Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, Wakefield
Encyclopedia
The Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, Wakefield is a chantry chapel in Wakefield
, West Yorkshire
, England and is designated a Grade I Listed building by English Heritage
. It is located south of the city centre on the medieval bridge over the River Calder
. It is the only survivor of four chantries in Wakefield and the oldest and most ornate of the surviving bridge chapels in England. The others are at Bradford-on-Avon, St Ives, Cambridgeshire
, and Rotherham. The chapel has had three west fronts, the original medieval façade having been removed to Kettlethorpe Hall in 1832. The medieval bridge is an ancient monument.
, Dewsbury
, York
and Doncaster
. The Chantry of St John the Baptist was on Northgate, the road to Leeds, where Wakefield Grammar School stands today. The Chapel of St Mary Magdalene was on Westgate where it crossed the Ings Beck on the road to Dewsbury. St Swithun's Chantry Chapel, on the York road, was near Clarke Hall. In the 14th century the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin was built on the bridge crossed by the road to Doncaster and the south.
Wakefield's medieval nine-arched bridge is 320 feet (98 m) long, was built in stone between 1342 and 1356, and replaced an earlier wooden structure on the site of an ancient ford. The chapel on the bridge was licensed in 1356. The Battle of Wakefield
was fought about a mile south of the bridge in 1460 and the Earl of Rutland
was killed near the bridge while attempting to escape.
The chapel was used for worship until the Reformation
and Abolition of Chantries Acts when all of Wakefield's four chantry chapels closed. The bridge chapel survived because it is a structural element of the bridge. After closure it was used as a warehouse, library, office and cheese shop and survived bridge widening in 1758 and 1797. The bridge and its chapel were painted by artists including J.M.W. Turner whose watercolour dates from 1793.
, persuaded to undertake its restoration
. The Society, keen to restore medieval ecclesiastical remains, adopted designs by George Gilbert Scott
. Restoration costing approximately £2,500 (£ as of ), was carried out, resulting in the complete reconstruction of the chapel above the pavement level. The new west front differed slightly from its medieval predecessor. Scott is perceived as having made two errors, the first of which was being persuaded to completely replace the old west front. The second was having the new façade carved from Caen
stone, which crumbled in the polluted urban atmosphere and was completely replaced in 1939 in gritstone
by ecclesiastical architect Sir Charles Nicholson. The original richly carved medieval façade was moved to Kettlethorpe Hall, where it became the frontage to a folly boathouse.
The chapel was opened for Anglican worship in 1848 and used as the parish church
of the newly formed ecclesiastical district of St Mary until a church was built in 1854. The bridge chapel became a chapel-of-ease and services were held irregularly. St Mary's merged with St Andrew's, Eastmoor in the 1960s and the impoverished parish struggled with the chantry chapel's upkeep. In the 1980s it seemed likely that the chapel would be declared redundant by the Church of England. In January 2000 a parish boundary change brought the chantry into the care of Wakefield Cathedral
.
sandstone
possibly from a quarry at Goodybower. The chapel measures 50 feet (15 m) by 25 feet (8 m). It measures 36 feet (11 m) to the top of the battlement
s at the eastern end. The chapel is at street level and has a lower chamber, the sacristy
, accessed by a spiral staircase at the east end.
es at either end and has three narrow doorways. Its façade is divided into five elaborately carved panels. The panels originally represented the Annunciation
, the Nativity
, the Resurrection
, the Ascension and the Coronation of the Virgin
but the fifth panel was replaced by the Descent
of the Holy Ghost when it was restored. There are three bays with square headed windows with "flamboyant" tracery
. The chapel has octagonal corner pinnacle
s and at the north eastern corner there is a small embattled octagonal turret
with a small bell tower which originally contained two bells.
Wakefield Civic Society
and members of St Andrew's Church to raise funds to repair the chapel roof and re-point the stonework. A programme of conservation work has since been carried out with the approval of English Heritage. The work included roof repairs, re-wiring and the installation heating.
