Corpus of Percy Bacon & Brothers

St Raphael's Home Chapel. Undated postcard in the author's collection.

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St Barnabas's Home Chapel. Undated postcard. PD Image.

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The Chapel of St Raphael's Home - also used by patients at St Luke's Home. Undated postcard in the author's collection. PD Image.

Posted 13 May 2026.

The only reference to works carried out by the Percy Bacon studios so far found for the Clewer Sisters' Chapel in Torquay was published in the Illustrated Guide to the Church Congress and Ecclesiastical Art Exhibition, Birmingham in 1893. In this guide Percy Bacon published a list of recent works, one of which reads; "Clewer Sisters' Chapel, Torquay; Windows, Reredos, Wall Paintings, Stations of the Cross. Unfortunately there is no further detail, and to complicate matters the Clewer Sisters ran three properties in Torquay; St Raphael's Convalescent Home for women (from 1866 at an earlier property but moved to new house in 1868), St Luke's for consumptive men (built in 1883/4 in the grounds of St Raphael's Home - see map below),¹ and St Barnabas' Home for incurable and permanent patients (men and women) from 1892.² The sisters gave up the three homes in Torquay in 1959.³

The photographs in the slide show above show the interiors of St Raphael's, and St Barnabas's Chapels. St Luke's home shared the chapel attached to St Raphael's.

The Community of St John the Baptist - as the Clewer Sisters are more correctly titled - was founded in 1852 by Harriott Monsell and the Rev Thomas Carter, in Clewer near Windsor. Its mission was to help women in need - single mothers, homeless women, and sex trade workers - providing shelter and education, but as the homes in Torquay attest this charity also extended to men. At the height of its ministry, the community had 45 priories and houses.

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1. Bonham, V. A joyous service: the Clewer sisters and their work, 2012. p49.
2. Ibid pp113-114.
3. Ibid. p142. See also Ven W. A. Hutchings; Fourth Edition; Life and Letters of Thomas Thellusson Carter, p97.