Many features of the story of Roman Catholicism within England since the Reformation can be found in the history of St Hedda’s Church, Egton Bridge. The village and the surrounding population have long maintained a tradition of support for Rome, even when under extreme official disapprobation in the 16th and 17th century. This was aided by gentry families such as the Smiths of Bridgehome in the village who were able to provide a safe haven for both priests to live and for mass to be said. Probably the most notable priest – and later martyr – was Nicholas Postgate who was also born in the village. He discreetly ministered across Yorkshire for fifty years until he fell victim to the hysteria of the Popish Plot of 1678 and was hanged, drawn and quartered in York the following year.
English Roman Catholicism was at its lowest ebb in the eighteenth century yet the first Catholic chapel was built in 1798; this is now the school next door to the present church. Within the next fifty years both legal emancipation and the influx of Catholic labourers from Ireland created a rising demand for Roman Catholicism and the small chapel could not cope. In 1859 the priest in charge – Fr Callebert – set about trying to raise funds for a much larger church building. Unlike many large Catholic churches of the period (one immediately thinks of Pugin’s gothic apotheosis at Cheadle) this project did not rely upon a wealthy patron; instead the largest single donation was £50 and all of the costs were defrayed by small donations. Volunteer aid was enlisted in every task including quarrying the stone and raising the building.
The building itself was designed by Hadfield & Son of Sheffield in a simple French style with lancet windows and an apsidal chancel. However at 114ft by 47ft with a height of 43ft it could seat 600 worshippers; it was a triumph of volume over expense. The present church opened in 1867 while furnishings such as the altar from Messrs Mayer & Co. of Munich and the Lady Chapel were added over the subsequent ten years. The Lady Chapel now contains the Postgate Relics.
The church of St Oswald dominates the headland above the village of Sandsend. Inland, to the north, west and south lie the vast open spaces of the North York moors but at the church the eye and the mind are drawn to the east, to the sea which forms the Parish boundary on that side, and south, down the steep bank and along the beach to Whitby Abbey founded in 657.
The earliest written record of St Oswald’s occurs in 1100 but in 1910, at a major restoration carried out under the auspices of the Vicar, the Reverend the third Marquess of Normanby (who began his ecclesiastical career as assistant curate here), 37 fragments of carved stone were found built into the walls of the Norman church. These are Anglo-Danish gravestones from, most likely, a Christian burying ground established following the Viking invasion of the neighbourhood in 867.
Sir Walter Tapper, the architect commissioned in 1910, was a distinguished member of the Arts and Crafts movement, renowned for his attention to detail. The pews, pulpits, rood screens and organ lofts in the many churches he restored were always of the best quality, and the acoustics were, almost without exception, fine. This is true of St Oswald at Lythe, where Tapper created an elegant, calm and airy space in great contrast to the fury of the sea and winds outside.
The church is undergoing a major reconstruction, not of its fabric but its history. There was a long accepted belief that the site of St Mary’s chosen by Cedd between 653 and 655 to build a monastery was, as described by Bede’s Ecclesiastical History ‘among steep and remote hills fit only for robbers and wild beasts’. Now that is giving way to the realisation that where it stands, on the edge of the fertile area of Ryedale, it was only three miles from an important Roman road and near to the great villa at Hovingham. Bede’s further reference to Cedd having to purify the site before he could begin building, seems relevant here. Now that a recent survey carried out by archaeologists from the University of Leeds has found Roman material in the crypt it begins to look as if the shell of an Anglo- Saxon religious building was neatly dropped into the middle of an abandoned Roman Temple. The wider significance of Cedd’s church and of its successor, the Benedictine monastery refounded in 1078 by Stephen of Whitby, is being explored in a series of annual lectures sponsored by the Friends of Lastingham Church.
Today the interior of the church is as J. L. Pearson reconstructed it in 1879, when he was inspired to put groin vaulting over the nave and the chancel. It is this that produces the exceptional quality of sound. The rest is plain. Simon Jenkins gives it four stars in his Thousand Best Churches; Sir John Betjeman gave it one word - ‘unforgettable’.
The church of St Nicholas stands adjacent the ruins of the once-physically imposing 12th century Augustinian priory. When one imagines the size and scale of the priory church it naturally begs the question as to why a separate church should be built in such proximity. Yet on closer examination this is not at all peculiar – separate churches to cater for the laity were often established close to abbey churches (e.g. St Margaret’s and Westminster Abbey) to ensure different pastoral, spiritual and liturgical emphases could be harmoniously undertaken. even so, the church would have been completely serviced by clergy from the priory so after dissolution separate provision had to be made.