Renewal to the external stonework cost £30,000 in a project by William Anelay Ltd. Six new carved stone heads were made for the south side of the building. At the suggestion of architect David Greenwood, the Bishop of Wakefield
, the Lady St Oswald of Nostell Priory
, the Rt Hon Walter Harrison
and Canon Bryan Ellis allowed their features to be sculpted by stonemason John Schofield. The fifth head is that of a founder of the Friends, the late Ray Perraudin, and the sixth one of Anelay's workmen. The Friends have conserved the internal stone heads whose age is unknown.
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, England and is designated a Grade I Listed building by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. It is located south of the city centre on the medieval bridge over the River Calder
River Calder, West Yorkshire
The River Calder is a river in West Yorkshire, in Northern England.The Calder rises on the green eastern slopes of the Pennines flows through alternating green countryside, former woollen-mill villages, and large and small towns before joining the River Aire near Castleford.The river's valley is...
. It is the only survivor of four chantries in Wakefield and the oldest and most ornate of the surviving bridge chapels in England. The others are at Bradford-on-Avon, St Ives, Cambridgeshire
St Ives Bridge
St Ives Bridge is a 15th century bridge crossing the River Great Ouse in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, England. It noted for being one of only four bridges in England to incorporate a chapel ....
, and Rotherham. The chapel has had three west fronts, the original medieval façade having been removed to Kettlethorpe Hall in 1832. The medieval bridge is an ancient monument.
History
Wakefield's chantry chapels, three of which date from the 13th century, were built outside the medieval town on the roads leading to LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, Dewsbury
Dewsbury
Dewsbury is a minster town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Huddersfield and south of Leeds...
, York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
and Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
. The Chantry of St John the Baptist was on Northgate, the road to Leeds, where Wakefield Grammar School stands today. The Chapel of St Mary Magdalene was on Westgate where it crossed the Ings Beck on the road to Dewsbury. St Swithun's Chantry Chapel, on the York road, was near Clarke Hall. In the 14th century the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin was built on the bridge crossed by the road to Doncaster and the south.
Wakefield's medieval nine-arched bridge is 320 feet (98 m) long, was built in stone between 1342 and 1356, and replaced an earlier wooden structure on the site of an ancient ford. The chapel on the bridge was licensed in 1356. The Battle of Wakefield
Battle of Wakefield
The Battle of Wakefield took place at Sandal Magna near Wakefield, in West Yorkshire in Northern England, on 30 December 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses...
was fought about a mile south of the bridge in 1460 and the Earl of Rutland
Edmund, Earl of Rutland
Edmund, Earl of Rutland was the fifth child and second surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville...
was killed near the bridge while attempting to escape.
The chapel was used for worship until the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...
and Abolition of Chantries Acts when all of Wakefield's four chantry chapels closed. The bridge chapel survived because it is a structural element of the bridge. After closure it was used as a warehouse, library, office and cheese shop and survived bridge widening in 1758 and 1797. The bridge and its chapel were painted by artists including J.M.W. Turner whose watercolour dates from 1793.
Restoration and rebuilding
The chapel was transferred to the Church of England in 1842 and the Yorkshire Architectural Society, influenced by the Oxford MovementOxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
, persuaded to undertake its restoration
Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...
. The Society, keen to restore medieval ecclesiastical remains, adopted designs by George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
. Restoration costing approximately £2,500 (£ as of ), was carried out, resulting in the complete reconstruction of the chapel above the pavement level. The new west front differed slightly from its medieval predecessor. Scott is perceived as having made two errors, the first of which was being persuaded to completely replace the old west front. The second was having the new façade carved from Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
stone, which crumbled in the polluted urban atmosphere and was completely replaced in 1939 in gritstone
Gritstone
Gritstone or Grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for paper and for grindstones to sharpen blades. "Grit" is...
by ecclesiastical architect Sir Charles Nicholson. The original richly carved medieval façade was moved to Kettlethorpe Hall, where it became the frontage to a folly boathouse.
