This is the London church once home to a Victorian sex cult where priests had sex with teen virgins in front of the congregation
The Abode of Love was set up by a former priest who claimed he was the Son of God
A LONDON church built by a bizarre Victorian sex cult set up by a defrocked priest who deflowered teenage virgins in front of his followers is at the centre of a £1 million legal battle.
The Abode of Love was started by a defrocked priest who had sex with a naked 16-year-old in front of the congregation, and even his wife.
The Reverend Henry Prince began the cult in 1846, in Somerset, with funds from wealthy spinsters after being expelled from the church and also built the Ark of the Covenant church in Clapton, north London.
Prince lived a life of luxury and, in 1856, he dressed in ceremonial robes to deflower 16-year-old virgin Zoe Patterson on a billiard table.
He called the act a Great Manifestation, "the mystic union of flesh and spirit.”
She fell pregnant and he denied that this was his doing, saying instead it was the “work of the devil.”
Prince was said to be bathed by young naked women and to choose his next female companion by sitting on a revolving stage and seeing who was in front of him when it stopped turning.
After his death, in 1899, John Hugh Smyth-Piggott took over and continued the cult’s bizarre sexual ways.
He charged Zoe’s daughter Eve, now grown up, with selecting 50 “soul brides” and indulging in orgies.
Claiming to be the son of God, he was finally chased out of London when he failed to walk on water and cult died off in 1958.
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In a 2006 book, Smyth-Piggott's granddaughter Kate Barlow wrote about her experiences growing up within the cult and detailed orgies involving the members.
Now the London church, sold in 2010, is in the centre of a legal row about whether the proceeds should go to the descendants of the cult leaders.
The 1892 deed said that funds should be used to promote the objectives of the sect but since it no longer exists, Smyth-Piggot’s granddaughters they are entitled to the proceeds.
A statement to the court reads: "All the community members are now long since deceased and gone. The six named are the direct descendants of Beloved and his 'soul bride' ... and are therefore the rightful and only true beneficiaries of the trust."
Judgment in the case has been reserved.
Last month, we reported the curious things that Victorian women were really told about sex.
The Victorian's reckoned that certain sex positions could kill and that bonking more frequently than once a month risks harming the organs from the “accumulation of nervous force”.
As for a roll in the hay after a few drinks, it could produce children struck down with “idiocy and numerous nervous maladies”.
These sex tips given to girls at the time by Victorian health experts are compiled in a new book and show a completely different approach from the advice given in today’s glossy magazines.
Warning against having sex standing up, from behind or with knees drawn up, one Victorian expert says: “No female can desire such intercourse as this because she cannot enjoy it.”
Another assures readers: “A woman of delicate mould and constitution may be fatally injured in this manner.”
Sex after a big meal could trigger a stroke, while blindness, insanity and even death could occur from “over-excitement” during the act.
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide To Sex, Marriage And Manners by US historian Therese Oneill tells us the adage at the time was: “The woman who goes to bed with a man must put off her modesty with her petticoat and put it on again with the same.”
Oooer.