Episode 140: The Abode of Love: A Victorian Sex Cult

It started in the English countryside with a man who claimed to speak for God.

In the 1840s, a charismatic former clergyman named Henry James Prince founded a religious community in Somerset called the Agapemone—Greek for “Abode of Love.” On its surface, it looked like a spiritual retreat for those seeking purity in a corrupt world. But behind its stone walls, the Agapemonite sect became one of Victorian England’s most notorious cults.

Prince didn’t just preach the word of God—he claimed to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. His followers, many of them wealthy and socially isolated women, surrendered not only their faith and devotion, but their fortunes as well. The Agapemone estate grew into a luxurious compound complete with landscaped gardens, stained glass chapels, and billiard tables nestled beside church furniture. But what went on inside the commune was far from holy.

Under Prince’s control, spiritual “marriages” replaced real ones. Women were assigned roles in a theology that conveniently placed Prince at the center of both divine authority and sexual access. In one of the most disturbing incidents, he publicly consummated a so-called sacred union with a sixteen-year-old girl named Zoe Patterson, as his congregation sang hymns around them. She later gave birth to a child he claimed would be spiritually conceived—but when that prophecy fell apart, so did much of his following.

Still, the sect endured, and when Prince died in 1899, his successor stepped forward.

Reverend John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, another defrocked clergyman, proclaimed himself the new Messiah. He declared, “God is here,” pointing to his own chest. It caused riots in London, and ultimately forced him to retreat back to the Spaxton estate. There, the movement narrowed further, shrinking into a nearly all-female community ruled by theology, secrecy, and scandal. Pigott fathered several children with his “spiritual wife” while continuing to cultivate his godlike persona—until his death in 1927.

The last known member of the Agapemonite sect, Ruth Anne Preece, died in 1956. With her passing, the gates of the Abode of Love finally closed for good. But the legacy of the Agapemonites—part spiritual revival, part cult, part cautionary tale—lingers still in memoirs, court records, newspaper archives, and the ruins of their buildings.

This week on Historical True Crime, we’re digging into the rise and fall of the Agapemonites. It’s a story of devotion turned delusion, of divine claims that masked abuse, and of a Victorian cult that promised paradise—but delivered something much darker.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.