chapel

A small or subordinate place of Christian worship other than a parish or cathedral church; also a church subordinate to and dependent on the principal parish church, to which it is in some way supplementary. The term can also refer to a building or part of a building or institution (for example, a palace, college, convent, hospital, or prison) erected for private devotion and often for private or semi-public religious services; also a recess in a church containing an altar that has been separately dedicated. In England the word ‘chapel’ is commonly applied to places of Nonconformist worship, as distinct from those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

The present use of the word arose from the preservation of the cloak of St Martin of Tours as a relic in an oratory built for that purpose.