Other Ecclesiastical Architecture

Other Ecclesiastical Architecture

Friaries

(21) Augustinian Friary is said to have been founded c. 1272 by friars from Tickhill who bought seven houses in York for a friary (F. Roth, The English Austin Friars, 1249–1538, 1 (New York, 1966), 360–5). The site was always very small, and reached its maximum extent by a process of piecemeal acquisition of neighbouring properties. By the latest acquisition, in 1482, of two messuages on the corner of St. Leonard's Landing, granted for 99 years by a fraternity maintained by the carpenters (YCA, Memo. Book b/y, ff. 207b–208), the site extended between modern Museum Street and the Guildhall, and between Lendal and the Ouse. On its suppression in 1538, the site of the friary was obtained by the Lawson family. A stone dormitory was begun in 1425 (YCA, G24B) and a cloister was being built in 1452.

The surviving length of boundary wall faces the river and is built of magnesian limestone. It is in two stretches, that at the N.W. end breaking forward a short distance towards the river, and both presenting evidence of blocked openings. The S.E. stretch ends at the S.E. with a straight joint cutting through a blocked pointed chamfered arch. It is built in courses of varying depths and is crowned by a sloped coping surmounted by modern masonry. The N.W. stretch of wall also has a sloped coping for most of its length, above which is later brickwork. A stepped landing stage covers the bottom of the river wall, which is exposed to a height of above 6 ft. and blocks a water-gate. The archway of the water-gate has been removed and its position is now detectable only by irregularities in the stone coursing, and by splays in plan and section which thicken the wall. Part of a building in the boatyard behind No. 8 Lendal (253) is built on the N.W. end of the wall and a short length of wall which returns from the W. corner, most of which is hidden by the rising ground level. A further length of wall, 8 ft. high including a 5 ft. high plinth, is visible in the carriageway to No. 26 Lendal, backing onto the forecourt of the Guildhall close to Common Hall Lane.

Surviving fragments of the friary buildings are limited to a mid 15th-century door jamb, discovered in 1958 in the basement of No. 12 Lendal (254), and a mullion springer and cusped window tracery, now in the Yorkshire Museum, found just outside the precincts on the E. side of Lendal during the reconstruction of offices at Nos. 13–23 Lendal (251).

(22) Carmelite Friary is now represented only by a stretch of precinct wall, 120 ft. long, visible in a lane at the rear of properties on the N.E. side of Fossgate, and by carved architectural fragments and remains of monuments now in the Yorkshire Musuem. The Carmelite Friars, first established in York outside the city walls about 1250, in the Horsefair, an area extending beyond the modern junction of Wigginton Road and Haxby Road (York IV, xxxvii), moved in 1295 to a site granted to them by William de Vescy extending from Stonebow to the Foss and between Fossgate and 'le Merske', probably Hungate (CPR, 1292–1301, 154; CCR, 1257–1300, 486). The property reached Fossgate only at its northern end, near Pavement, and the friary gateway was built here. Work was proceeding on the church in 1300, when the king granted the friars eight oaks. The cemetery was consecrated in 1304, and the church in 1328. In 1314 the friars were allowed to construct a quay on the banks of the king's fish-pond in the Foss (CPR, 1313–17, 185). In 1403 John Stokwyth left 20s. to the work of building a new choir, and by a codicil of 1404 to his will Bishop Skirlaw left £40 to the fabric of the church if not completed before his death. Skirlaw's arms are carved on one of the surviving architectural fragments (TE, 1, ccxxv, 313). There was a chapel near the gateway dedicated to the Virgin Mary, containing a life-size statue of the Virgin which attracted crowds of pilgrims.

The sale of 20,000 bricks to the Merchant Adventurers' Company in 1358 suggests that some of the conventual buildings may have been of brick, and some of the 2 in. thick bricks visible immediately above the surviving masonry of the precinct wall may predate the friary's suppression. The permission granted in 1314 to the friars to construct a quay specifically mentions stone, brushwood and other necessaries, and recent finds suggest a variety of buildings using masonry, brickwork and timber framing. The boundary was not marked by a stone wall for its entire circumference: the boundary with property belonging to Meaux Abbey, next to Foss Bridge in Fossgate, was probably too marshy and had to be marked by wooden posts, with a large stone behind and at the foot of every post, in 1421 (SS, cxxv (1915), 80–1). Posts were also placed in Fossgate opposite the entrance to close it to vehicular traffic (Raine, 34). The friary was suppressed in 1538, when it had a prior, nine priests and three novices (L & P Hy VIII, xiii Part 2, 382).

