The Agapemonites (from Agapemone – meaning Abode of Love) was a religious sect founded in 1846 by a defrocked clergyman named Henry Prince.
Prince declared himself the ‘Holy Spirit’ and managed to persuade a number of believers, mostly rich widows and spinsters, to sell everything they owned for the Lord. With the proceeds, Prince set about building the sect’s headquarters in the tiny Somerset village of Spaxton. These headquarters consisted of a twenty-bedroom mansion, a chapel, cottages, stables and a gazebo. The whole site was surrounded by fifteen-foot walls and was guarded by ferocious bloodhounds.
Prince’s followers were divided into hierarchies. Those who had given the most continued to live a life of luxury, spending their days reading, playing hockey and billiards and, of course, worshipping Prince during the daily sermons in the chapel. Those women who had no riches to give to the Lord, gave their labour instead and lived as servants. They were known as the Parlour.
The very existence of the Abode of Love caused moral outrage in the society of the day, with its strict Victorian values of propriety, modesty and virtue. The newspapers were full of the scandal of it, and readers lapped up stories of brainwashing, sexual outrages and attempts to kidnap various family members. It was said that Prince took advantage of his exalted position to take many ‘spirit brides’ and to even rape a young kitchen maid on the chapel altar in front of his congregation.
In 1896, at the ripe old age of 85, Henry Prince initiated the building of a church in Clapton, North London. It was a vastly ornate building (still standing today) that included a stained glass window which depicted the submission of womankind to man.
Prince died in 1899, causing panic amongst his followers who had truly believed he was immortal. They buried him standing upright, in readiness for the Day of Reckoning.
Prince was succeeded by a man called John Smyth-Pigott who declared himself the second Messiah. Incredibly the Agapemonites grew from strength to strength, with the number of women at the Abode swelling to nearly one hundred. It was reported that Smyth-Pigott took at least seven ‘spirit brides’ a week.
It wasn’t until the death of Smyth-Pigott in 1927 that membership of the sect started to decline. By the early 1950s only a handful of ‘disillusioned old women and frustrated young women’ were left.
The last member of the sect, a sister Ruth, died in 1957. The following year, the Abode was sold and the chapel went on to be used as a backdrop for the children’s television series Trumpton and Camberwick Green.