North-east of Skipton in the small village of Thorlby stands a unique Wesleyan Methodist chapel built of corrugated iron - one of North Yorkshire's hidden gems. Although for how much longer this small chapel will remain standing hangs in the balance. This blog post doesn't dive into the chapel's history, largely because any substantial historical... Continue Reading →
All Saints North Street: Stained Glass Window Restoration and Preservation – Part 2
I was very pleased to see my first project update (posted 11.02.2021) was read by so many people directed through from Twitter. It isn't surprising that the on-going restoration of the church's medieval stained glass is of public interest, so as long as these updates keep being favourably received during lockdown, I'll keep them coming. I'm... Continue Reading →
All Saints North Street: Stained Glass Window Restoration and Preservation – Part 1
As life in the UK at the start of 2021 cruises quietly from one sombre month to another under lockdown 3.0, I expect that such a genuinely exciting piece of heritage news as the beginning of a major restoration project to preserve some of our country's best surviving medieval stained glass may have been lost... Continue Reading →
‘A Yorkshire Antiquary’. Medieval church architecture in a Victorian cemetery.
St George’s Field is a landscaped green space surrounded by the campus of the University of Leeds. When I'm working from the office (a regularity which feels like a lifetime ago) I often escape the city centre on my breaks to eat lunch here. When the student territories of Hyde Park, Woodhouse and Headingley are... Continue Reading →
Guest Blog: St. Thomas Porch, Salisbury Cathedral
Text and images kindly contributed by Steve Dunn (15.07.2020). All images are the author’s own unless stated. Figure 6. credit here [accessed 15.07.2020]. St. Thomas Porch - Salisbury Cathedral Gone but not forgotten Figure 1. Salisbury Cathedral. At the consecration of Salisbury Cathedral on the 28th April 1258 the assembled dignitaries must have viewed the... Continue Reading →
Lost Churches of York: St. Mary-ad-Valvas
A lot of valuable research continues to inform our understanding of settlement and activity in the pre-Conquest city, but generally very little is known about the early churches in the central area of York. In the later 11th century York began to flourish and by c.1100 the number of new ecclesiastical foundations was well on... Continue Reading →
‘The Leaves of the Tree are for the Healing of Nations”. Frances Darlington’s interwar reredos at St. Saviour’s, Leeds.
St. Saviour’s, Richmond Hill, holds a special place in the history of the Oxford Movement in the north of England; founded by one of its Tractarian leaders, Edward Bouverie Pusey, to serve a deprived, working-class community. It was frequently the centre of major controversy over church ritual and provided the Roman Catholic church in Leeds... Continue Reading →
Rebuilding Doncaster’s Parish Church. Destroyed by Fire, 1853 (part III)
Before I press on I want to pause and take stock of what exactly this section should cover. I’m solely concerned with the old church's lost architecture. I acknowledge, but don’t include, much mention of its past where it doesn’t relate to the architectural components and design of the building as it was on the... Continue Reading →
Rebuilding Doncaster’s Parish Church. Destroyed by Fire, 1853 (part II)
The old parish church. The Building Committee George Gilbert Scott and Edmund Beckett Denison need little introduction. Scott, the eminent architect and manager of the largest architectural office in the country, was constantly on the move, occupied with any number of engagements at one time; Beckett, the Victorian busybody and controversialist, who was “notorious as... Continue Reading →
Rebuilding Doncaster’s Parish Church. Destroyed by Fire, 1853 (part I)
The Fire By the time two fire engines arrived at 5:00am from York to assist in extinguishing a fire, which, when called for two hours earlier they had been told was spreading furiously throughout St. George’s parish church, the crowning jewel of Doncaster was a ‘heated wreck upon the floor’; ‘a scanty heap of stone... Continue Reading →