Grammar Chapel was designed by architect Frank Heywood, on traditional lines of the public schools of England.
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The family of Henry Reed, noted businessman of Launceston in the early 1900s, gave the school a considerable amount of money which was directed to the erection of the chapel just inside the main gate.
The chapel’s brick walls have structural features in artificial stone with an open timbered ceiling. The roof is tiled.
The tracery windows are made of stained-glass, with traditional pictures on the south side and modernistic on the north.
When first built the chapel was 65 feet long by 30 feet wide and has since been extended by two more bays.
Mrs P.C. Smith and her sons donated the carved blackwood pulpit while the Rugby School donated a Communion service and mosaics were sent from Jerusalem.
Tasmanian donors were Harry Gillett, communion table; lectern, W.R. Rolph; Bishop’s chair, Fred Cleaver; and the pillars supporting the communion rail came from several Australian private schools.
The headmaster at the time (F.R. Adams, 1929-35) appealed to several English public schools for a block of stone from their school to insert into the new chapel.
The response was good, and stones came from Rugby (1567), Harrow (1571), Shrewsbury (1551), Winchester (1387), Eton (1440), the Merchant Taylors (Bluecoat School 1561), Charterhouse (1611) and one from Westminster Abbey (1500).
Special stones were also sent from the Imperial War Graves Commission, the Gallipoli stone of which the Lone Pine memorial is built, and one from Anzac Cove.
Many Old Launcestonians fought and died at those arenas in that Great War and the chapel holds the vast honour board naming all who fought, with those who died, centrally listed in white.
The memorial tablets from the South African War, and another for the men from the old Launceston High School, World War II, Vietnam and Broadland House women who served overseas as nurses have a place of honour.
There are two stained-glass windows of soldiers enduring the grim hardships of war. They face each other across the sanctuary and were given by a former headmaster, J.W. Bethune.
Another prized memorial is the Cenotaph Flag from London which flew over that sacred spot from November 11, 1930 to November 11, 1931, the gift of the Imperial War Museum.
Only six of these flags are flown each year, then distributed to institutions which display a significant war record and so a 1930-31 flag came to the Launceston Church Grammar School.
