 2026; de Bruin’s notes, quoted in Schniewind, p. 55. ↩

Questions answered

How old is the English congregation at Vevey?
The English congregation at Vevey goes back to 1823. In a report of 1845 the chaplain wrote that "a congregation of the English Church has existed at Vevey since 1823". The Lausanne historian Michel Jéquier found English services held that year in the church of La Tour-de-Peilz. What happened over the next twenty years is not known. In 1844 services began, or began again, in a room of the Hotel Monnet, now the Trois Couronnes. From July 1844, with the agreement of the town's pastors, they were held in the churches of St Martin and Ste-Claire.
Who designed All Saints Church, Vevey?
All Saints, Vevey, has long been called a church by the architect George Edmund Street, who built Christ Church at Lausanne. Schniewind records that it was widely regarded as one of his best works. The Vevey papers of 1882 saw it differently. Before the consecration the Feuille d'avis de Vevey said the church had been built by architects and contractors of the town. Afterwards it congratulated "the architect of this charming building, our fellow citizen M. H. Lavanchy". Henri Lavanchy was a Vevey architect and builder. The sources we hold do not show how the work was divided between the two men.
When was All Saints Vevey consecrated, and who consecrated it?
All Saints, Vevey, was consecrated at eleven in the morning on Tuesday 22 August 1882 by Bishop Stevens of Pennsylvania, acting for the Bishop of London. The chaplain was the Revd William Phelps Prior. At the end of his sermon the bishop said that one reason he had come was his late friend the Revd Dr Forbes. Forbes, he said, had "assumed a large responsibility in securing the needed funds". Who Dr Forbes was has not yet been established.
What did All Saints Vevey cost to build?
The chaplaincy's own history puts the cost of All Saints, Vevey, at 103,000 francs in all: 14,000 for the land and 89,000 for the foundations and building. The Feuille d'avis de Vevey, writing for the centenary in 1982, gave the price of the land as 12,779.78 francs. The money was raised by the congregation and its friends, through evening entertainments, collections and bazaars. In 1879 the chaplain asked the town for a grant and was refused, and the walls still stood unfinished in 1880.
Why are British war graves at Vevey?
From 1916 wounded British prisoners of war were interned in Switzerland, many of them at Château-d'Œx, and those who died were buried wherever they had been living. In October 1921 the town of Vevey offered them a single resting place, a British military cemetery within the cemetery of St Martin. It was consecrated on 5 December 1921, with the chaplain of All Saints, Walter Legg, taking part, and formally inaugurated on 4 June 1923, when it had 78 headstones. Airmen who crashed in Switzerland in the Second World War were buried there too.
Which other churches were served from Vevey?
Château-d'Œx and Villars were served from Vevey. From 1973 the Anglican clergy lists style the post "Vevey with Château-d'Œx and Villars", and Schniewind records that an assistant chaplain was employed because of the distances. Today the chaplain of All Saints, Vevey, works there during the week and travels up to St Peter's, Château-d'Œx, every Sunday for its evening service.
Where is All Saints Church, Vevey, and when are its services?
All Saints Church, Vevey, stands in its own grounds at 40 avenue de la Prairie. Its service is at half past ten every Sunday morning, and the congregation comes from many countries and many churches.
Was James Mason's funeral held at All Saints, Vevey?
Yes. In 1984 All Saints, Vevey, held the funeral of the actor James Mason, who had lived at Corseaux, just along the shore, for about twenty years. Among the mourners were his family, the actor Brian Aherne and Oona Chaplin.