M.B. HENRY 
Talbot House – “All Rank Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here”
The first thing we saw at Talbot House was the garden. It was spacious and green, with beautiful flowering shrubs all over the grassy lawn. Butterflies flitted everywhere. It felt like a haven, and I let out a nice exhale. In my first five minutes there, I saw why so many soldiers from the Great War and the nearby Ypres Salient found peace at Talbot House. As Sgt. Jacob Bennett of the Scots Guards wrote of his own visit – “In April 1916 I spent two happy days at Talbot House, and in that Garden, where all was Peace in the midst of war.”
Talbot House Garden – “Peace in the midst of war.”
The story of Talbot House is a very moving one, and I stumbled on it by chance while researching for my WWI historical-fiction novel. In an interesting coincidence, we also stumbled on the place itself by chance in Belgium. While my husband and I explored Ypres, I saw a sign for Poperinghe, only a few miles down the road, and I immediately thought of Talbot House. Since we had a car, we decided to make the side track. And wouldn’t you just know it? For both my husband and me, the impromptu visit to Talbot House proved one of the highlights of our trip.
Nicknamed “Toc H” by the British army, Talbot House came into being in December 1915, thanks to a British Army Senior Chaplain, Rev. Neville Talbot. He wanted to provide the British troops in Poperinghe with a place to escape the horrors of war, yet also stay clean from the evils of vice. Rev. Philp B. Clayton, a chaplain from the 16th Brigade known affectionately as “Tubby,” was tapped to run the new establishment.
People didn’t only praise him for his rounded gut. Reverend P.B. Clayton also won ample admirers for his complete lack of military decorum. Instead of a stuffy uniform, he preferred breeches, puttees and his signature blue blazer. He had a casual air and sense of humor that drew in scores of war-weary trench boys. He displayed a deep and personal interest in their welfare, and he didn’t only care about them finding religion. Boys found they could talk to him about anything.
One soldier, Signaler Henry Whiteman, remembers the profound effect Clayton had on him during his one visit with the reverend – “I had memories of battles, bombardments, blood and hate…I sat glum and filled with hate for the Germans and the whole set up. I was alone and just bottled up all this… Up came a Padre, who turned out to be Reverend PB Clayton. “Come soldier,” he said, “nothing is too sour but it can be sweetened.” He sat with me awhile, and… said a simple prayer… All that he said changed a hateful heart to a grateful one.”
Whiteman’s charming tale is one of many about the compassion of Reverend Clayton, and he didn’t keep his work confined to Talbot House. Clayton often packed up his memorable portable organ and traveled to the most dangerous parts of the front. He especially loved visiting boys who had visited his Poperinghe sanctuary, and he played them hymns on his organ. He never minded the danger to himself, he only wanted to bring a touch of home to a place where hell reigned deep.
With Clayton’s dedication, by 1917, Talbot House provided a home away from home for countless people on the Ypres Salient. The “every man’s club” didn’t stop short at soldiers either. It had also opened its doors to nurses from the nearby hospitals, and even some of the local children found comfort within its walls.
Talbot House catered to so many because of its famous creed – anyone was welcome, and rank counted for naught. Military hierarchy and barking orders were not welcome in Talbot House, a strict rule evidenced by the adjusted Dante quote Clayton hung above his office door (see title of this article!) The protocol created scores of friendships among men and women who wouldn’t normally associate with one another. Captains and privates sat together for tea parties. They huddled together at the maps in the foyer and spoke of the places they had been and the battles they fought (today, their fingerprints remain visible on those maps). They played the piano and sang rousing numbers together in the “Canteen Room,” which had ample supplies of fresh tea, cocoa, and cakes. The garden was also a popular place to mingle. Its lush grounds were a sight for many sore eyes that saw only ripped up ground, mud, and death.
Canteen Room – Tea, Cakes, and Music
Other rooms in Talbot House boasted many other delights. A room in the nearby hop barn had been converted to a theater, where soldiers put on their own entertainment with music, show numbers, instrumental bands, and comedy sketches. Clayton himself participated in many of these shows. Those not in the mood for theater could retreat to the reading room, stacked with mountains of books, magazines, and periodicals. Soldiers borrowed books in exchange for their hats, so, the room always had a humorous heap of army hats at any given time.
The writing room sat just off the reading room, and soldiers corresponded there with sweethearts and families back home. They could also leave a note at the “Friendship Corner” to connect with friends and family. Almost like a WWI-era Twitter feed, this large parchment on the wall downstairs, where soldiers left messages and contact information for loved ones, helped many people reconnect. Clayton witnessed many teary reunions in Talbot House Parlor between fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, and long-lost friends that hadn’t seen each other since the war broke out.
Friendship Corner!