The church building is largely Perpendicular in style, with the chancel and tower dating from circa 1500. The west window and doorway are contained within the tower but given focus by an elegant two-centred arch. Upon entering the church there is a great sense of space which is enabled by the lithe and delicate arcade of six bays which ensures that the low roofline does not impinge. This overall effect was also aided by a very skilful restoration of the church in 1903–08 by the eminent church architect Temple Moore, whose work displays a sensitivity often lacking in his peers.
There are several fine monuments within the church of which the most distinguished is the Brus Cenotaph. This tomb-chest was originally housed within the Priory and was executed circa 1520 as a commemoration to the founder of the Priory, Robert de Brus. After dissolution it was moved to the church. The decoration is sophisticated for its time and consists of knights, saints and possibly the prior all praying for the repose of the souls of the family. In the right spandrel is seated the Virgin Mary. The window adjacent to the Cenotaph contains fragments of medieval glass from the original east window.
Those who travel along the Pickering-Scarborough road cannot fail to notice the imposing presence of the church of St Helen and All Saints: specifically, the elegant broach spire that adorns the 14th century tower which dominates the main village crossing. To a superficial look they appear contemporary but the spire is in fact a sympathetic creation of William Butterfield dating from 1853. This was early Butterfield who had yet to yield to the polychromatic detailing for which he is renowned. The other notable feature is the detached status of the tower from the church, which nestles on higher ground some way to the north-east. This again was a deliberate ploy by Butterfield by piercing the old tower to create a gatehouse effect. The original church building was cleared away to create a virtual tabula rasa which was a common aim of certain Victorian church designers, especially those influenced by ‘ecclesiologist’ tendencies, rather to the detriment of our heritage.
The Victorian church building shows an adherence to simple Gothic forms of the 13th century which is consistent with Butterfield’s earlier work in North Yorkshire (e.g. Sessay of 1847); but after Wykeham, completed in 1855, this restraint was soon lost as he quickly moved towards the temptations of intense decoration in the church at Baldersby St James, near Ripon, which dates from 1857. In common with both of these locations, Wykeham also possesses elegant secular buildings designed by Butterfield, namely the school to the south and also the parsonage.
Wykeham was also the location of the priory of St Mary and St Michael for Cistercian nuns which was founded by Pain Fitz Osbert circa 1153. Little remains of this and the site is now occupied by a large house which is the home of the Dawnay family who hold the Viscountcy of Downe. The modern stained glass window in the north aisle commemorates the life of the 11th Viscount.
This is the church that inspired the cult book Forty Years in a Moorland Parish by Canon John Atkinson, in which he famously described how his first sight of the interior in 1845 was of shocking neglect, dirt and an almost total absence of worshippers. He believed this was due to its remote position in the middle of the dale, one and a half miles from Danby village. Arriving at a time when the Methodists had the ascendancy over the Anglican church in the area, he believed the solution lay in returning among the people. In 1863 he caused an iron church to be built in Castleton (the Tin Tabernacle) where he held a service once a week.
Yet under Atkinson’s regime St Hilda’s was no longer neglected; the year after he arrived a new chancel was designed by the architect, William Butterfield. This was only the latest among many alterations since the church was founded. There are possible traces of Danish occupation in the burial ground, and Saxon remains in the church. The tower is 15th century and two of the bells are marked 1698. There was a major restoration in memory of Atkinson in 1903 in the early english style by Temple Moore. It might have been a muddle, yet the impression nowadays is of a most harmonious building, glowing under 21st century lighting, a sanctuary brought back to life, standing on the promontory below what Pevsner called ‘the noble line of the moor’.
The neo-Romanesque chapel was designed by C. D. Taylor and built between 1955 and 1957 for the Anglican Order of the Holy Paraclete, whose Mother House is here. Central to the life of the Order which follows St Benedict, are the Divine Office and the eucharist.
In 1992 the distinguished ecclesiastical architect, Ronald Sims, who died in 2007 aged 80, advised on the reordering of the chapel ‘to improve its ambience, dignity, accessibility and liturgical use’. Later on he was responsible for the cross and candlesticks made of black wrought metal (as also for the crypt window in St Mary, Lastingham.)
The Order was founded in 1915 by Margaret Cope when a girls’ school was established in the Castle (built for James Wilson in 1799). By the time the school closed in 1997 the nuns had greatly diversified their work in this country into preaching, spiritual guidance, retreats, hospital chaplaincy and missions. They have other houses in and around Whitby as well as in Rievaulx, York and Hull. Their long-standing commitment to Africa has recently been extended by two new convents; in Ashanti, Ghana and Johannesburg. There is also a home for girls in Swaziland.