The site can be identified on Speed's map of 1610 and subsequent maps, including that of Baines of 1822, until the OS map of 1852 but the street pattern in this area has since altered radically. The surviving length of wall, visible in an unpaved lane at the rear of Nos. 8 to 10 Fossgate, marked as 'Black Horse Passage' on the 1852 OS map, consists of a series of disparate sections of coursed magnesian limestone rubble masonry, reaching a maximum height of about 3 ft. 6 in., surmounted by brick walls of different builds including some narrow bricks which may predate the friary's dissolution. Various monumental remains found in the vicinity, which can be linked with the friary, are listed below: most are in the Yorkshire Museum.

(1) 'Two parts of a tombstone', now lost, of Simon de Wyntringham, priest; 'QUONDAM VICARIO SANCTI MARTINI MAGNI LONDON' (Hargrove, 325–6).

(2) Monumental effigy, probably that described as 'the statue of a Knight Templar from a wall near Walmgate' in the Yorkshire Museum accessions for 1838, formerly used as a boundary mark for the parish of St. Margaret against a wall in Neutgate, now called George Street: previously published, York IV, xlvi, item xxix, and described there. W. H. Brook (YM, MS. Cat. iii, 50–3, item 1002) suggested an identification with Sir John de Vescy, of the family of William de Vescy, who founded the friary on its final site, on the basis of the arms on the shield; length 6 ft. 6 in., width 2 ft. 1¾ in., tapered, thickness of base 4¾ in., height of figure above bed 1 ft. 4¼ in.

(3) Large grave-slab, 3 ft. 2¼ in. long, 2 ft. 11½ in. broad, 6¾ in. thick, with inscription above shield carved with damaged initials, RI or RL, with cross standing on shield. The damaged inscription was read in 1889 as 'Hic jacet [Ricar]dus de Her' (Brook, YM, MS. Cat. iii, 72–3, item 1031). The stone was one of several found in 1857 during excavation of the former stable-yard of the Old George Hotel at the top of Hungate, adjoining Stone Bow Lane. The site, identifiable on the 1852 OS map, is marked on the 1941 OS map as Lime Street, which was demolished for the Stonebow development. The slab was described as a mural monument, 3 ft. 5 in. broad by 4 ft. long (showing that part has been lost subsequently), broken at the base and probably 6 ft. long originally. The inscription was read as '+ HIC : IACET : RICARDVS : DE : LEYCEST' (YG, 31 Jan. 1857).

(4) Child's stone coffin and lid, 1 ft. 10¼ in. long by 10³/8 in. wide, tapering to 8 in., found in Fossgate in 1887 (No. 35 in YMH; Brook, YM, MS. Cat. iii, 34–7, items 546, 547). The lid, with chamfered edges, is carved with a foliated cross on a calvary base of two steps. A buckle with its clasp on the shaft has been suggested as the fibula badge of the Percys, Earls of Northumberland, who apart from the link with the Carmelites shown by the 1392 gift of land by Henry de Percy, had connections with St. Crux and St. Denys'. 14th-century.

(5) Stone, 2¼ ft. square, carved with four shields in relief; found in digging for the foundations of the Electric Theatre, York's first purpose-built cinema, built in 1911 (VCH, York, 535). W. H. Brook suggested that it formed part of the heraldic decoration of the spandrels on either side of the friary gateway (Brook, YM, MS. Cat. ii, 62, item 647). The charges of the two upper shields are carved in relief; the lower shields are blank. The shields are of Skirlaw and Neville. 15th-century.

(6) Angle bracket corbel of roughly sculptured angel with outstretched wings supporting corbel-table (Brook, YM, MS. Cat. 1, 157–8, item 239); donor given as the Electric Theatre Co., per Benson, so probably found at same time as and in vicinity of (5).

(7) Trefoil-pointed arch, made of three separate pieces of timber 9 in. by 9 in. in section, found in conjunction with fragments of limestone moulding and dressed stones on site of the Telephone Exchange in 1949–51 (Katherine M. Richardson, 'Excavations in Hungate, York', Arch. J., cxvi (1961), 70).