One of these reunions involved Lance-Corporal Quin, who visited Talbot House and saw his brother’s name scrawled on the Friendship Corner parchment. Quin hadn’t seen his brother since 1914, and the note showed he had visited Talbot House just the day before. When Clayton inquired after the brother through all the military channels, he learned his battalion had been moved out of the area. The boy, the military said, could not be spared.
Clayton took matters into his own hands. He writes of the incident – “…I took a Signal Form and (with an element of connivance) drafted a most official wire to the Adjutant of the brother’s battalion, demanding that Private Quin should be sent back immediately to the Town Major’s Office. No reason was vouchsafed… sure enough, it worked, and the two brothers met in Talbot House that very afternoon… this was the sole occasion when I deliberately deceived the British Army, making no bones about it.” And a good thing he did so too, because just a few weeks after their reunion at Talbot House, one of the brothers was killed in action.
But out of all the rooms at Talbot House, one of the most remembered and revered was the upper story chapel, or the “Upper Room” as most called it. Located at the top of a perilous set of stairs, it consisted of a simple makeshift altar and a few wooden benches. Clayton provided regular services in the chapel, but the doors remained open at all hours for anyone in need of prayer and reflection.
One visitor, Clayton’s own second cousin Frederick Lambart, described the sensation of stepping into the most sacred room of the house – “…I climbed the first stairs and then the ladder that led to the Upper Room. Here I saw one officer and three men kneeling at benches. I knelt down myself and prayed, as I had never prayed before… At first came quiet, a sense of peace, confidence revived. I felt as if an overwhelming burden had been lifted from me and that I was free and strong once more…”
Talbot House Chapel – “the Upper Room” (In the glass case by the window is Clayton’s portable organ)
The Upper Room became a well-known sanctuary in Poperinghe. In 1917, people packed it to the gills for Easter services. Multitudes of soldiers got baptized and confirmed there. Many a Tommy also received his first communion from Clayton in this room, and for a tragic number of them, like Corporal Archie Forest, it was also their last. “Archie stands alone in my experience – no easy thing to do,” Reverend Clayton later wrote in his diary. “After a few testing visits to Talbot House, Archie Forest had summed up Christianity, and found it greatly to his liking; after a week he had presented himself for baptism, a month later he was confirmed, and made his first communion, the week following he was killed a little past midnight at St. Jean on his way back to safety…” Since Clayton had steered Archie through his spiritual journey, Archie’s death deeply impacted him, and the memory of the bright-spirited boy never left him.
Neither did the spirit of his entire mission at Talbot House. When the war ended, P.B. Clayton returned to England and tried to start a second “Every Man’s Club” in London. Meanwhile, Maurice Coevoet, the original owner of the house in Poperinghe, moved back in and the visible signs of Talbot House fell away… for a time. Coevoet sold the house in 1929 to Lord Wakefield of Hythe, who turned it over to the “Talbot House de Poperinghe” association. They restored it to its WWI style and opened the doors once more for tourists and WWI pilgrims in 1931. Just like before, all were welcome.
Talbot House Parlor
This summer, I became one of those pilgrims. Talbot House has always held a special place in my heart, and seeing it with my own eyes was a very special treat. A very kind resident priest guided us through the many rooms. Somehow, they all felt familiar even though I’d never been there. I knew my way around the Canteen Room. I somehow “remembered” when soldiers packed the now quiet reading and writing rooms. I heard the laughter and hoots of soldiers in the empty theater room. The Upper Room especially felt like a place I had been before. Because of the many pictures I have seen of it? Or was it the sense of “home away from home” that Clayton worked so hard to provide? Perhaps that spirit remains even after an entire century, because I felt so welcome within those walls.
And that alone made the trip to Talbot House stand out. I don’t know about my fellow history buffs, but sometimes, it’s hard for me to feel like I fit in. My friends often tease me that I must belong to another era, and perhaps they’re right. Yet, like thousands of soldiers and war personnel before me, I found a place in “Pop” that took me in. P.B. Clayton is long gone, but the resident priest who greeted us so warmly and showed us around the house had charming echoes of him. We struck up a bond and he talked of many things, just like I imagined Clayton would have. He even asked us to stay for tea and scones in the Canteen Room (“real British tea,” he assured me. “Not that Lipton rubbish.”)
So, that’s how I sat in the famous Canteen Room at Talbot House and enjoyed tea and scones with the priest there. The piano that hundreds of WWI Tommies played and sang on sat right behind me. The window showed a splendid view of the sunny garden, and I could the “Friendship Corner” on the opposite wall. I sipped my tea and smiled. For once, and just like P.B. Clayton wanted, I felt right at home.