If you were to ask for directions to St Stephen’s, Fylingdales it is likely that you would be responded to with the question “Which one?” for there are two churches dedicated to St Stephen within the civil parish of Fylingdales. The old church of 1822 is situated on a hillside overlooking Robin Hood’s Bay, itself built on the site of a much older chapel. It conformed to the style of worship common at that time – a simple if somewhat crowded interior dedicated to the spoken word. Further down the hill is the new church of 1868-1870. Barely fifty years separate the two churches yet the contrast in architecture and interior design is immense; a beautiful illustration of the powerful forces unleashed that revolutionised English Christianity in the mid 19th Century.
The new St Stephen’s church – where the concert is to be held – is a bold statement of design as influenced by a generation of architects raised on the tenets of the Oxford Movement; Pevsner calls it “big, earnest and rather stern”. This time the emphasis is sacramental with special detailing such as the large four-light west window and the rib vaulting in the apsidal chancel leaving the worshipper in no doubt as to the focal point for their devotions, namely the altar. The building was designed by George Edmund Street whose most notable building is the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand, London. Street was much in demand as an ecclesiastical architect. He was Diocesan Architect to the cathedrals of Oxford, York, Winchester and Ripon and also undertook considerable commissions abroad, including building churches in Rome, Constantinople, Geneva, Lausanne and America.
Use of such an eminent ecclesiastical architect with high ideals rather than the common practice of using a local firm inevitably increased the cost of the building to a sizeable sum of £6,000. The work was financed by the long-standing incumbent, Robert Jermyn Cooper, and local landowner Robert Barry. Their munificence ensured a high standard of design and execution; in particular the stained glass designed by Henry Holiday is especially meritorious ranking alongside the best examples of late Victorian stained glass in the county.
Big and bold is how Nikolaus Pevsner describes this huge church, built in two years from 1884. Designed by the Newcastle architect, R.J. Johnson, whom Pevsner salutes for his competence and high mindedness, St Hilda’s was conceived on a scale, and with features, suitable to the cathedral the Rector of Whitby, Canon George Austen, intended it to be. A southerner by birth, Austen arrived in Whitby in 1875 and stayed 45 years, during which his forceful personality made him famous throughout Yorkshire. ‘Whitby was his kingdom’ it was said, and what more fitting that the five Anglican churches over which he presided, including the endearingly unusual, but not exactly shipshape, Parish Church of St Mary on the east Cliff, should be formed into a new diocese? To that end the new St Hilda’s soon acquired a bishop’s throne. Austen himself planned and oversaw every detail of the new church including the view across the harbour to the Abbey, though this was not achieved without a prolonged struggle with the landowner of the site. West Cliff Fields were open country until George Hudson, the railway king, bought them for development. Nowadays the east window of St Hilda’s looks soberly down Hudson Street to the River esk.
Whitby did not become an archdeaconry with a suffragan Bishop until 1923. By that time Austen had left to become a Residentiary Canon at York Minster. He died aged 95 in 1934.
Many features of the story of Roman Catholicism within England since the Reformation can be found in the history of St Hedda’s Church, Egton Bridge. The village and the surrounding population have long maintained a tradition of support for Rome, even when under extreme official disapprobation in the 16th and 17th century. This was aided by gentry families such as the Smiths of Bridgehome in the village who were able to provide a safe haven for both priests to live and for mass to be said. Probably the most notable priest – and later martyr – was Nicholas Postgate who was also born in the village. He discreetly ministered across Yorkshire for fifty years until he fell victim to the hysteria of the Popish Plot of 1678 and was hanged, drawn and quartered in York the following year. 
English Roman Catholicism was at its lowest ebb in the eighteenth century yet the first Catholic chapel was built in 1798; this is now the school next door to the present church. Within the next fifty years both legal emancipation and the influx of Catholic labourers from Ireland created a rising demand for Roman Catholicism and the small chapel could not cope. In 1859 the priest in charge – Fr Callebert – set about trying to raise funds for a much larger church building. Unlike many large Catholic churches of the period (one immediately thinks of Pugin’s gothic apotheosis at Cheadle) this project did not rely upon a wealthy patron; instead the largest single donation was £50 and all of the costs were defrayed by small donations. Volunteer aid was enlisted in every task including quarrying the stone and raising the building. 