(23) Franciscan Friary was founded c. 1230 and dissolved in 1538 (VCH, York, 362). From 1243 it occupied a site on the S.W. side of Castlegate, extending to the river and bounded on the S.E. by the city wall (York II, 158). There are no remains of the church or conventual buildings, but parts of the precinct wall survive. In 1291 a royal licence was granted to the friars to allow them to complete a stone wall on the bank of the river, already begun (CPR, 1281–92, 427), and there were subsequently complaints that it had an injurious effect on the Skeldergate bank opposite (CPR, 1301–7, 387).

A surviving section of the mediaeval river wall, 240 ft. long, extends from Lower Friargate to Peckitt Street. It is of magnesian limestone to a height of 6 ft. above the modern footpath and the S.E. half is overlaid by 3 ft. of brickwork of late mediaeval date. The lower part of the wall is battered and there are seven large buttresses, each splayed on the upstream side. The N.W. bay has a chamfered plinth; of this, a length of 14¼ ft. is raised up over an opening, now blocked and hidden by the modern esplanade, but which must have been a water-gate serving the friary. The upper part of this section appears to have been rebuilt. The S.E. continuation of the wall, as far as Davy Tower, of magnesian limestone, is of 17th or 18th-century date; it has a chamfered plinth and there is one round-arched doorway.

Remains of a length of about 150 ft. of the N.W. wall of the precinct, mostly built over with later structures, survive at No. 20 Castlegate (87), No. 22 Castlegate (88), and the Friends' Meeting House (27).

Nonconformist Chapels

(24) Centenary Methodist Chapel, St. Saviourgate (Plate 66), built to commemorate the first hundred years of Methodism, was completed in 1840. The architect was James Simpson of Leeds. The chapel was designed to accommodate 1,500 people, with vestries and a caretaker's flat in a basement below. Considerable additions at the back of the chapel, providing schoolrooms, etc., were built in 1872 and 1895 to replace similar structures of 1861 and 1864 destroyed by fire.

The walls of the chapel are of common brick, with stone dressings to the S.E. front facing St. Saviourgate. Projecting in the middle of this front is a tetrastyle Ionic portico under a pediment; the entablature is continued to the ends of the elevation over pilasters at the corners. The doorways are plain and there are rectangular windows with moulded architraves above. The two sides and the N.W. end, which is segmental on plan, are of plain brick with round-headed windows in two storeys, with basement windows below. Inside, a gallery supported on cast-iron columns of the Composite order is carried all round, segmentally on plan at each end. The ceiling is divided into square panels, alternate panels being decorated with a rosette. The main floor of the chapel and the gallery are furnished with panelled box-pews. Monument: on N.W. wall, Joseph Agar, 1847, wall-monument with white marble sarcophagus, signed Waudby.

(25) Chapel House, Nos. 40, 42 Aldwark, former Wesleyan Chapel, was built in 1759. It remained a chapel until 1805 and has since been drastically altered. It is a rectangular brick structure. Some of the original window arches remain, semicircular on the S.E. elevation, segmental on the N.W.

(26) Former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel, now No. 3 Little Stonegate (Plate 66; Fig. 30), is of brick with stone dressings and has a pantiled roof. Designed by J. P. Pritchett, architect, and opened for worship on 13 November 1851, the cost was £2,274. It is said to have accommodated 1,000 persons (VCH, York, 414). It replaced the Grape Lane Chapel (28) nearby and was the most important Primitive Methodist chapel in York until 1901 when it was sold for £2,000 for use as a printing works, which still continues.

The front elevation, of white brick, is of two storeys above a semi-basement faced with rusticated ashlar stone. It is six bays wide, the bay at each end projecting slightly and containing a doorway at ground level. The windows have moulded stone architraves; those on the first floor in the end bays, which light staircases, are distinguished by being wider and round-arched. The rear elevation is of red brick and very plain.

In spite of many years of commercial use, the interior is fairly well preserved. In the chapel, a gallery supported on iron columns remains though all the seating has gone; the staircase at the N.W. end (Fig. 11x) continues to an upper gallery, which has an iron balustraded front. The staircase at the S.E. end has reset mid 18th-century balusters. Below the chapel was a Sunday School room in the semi-basement.

