[2] Chapelries were first widespread in northern England and in larger parishes across the country which had populous outlying places.
A small minority fell redundant and were downgraded or closed, though at a lesser rate than mission rooms, which were usually cheaply built and declined after the invention of different modes of private wheeled transport.
The vestry, whether a joint board with the whole parish or dedicated in each chapelry, was empowered under an Act of Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII to collect rates to improve the roads, other general purposes, and administer the Poor Law (e.g. indoor and outdoor relief, the Speenhamland system and other wages systems) until the establishment of Poor Law Unions in the 19th century.
From the outset the townspeople of New Brentford, founded around St Lawrence's Hospital in the manorial land of Boston Manor in 1179, were "to worship at Hanwell on the four principal feasts and to be buried there", except "the infirm, chaplains, and their servants".
Offerings, tithes (but a smaller portion after c. 1660) and an annual donation of wax went from the "curate/curacy" (dubbed sometimes the chaplain) to the rector, namely the parish priest, of Hanwell.