A Very British Cult: Rogue Priests and the Abode of Love

by Stuart Flinders

ISBN: 9781837731497

Published: 2026-02-03

A secluded country house. A rogue Anglican priest. Ceremonial sex and mislaid fortunes. This is the almost-forgotten story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mostly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican priest with a flair for the dramatic, and the founder of the Agapemone, or 'Abode of Love'. He also claimed to be the immortal conduit of the Holy Spirit and purportedly engaged in free love and ceremonial sex with his female followers. But Prince's eventual death didn't mark the end of this strange sect . . . he was promptly replaced by another: John Hugh Smyth-Pigott - otherwise known as the Clapton Messiah. The Abode transformed a sleepy, rural corner of Somerset into one of England's most notorious locations. While the followers shut themselves away and waited patiently for the end of the world, outrage grew - the word 'Agapemone' became a byword for licentiousness or idleness,...