(27) Friends' Meeting House (Fig. 31), of brick with a slate-covered roof, stands on the E. side of Clifford Street at the corner of Friargate, but the historic part of the building, erected in 1817, is set back from the frontages in a secluded position. The Society of Friends was meeting on this site in 1674 in a house to which additions were made in 1678 (VCH, York, 405–6). In 1718 a larger meeting house for the Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting, capable of seating over 800 persons, was built adjacent to the older one on the N.E. side (Hargrove, ii, 217–9). A gallery was erected in it in 1778, and further alterations were made to the smaller meeting house in 1774 and 1785–6 (Meeting Archives). In 1816–7 the meeting house built in 1718 was mostly taken down and replaced by a new and enlarged one; the foundations and some of the lower parts of the older walls were reused but the building was extended 15 ft. to the S.E. The S.E. wall of 1718 had been built on a length of the precinct wall of the Franciscan Friary (23) and remains of this survive in the basement. The architects of the new meeting house were C. Watson and J. P. Pritchett and the building was described at length in a book published soon afterwards (W. Alexander, Observations on the Construction and Fitting Up of Meeting Houses etc. for Public Worship, illustrated by Plans, Sections and Description including one lately erected in the City of York, embracing in particular the method of Warming and Ventilating (1820)). As well as the meeting house itself, additional rooms were built including a library and a committee room. The cost was £3,274 and full building accounts are preserved in the archives of the Meeting. The feature which attracted most attention, and was referred to in detail in Alexander's book, was the method of heating and ventilating. This was accomplished by the smoke flue from a furnace being taken in a circuitous path under the floor and set inside a broader fresh air duct. The smoke flue was built with thin brick walls on each side and flagstones above and below; these became hot and warmed the air in the outer flue which escaped into the meeting house through registers in the floor. The smoke flue was eventually taken up the N.W. wall to an outlet at the apex of the pediment. The ventilation flue could also be used for admitting cool air in the summer. A similar system was also inserted into the smaller meeting house at the same date. A small record closet with a vaulted ceiling was built on the N.E. side in 1797 and allowed to remain in the general rebuilding of 1817. Major alterations were made to the whole group in 1884–5 when a three-storeyed block of rooms was built to the S.W. with an elevation to the newly-formed Clifford Street, and the original 17th-century meeting house and the committee room of 1817 were demolished and replaced; the architect was William H. Thorpe of Leeds (Building News, 16 April 1886). In 1903 a new heating and ventilating system was installed, but still using ducted hot air. The meeting house of 1817 still stands, with the adjoining block built for the library, and is of special interest for the full contemporary publication.

The N.W. elevation is of facing brick in Flemish bond, but the lower part is now inside a lobby which was originally an open court; the three entrances have modern glazed doors set in the original architraves, but a colonnade which stood in front, shown by Alexander, has been removed. Above are two tiers of five blind windows and within the overall pediment is a bull's-eye. The other elevations are of randombonded common brick and the window openings have flat arches and later casements; in the gable of the S.E. wall is another bull's-eye.

Inside, there is a gallery on three sides, supported on iron columns (Plate 67). The gallery front has elongated fielded panels surmounted by a low balustrade. The simple bench seating may be of the early 19th century and rises in tiers below the gallery; on the walls is a dado of fielded panels. In the flat ceiling are round ventilators with fanwise slats. Two staircases to the gallery have stone steps, square balusters and moulded mahogany handrails.

Because of the sloping ground there is a small basement at the S.E. end; inside this, a length of the Friars' Wall, of magnesian limestone, survives to a maximum height of 4 ft. and is overlaid by 2 in. brickwork, probably of 1718.

(28) Grape Lane Chapel occupied a site between Grape Lane and Coffee Yard now (1975) a private car park. It was built in 1781 by Paul Batty, a wealthy York citizen, for an independent congregation which had withdrawn from the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. Later, it was successively occupied by the Methodist New Connexion, by Calvinistic Baptists, and finally by the Primitive Methodists from 1820 until 1851 when they moved to Ebenezer Chapel (26). It became a warehouse, but was roofless and derelict in 1963 and subsequently demolished. It was built of red brick to an irregular polygonal plan, and had a gallery supported on iron columns which was inserted in 1800. There was accommodation for over 600 persons.

(29) Former Lendal Congregational Chapel, now No. 2 Lendal (Lendal House), on the S.W. side of the street, is of brick with a slated roof. It was built for a congregation which had previously met in Jubbergate Chapel; the foundation stone was laid on 4 March 1816 and the chapel was opened for worship on 7 November the same year. The architects were C. Watson and J. P. Pritchett and the cost is said to have been over £3,000. Originally there was accommodation for 950 persons but this was later augmented by additional seats in 'a handsome circular gallery behind the pulpit'. In 1824 it became the first place of worship in York to be lighted by gas. There was a restoration in 1902, but the chapel was closed for worship in 1929. It is now used as a shop and a restaurant and has been reconstructed internally.