Prayers left in the Upper Room
SOURCES
Talbot House Museum
“A Touch of Paradise in Hell” – J. Louagie
“Nurses of Passchendaele” – C.E. Hallett
“Passchendaele” – L. MacDonald
“The First World War” – J. Keegan
All photos by M.B. Henry. For more from Belgium, click here
Would you like to plan a visit to Talbot House? Visit their website
Also, think about making a donation to keep this lovely piece of history preserved – click here for more information
Thank you for taking me there.
You are most welcome 🙂 Glad you came along!
Thank you, MB, for the fascinating tale of this World War I oasis. You really captured the feeling of visiting there in 2018 — and it was moving to read how you felt the presence of soldiers from a century ago.
It’s easy to capture the feeling in a place where they have it preserved to look so much like it did then! They’ve done a remarkable job there, I was very glad to be able to visit 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Another wonderful post, M.B. I really appreciated learning about Chaplain Talbot. As a chaplain myself, and also because I did part of my schooling in England where WWI is still very much remembered and those who served, honoured. At theological college, we studied another well-known chaplain who won the Military Cross and was much loved by his men, the Rev’d. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, widely known as Woodbine Willie, for handing out Woodbine cigarettes to the soldiers. You may well be familiar with him through your own studies. Here’s a link to an article about Studdert Kennedy, which also mentions Clayton and Talbot House. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-25349294
I had no idea you were a chaplain! That is wonderful – such a moving call. I actually had not heard of Reverend Kennedy in my studies, I thank you for sharing the article so I can learn! 🙂 You can never learn enough about WWI – it should never be forgotten, and I was very moved by seeing how much it is still remembered in England.
The chapel room is beautiful! Where are the prayers that have been left?
There was a little table set up by the window behind me, they were all piled on there. So moving!
Interesting as always!
Many thanks! Glad you liked it (and sorry about all the wordpress trouble! I wish I knew how to fix it but I’m a bit lost with that techy stuff!)
You made me feel right at home, too! Wonderful.
Yay! So glad Talbot House has that effect even on a blog! 🙂
What a wonderful, uplifting story. You really brought the reader with you to share the experience. What a great antidote for PTSD that must have been at the time. Rev. Talbots sounds like a remarkable man.
He truly was, from what I’ve read! It’s always so nice to find uplifting stories like this in the midst of awful war stuff 🙂 Glad you came along for the journey!
Wow! This is an amazing story! It was heart warming. I loved the photos as well. The words that came to my mind were comforting and cozy. A haven, a safe place. Thank you for this beautiful writing.
Glad you liked it!
What a cool place, and wonderful article!
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it
Ahhh…the wonderful experience of deja vu. It’s happened to me also, M.B. Thank you for sharing your experience at the Talbot House, as it really adds to the post. Could that be what draws history geeks to the past? Very interesting!
I think you’re absolutely right – I think a lot of history buffs feel deja vu in places like that and that’s why they can’t get enough of them! 🙂
Thanks for the tour of Talbot House. I think I could stay there forever. I’ll take the upper room, please. 😊
A person actually can stay in Talbot House if they’d like – there are guest rooms on the second floor! 🙂 Unfortunately our schedule did not allow for an extra night in Ypres or you can bet we would have immediately booked a room!!
That would be so much fun!
Definitely! If we ever make it out that way again, we’ll be getting a room there!
What a lovely, lovely story. I especially enjoyed you sharing your personal experience with the place that day.
Thank you! So many things on that trip happened by chance, I’m so glad this was one of them, and I’m glad to share it with everyone! 🙂
What a great post! Thanks.
You’re most welcome, Lee! 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it
Just love the peace in the middle of war . What a lovely garden house . Great post ☀️☀️☀️
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Brilliant post M.B, I didn’t know about Talbot House so that’s now on my list of places to see next time. You might be interested in a movie Peter Jackson (he of Lord of the Rings etc) about WW1 for our 100 yr commemorations, it’s called They Shall Not Grow Old. It is an astonishing piece of work, and I think you would love it. It was on TV here but probably not in USA so DVD will be the way to go, but I exhort anyone who is interested in WW1 to see it. He has used the recordings made of WW1 veterans telling how it was, and got old footage to match which he has colourised but made so real. STAGGERINGLY great as one of my fellow bloggers said!
Ooooh thank you for bringing this up! I’ve heard so much about it from some of my fellow bloggers plus some friends here in Hollywood. I have not had the pleasure of seeing it yet. I simply must get a copy! I can’t wait!
You’ll be blown away! Do let me know if you get to see it, will be interested to see what you think of it.
I surely will! And I will see it just as soon as I get my hands on a copy!
Okay so my husband just sent me a link that They Shall Not Grow Old is coming to select US theaters in December! Let’s hope one is in Los Angeles!
I’m going to have to get the blu-ray as will need to have my own copy and watchi it again! It’ll be great to see it in the theatre.
