The Roedean Chapel is a treasured sanctuary, endowed through generations with beautiful gifts offered in memory or in gratitude and affection.

The first building, The Nancy Carver Memorial Chapel, designed by Mr Leonard Fleming, and built in memory of a past pupil, was initially half the size it is today. As there was enough money only for the little building itself, it was very small, with a beaten-earth floor, slits for windows, no seats, and no lighting, but before the building was finished, an anonymous donor gave enough money to glaze the windows and provide seating and lighting. This was the first special gift of many for the beautifying and enriching of the Chapel.

“It is perhaps the most beautiful memorial to one person that Johannesburg possesses.”

In an article on the occasion of the dedication in 1934, The Star said: “It is perhaps the most beautiful memorial to one person that Johannesburg possesses.” Stained-glass windows have filled the ‘slits’.

At the altar, the original reredos, designed and executed by Helena Janisch, with the words in Greek, “Feed my Sheep”, has been replaced with “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” in wrought iron and copper lettering by Kurt Jobst.