Long revered for changing great swathes of the English landscape during the eighteenth century, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s skills also extended to architecture. Appropriately, a rare example of his ecclesiastical buildings opens its doors again last weekend. Following major investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and years of painstaking work, Compton Verney’s Grade I-listed chapel is set to give visitors to the Warwickshire art gallery and park fresh insights into Brown’s considerable gifts.

Renowned for creating magical worlds of green by planting trees galore, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, ‘Capability’ Brown also offered a number of different services to his clients – including architecture.

Despite contributing to some of England’s greatest houses, Brown’s skills as a draughtsman played second fiddle to his ‘place-making’. This makes Compton Verney’s stunning chapel all the more significant, especially during the 300th anniversary of the great man’s birth.

The restoration of the chapel is the culmination of Compton Verney’s £3.7m ‘Capability’ Brown restoration and refurbishment project, made possible thanks to National Lottery players.

Completed in 1779, the Chapel was designed to complement the new, idealised landscape he was creating  at Compton Verney. Ironically, Brown’s landscape works had required the demolition of the estate’s original medieval chapel, in order to open up views of the mansion from across the lake.

In 1852, Henry Peyto-Verney, 16th Baron Willoughby de Broke, added a bellcote and crypt to the chapel, and these too have benefited from the restoration.

“The works have included relaying the roof and rebuilding the bellcote, repairing the stonework and decorative plasterwork, installing new mechanical and electrical services and redecorating the interior,” explains Compton Verney Project Manager, Chris Rice, adding: “The most dramatic changes have been returning the interior to its original Georgian colour scheme and the replacement of the abysmal 1930s windows with new leaded lights containing hand-made glass. The project has also included the conservation and retention of some surviving 18th century stained glass on the North side of the building.”

Grade I-listed the chapel might be, but to a colony of Brown Long-eared Bats, it is also home. As they are a protected species, Chris and his team had to install special access slots in the roof felt and construct two purpose-built roosting ‘caves’ in the stone gable ends.

Compton Verney’s Director, Professor Steven Parissien, said: “The restoration of Brown’s splendid chapel has been a long-held ambition for Compton Verney and we are delighted with the quality of the craftsmanship of the works. We are enormously grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund and all the other funders who have enabled us to realise this goal.”

The chapel will be open from 11am to 5pm on Saturday 27 August and then every day between Tuesday and Sunday, and during Bank Holidays.