I’m really hoping it comes to LA! We are officially keeping our eyes peeled, although I can’t imagine that not one single theater here would play it.
There are so many tales of war that speak to the horrors, the fear, the boredom, the loneliness, then there is this. Thank you.
🙂 That’s exactly how I felt about it – such a bright spot in the midst of so much dark!
As usual, MB, your words takes us into the journey and makes us feel all that. I would say that the highlights of a good trip are the ones that come unplanned. A home away from home indeed.
You are so right – it’s usually the unplanned parts that create the most memories! 🙂 So glad you enjoyed the article!
Souns like such a special place. Thank you for sharing the story, the history and your experience of the place. Intriguing!
Thanks for taking a look! Glad you enjoyed it – it’s definitely a very special place
Such elegance and beauty!
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it!
Very enjoyable post! An excellent piece of writing! Thank you!
Im so glad you liked it! Thanks for reading!
Very nice!!:D
Thank you!
http://bestanimations.com/Holidays/NewYear/happy-new-year-fireworks-animated-gif-image-ecard-2.gif
So interesting!
Im so glad you liked it!
Wow, MB, this is a delightful tribute to Rev. Clayton and the brave soldiers, and a beautiful tale about the Talbot House. It is easy to see how skillfully you weave the present and the past in your writing, as you so elegantly did here. How fortunate that the Talbot House was re-constructed and you could enjoy tea and scones there, look around, and embrace the lively and poignant past. Beautifully written.
Thank you so much! Im glad you enjoyed the read. I totally agree that it is amazing when people piece the history back together for future generations to enjoy. I for one was very grateful!
As previous commenters have said, you did a fine job weaving the present and the past. All this was new to me, and I suspect to many other readers as well.
I’m so glad you were able to get something new out of it! 🙂 Thanks so much for giving this a read
Sure thing. I’ve sometimes regretted not becoming a historian. You haven’t missed your chance.
I think there’s always a little historian in any of us who want to embrace it! 🙂
Such an oasis in the midst of the wasteland of The Great War.
Definitely! 🙂 It’s always nice finding those bright spots in the dark.
What an incredible visit! Isn’t it funny how sometimes the best moments on trips are the impromptu ones?
I’d never heard of Talbot House, and I was so glad to read about it here. It looks like a perfect oasis. You made me feel like I’d been there, too!
I was thinking Clayton and his activities would make for an interesting movie, especially his faking the papers to reunite the two brothers. What an amazing man, and an amazing story.
You are absolutely right, it often works out that the unplanned parts of a trip are the most talked about after! I also agree that it would make a fantastic movie. I would be first in line to see that!
Wow, MB, that was fascinating. Breaks my heart to think about the brother who was killed in action or the one who had just been (thankfully) saved before perishing. I had never about the Talbot House. So glad that it still exists for people like you to visit.
It was definitely one of the stories that stood out the most about the house 🙁 The lengths Clayton went to reunite them, only to have one die just a few weeks later! So terrible. I’m very glad you enjoyed the article!
I felt like I was right there in Talbot House! Thank you for teaching me something new.
I am so glad you enjoyed the tour! 🙂
Lovely images and post. I’m glad the brothers were able to see each other before the one was killed in action. No doubt they had a rewarding respite from the stress of service. 🙂
That’s exactly what Talbot House seemed like to me! 🙂 A lovely respite. It’s so nice to read about things like that in the midst of so much horror. Glad you enjoyed it
I agree. Thank you. Their story lives on because you bring it to life. 🙂
Thank you! It’s what we all try our best to do! 🙂
What a beautiful house and what a beautiful person to create such a house for war-weary soldiers. I love to think of you drinking tea and eating scones with the priest!
So glad you liked it! It was one of our favorite parts of the trip and that priest was so nice!
Great photos! I loved the upper room chapel. Looks like a very interesting place to visit!
Thank you – there was definitely a lot of special things about that chapel, if you ever get a chance to visit, you would love it.
It does look interesting!
I love hearing about people and places like this, little oases of peace and comfort in times of war and hardship. Thanks for sharing it. Love your writing as always, you do a great job of describing the feeling of a place and imparting its history.
Thanks Mike! So glad you enjoyed it. I was just so happy we had a car and were able to hop right over there and check it out. It’s funny when you see these places that you read about so much in person. I hadn’t realized how close together those towns were at all, and seeing the house in person was amazing.
I love the way you share it. What a nice selection of images. What a flash bsck in time.
A flash back in time is the perfect way to describe our experience there. The history was all around us! Glad you liked it!
Pingback: Recommended reading : Down the Road
Pingback: POETRY BREAK: "Let Me Tell You Where I've Been" - Talbot House - M.B. HENRY