The elevations are two-storeyed, but at the rear, where the ground slopes away sharply, there is also a basement which housed the Sunday School. All the original windows are round-arched, and on the first floor they are linked by a continuous stone sill; the glazing dates from 1902. The front to the street is five bays wide with the middle three set in a slight projection crowned by a pediment; the ground floor has modern shop windows with a marble and stucco fascia. The S.E. side elevation is also of five bays, but plainer; the ground-floor windows are of lower proportions and there are sunk rectangular panels above them. At the rear is a later apse, single-storeyed, with a half-domed roof abutting the main body of the chapel. The interior has been completely transformed, but in the apse one window retains a reeded architrave.

(30) Former New Street Chapel, later the Tower Cinema, on the S.E. side of New Street, was built in 1805 for the Wesleyan Methodists and opened for worship on October 13th of that year. The architect was 'Mr. Rawstorne', presumably John Rawstorne who was awarded the second premium in the Ouse Bridge competition of 1809 (York III, 49). It is said to have cost more than £4,000 and to have had seating for over 2,000 persons. In 1860 a new portico was added and also an organ in an apse behind the pulpit. It was closed in 1908, reopened as the Tower Cinema in 1920 and finally demolished in 1966.

It was built of brick with stone dressings and had a slate-covered roof. The two-storeyed front elevation, set back from the street, had a three-bay centre section with pediment, and a further bay to each side canted backwards; all the doorways and windows were round-arched, the central windows being wider and of tripartite form. All this was hidden after 1920 by a new frontage built further forward. Before conversion to a cinema the interior had a gallery on three sides with a curved front and supported on iron columns. Demolished.

(31) Salem Chapel, St. Saviourgate (Plates 66, 67; Fig. 32), was built in 1839 to the design of J. P. Pritchett, architect, of York for the Trustees of the Lendal Chapel. The chapel ceased to be used as a place of worship in 1934 and was pulled down in 1963.

The chapel, rectangular on plan, was designed to accommodate a congregation of 1,700 with a schoolroom in a basement below. The walls were of brick, stuccoed on the S. front, with stone dressings. The symmetrical S. front was designed in five bays; the centre part was recessed behind two Ionic columns in antis. Above, an entablature ran the full width of the front and there was a small attic storey over the three middle bays surmounted by a crowning feature with scroll-work. The door and window openings had battered sides. The treatment of the front, stuccoed with pilasters and entablature, was returned for one bay on each side, beyond which was plain brick walling with three ranges of plain windows; the bottom range lit the basement; the windows in the top range were round-headed.

Inside, a gallery carried on cast-iron Ionic columns was U-shaped, extending round the E., S. and W. sides, with a small upper gallery across the S. end carried on timber Corinthian columns. At the N. end the main gallery front was continued across a recess which accommodated the organ. The recess was flanked by Corinthian pilasters carrying an enriched segmental arch. The floor of the chapel was carried on three rows of columns in the basement. The middle row was of timber; the outer rows were of cast iron.

The fittings included balustrades of cast iron to the upper gallery and to the pulpit steps. The pulpit was a square structure with panelled sides and recessed Ionic columns at the corners. Demolished.

(32) Unitarian Chapel (Plate 66; Fig. 33), originally Presbyterian, stands on the N.W. side of St. Saviourgate within its own burial ground. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, with raised central crossing forming a low tower, and has walls of brick with a rendered plinth, and roofs of Westmorland and Welsh slate. It is aligned N.W. to S.E. with the communion table in the N.W. arm and the main entrance in the S.E., but is described as if the main axis were N. to S.

The chapel was built by December 1692 (J. Kenrick, Memorials of the Presbyterian Chapel, St. Saviourgate, York (York 1869), 32–3) and opened in April 1693 (VCH, York, 404). It was endowed at her death by Lady Hewley, the foundress of the hospital in Tanner Row which was later rebuilt in St. Saviourgate (see Monument (41)) but the building of the chapel was financed by members of the congregation (Kenrick, op. cit.; W. Hargrove in Supplement to YH, 14 Sept. 1907). According to Kenrick (p. 34), the chapel remained largely as first built until 1859, but the fenestration and the rainwater gutters were altered before 1851 (YCAG, F3 (EC/ENG), R. R[odwell]) and the W., E. and S. arms may have been re-roofed before this date. The high wall with wooden gates to St. Saviourgate was replaced in 1851 by a low wall with iron railings and gates by John Walker of Walmgate (Chapel Minute Book 1844–95, 72–5). Alterations to the interior, under the supervision of the architect George Fowler Jones, took place in 1860 (Minute Book, 11 June 1860 et seq.). The vestry in the N.W. angle was added in the 19th century and has been further altered and extended in the 20th century. The entrance doors to the chapel have all been replaced, those on the N. side in the 19th century and those on the S. in the 20th.

