The chapel on Cormont Road, Camberwell
(Picture: Unique Property Company)Once a house of God, this converted chapel could now be your house – if you’ve £2.85 million to spare.
Spanning 3,200sq ft, this Grade II-listed, four-bedroom home on Cormont Road, Camberwell, is one of London’s largest chapel conversions.
Built in 1903, the chapel was originally part of the adjoining training college for women teachers, which was converted into flats in the 1990s.
Its current owner, interior designer Peggy Prendeville, bought the chapel in 1999 and fought to prevent it being broken up into four separate flats.
“The previous owner had made a start on converting it, but with two children and myself working from home, there were many questions to be answered. How to make the building a family home and work space, but yet still be viable as an historic interior?” wrote Prendiville on her website.
“It was important not lose the sense of calm that this building with its beautiful proportions and stained glass windows had.”
The answer was to build upwards. Prendeville expanded the floor space by adding mezzanine levels to both sides of the church.
One, on the altar end, is currently used as a home gym; the other, where the organ loft had been, added two bedrooms, a walk-in wardrobe and study, spread over two floors.
The project was no first for Prendeville, who had previously converted a space in a Victorian dog biscuit factory in east London for herself and her husband to live in, and has since created a library in an 18th century ballroom for Sotheby’s Institute, transformed a historical shop house into a luxury home, retail outlet and art gallery in Singapore and reworked the Cardiff Park Plaza Hotel, amongst other projects.
The main living space is “the crowning glory”, as the listing puts it, with a 1,176sq ft open plan reception, dining room and kitchen set in the middle of the chapel, where the congregation would have sat.
And it still looks like a chapel, with its original fittings —including dark wooden choir seats and the marble altar steps— a vaulted ceiling and large stained-glass windows (retro-fitted with secondary glazing to prevent draughts).
Prendeville completed her ambitious conversion in 2005. Having used it as a home and work space since then, the time has now come for her to take on a new project.
Despite the chapel’s “wow factor”, it has been on the market since 2020, when it was listed for £2.95 million.
According to agent Simon Stone at Unique Property Company, it is in fact a broad church in terms of its versatility. “The odd thing is, this place works well as both a space for singles or couples but also as a really alternative family home.
“There’s so much space and it’s really cleverly divided so parents, kids etc can be somewhere within the building but feel like they’re tucked away in their own little private area. It’s also opposite to Myatts Field Park and easy to get out for walk in leafy surroundings.”
