As the Old Campus of Yale was being enclosed at its north and east by Farnam and Durfee halls, architect Russell Sturgis was again tasked to design a new building, but for a corner site; though this time, he would design a college chapel. Built between 1874–76, it was funded primarily with gifts from Joseph Battell. Succeeding two previous chapel buildings on Yale’s Old Campus, it provided space for daily chapel services, which were mandatory for Yale students until 1926, which were all-male and mostly Protestant. The large stone chapel is constructed of New Jersey brownstone with decorative elements in sandstone. The design of the Victorian Gothic chapel is great, but how it sits with the entrance unceremoniously dumping out to the end wall of Durfee Hall leaves much to be desired.
Buildings of New England 
To judge by the amount of moss adhering to the walls of the first story, there’s also a good deal of water “unceremoniously dumping” where it shouldn’t! Next to Richardson’s adventurous work at Harvard, Sturgis’s buildings seem tame, but one can see Sturgis’s influence on Richardson in the the varied materials, colonnades, etc., of Durfee and the Battell chapel. One must remember that Sturgis lived long enough to publicly admire the work of Louis Sullivan. What a fantastic architectural period he lived through!
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Very true on the moss/algae, hopefully Yale’s Planning Office does more to protect the building from water! These all pre-dated Richardson’s Harvard commissions, but I definitely see some of the early Romanesque features which Richardson would incorporate. I think Yale’s heyday in design was the 1930s-1960s. Neo-Gothic then Modernist landmarks!
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