The chapel was opened for Anglican worship in 1848 and used as the parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
of the newly formed ecclesiastical district of St Mary until a church was built in 1854. The bridge chapel became a chapel-of-ease and services were held irregularly. St Mary's merged with St Andrew's, Eastmoor in the 1960s and the impoverished parish struggled with the chantry chapel's upkeep. In the 1980s it seemed likely that the chapel would be declared redundant by the Church of England. In January 2000 a parish boundary change brought the chantry into the care of Wakefield Cathedral
Wakefield Cathedral
Wakefield Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of All Saints Wakefield is the cathedral for the Church of England's Diocese of Wakefield and is the seat of the Bishop of Wakefield. The cathedral has Anglo Saxon origins and the tallest cathedral spire in Yorkshire...
.
Structure
The chapel which projects to the east side of the bridge is built into on a small island in the river and its base is a structural element of the bridge. It is rectangular in plan and was built of ashlarAshlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
possibly from a quarry at Goodybower. The chapel measures 50 feet (15 m) by 25 feet (8 m). It measures 36 feet (11 m) to the top of the battlement
Battlement
A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet , in which portions have been cut out at intervals to allow the discharge of arrows or other missiles. These cut-out portions form crenels...
s at the eastern end. The chapel is at street level and has a lower chamber, the sacristy
Sacristy
A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.The sacristy is usually located inside the church, but in some cases it is an annex or separate building...
, accessed by a spiral staircase at the east end.
Exterior
The chapel's west front has buttressButtress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es at either end and has three narrow doorways. Its façade is divided into five elaborately carved panels. The panels originally represented the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...
, the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus
The Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the Canonical gospels and in various apocryphal texts....
, the Resurrection
Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...
, the Ascension and the Coronation of the Virgin
Coronation of the Virgin
The Coronation of the Virgin or Coronation of Mary is a subject in Christian art, especially popular in Italy in the 13th to 15th centuries, but continuing in popularity until the 18th century and beyond. Christ, sometimes accompanied by God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove,...
but the fifth panel was replaced by the Descent
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
of the Holy Ghost when it was restored. There are three bays with square headed windows with "flamboyant" tracery
Tracery
In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...
. The chapel has octagonal corner pinnacle
Pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...
s and at the north eastern corner there is a small embattled octagonal turret
Turret
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
with a small bell tower which originally contained two bells.
Interior
In the north east corner a newel staircase leads to the roof. A staircase also descends to a small crypt in the basement of the building. Four of the seven traceried windows have stained glass, the east window, two south windows and one north window.Friends of Wakefield Chantry Chapel
The "Friends of Wakefield Chantry Chapel" was formed in 1991 by members of the Wakefield Historical Society,Wakefield Civic Society
Civic society
In the United Kingdom a civic society is a voluntary body or society which aims to represent the needs of a local community.A civic society may campaign for high standards of planning of new buildings or traffic schemes, conservation of historic buildings, and may present awards for good standards...
and members of St Andrew's Church to raise funds to repair the chapel roof and re-point the stonework. A programme of conservation work has since been carried out with the approval of English Heritage. The work included roof repairs, re-wiring and the installation heating.
Renewal to the external stonework cost £30,000 in a project by William Anelay Ltd. Six new carved stone heads were made for the south side of the building. At the suggestion of architect David Greenwood, the Bishop of Wakefield
Bishop of Wakefield
The Bishop of Wakefield is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Wakefield in the Province of York.The diocese based in Wakefield in West Yorkshire, covers Wakefield, Barnsley, Kirklees and Calderdale...
, the Lady St Oswald of Nostell Priory
Nostell Priory
Nostell Priory is a Palladian house located in Nostell, near Crofton close to Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, approached by the Doncaster road from Wakefield...
, the Rt Hon Walter Harrison
Walter Harrison
Walter Harrison is a British Labour politician.Harrison was educated at Dewsbury Technical College and School of Art. He was a foreman electrician and was active in the Electricians' Trade Union...
and Canon Bryan Ellis allowed their features to be sculpted by stonemason John Schofield. The fifth head is that of a founder of the Friends, the late Ray Perraudin, and the sixth one of Anelay's workmen. The Friends have conserved the internal stone heads whose age is unknown.