Despite complete refitting internally, the chapel remains important for its unusual cruciform shape and as the earliest nonconformist chapel surviving in York.

The main entrance in the S. arm has a moulded stone cornice above the doorway, and there are also doorways in the E. and W. arms. In each face of each arm of the building is a round-arched window with renewed voussoirs. In the W. arm two inserted windows replace a blocked central window. The windows have 19th-century glazing with marginal lights. The N., W. and E. faces of the N., W. and E. arms respectively have two-course brick bands at tie-beam level and a blocked oeil-de-boeuf window with flush surround of headers to the gable. Eight small windows, two to each face of the tower, formerly lit the crossing; with one exception these have been blocked with bricks or filled by louvres.

The pitch of the roofs of the W., E. and S. arms has been lowered and the scar of the former roof of the E. arm is visible on the E. face of the tower. The roof of the S. arm is hipped to the S. and that of the tower is of pyramidal shape. The tower and the N. arm retain their original arrangement internally, above the ceilings inserted in the 19th century. The walls of the tower were plastered and formerly had a deep cornice with brackets, but the 17th-century ceiling has been removed and the tie-beams and large principal rafters and the crossing members, ending in a block at the apex, are exposed. The N. arm retains its original plaster barrel vault and, above, rather thin roof timbers with one pair of principal rafters and collar, purlins and common rafters. The blocked oeil-de-boeuf window had a splayed surround. Evidence for similar plaster barrel vaults survives in the re-roofed W., E. and S. arms.

Fittings— Chair: with turned front and plain back legs, rails and arms, the front and back rails modern replacements, said to have been used by Lady Hewley, 17th-century. Monuments and Floor-slabs. Monuments: unless described otherwise, all are simple white marble tablets of sarcophagus shape against darker backgrounds. In N. arm, on N. wall, (1) Varley Bealby, late of Mount House, 1836, Ann his widow, daughter of Robert Driffield, 1850, decorated white marble sarcophagus against shaped slate background, signed Skelton; (2) Robert Driffield, 1816, Mary his wife, 1806, Samuel their son, 1806, all buried at Acomb Church, Robert, infant, buried in St. Saviourgate Chapel, erected by Ann Bealby, similar to (1), signed C. Fisher, York; on E. wall, (3) Mrs. Catherine Cappe, widow of the Rev. Newcome Cappe, 1821, signed Taylor, York. In W. arm, on N. wall, (4) the Rev. Edward Sandercock, 1770, white marble sarcophagus with black marble decoration of Greek key pattern and floral paterae; on S. wall, (5) Rachel, widow of the Rev. Edward Sandercock, 1790, elaborate monument in coloured marbles with female figure seated on sarcophagus, signed 'REGNART Sculpsit Cleaveland S^t. Fitzroy Sq^re. LONDON'. In E. arm, on N. wall, (6) the Rev. Newcome Cappe, minister of congregation upwards of 45 years, 1800, similar to (3) but unsigned; (7) Mary Duckworth, 1819; on S. wall, (8) Ann Wellbeloved, wife of the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, 1823, Anne their daughter, 1846, signed Skelton, York; (9) the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, 66 years pastor of congregation, 37 years Professor of Theology in Manchester New College, 1858, signed Skelton, York. In S. arm, in vestibule, (10) John Mason of Welburn, first preacher of Unitarian Christianity in village, 1828, removed to St. Saviourgate 1877, signed R. Bradley. In burial ground, mostly illegible except for one to the Rev. Charles Well-beloved, 1858, Ann his wife, 1823, Anne their daughter, 1846. Floor-slabs: include, in the S. arm, (1) Ioshua Taylor of Moston near Manchester, 1765; (2) Robert, son of Robert and Mary Driffield, 1772.

Paintings: include portraits of Sir John and Lady Hewley, now on loan at the Mansion House, 17th-century. Plate: pair of posset cups, bowls with gadrooned decoration on lower part and with scrolled handles, engraved C/TM for Thomas Colton (minister 1692–1731) and Mary his wife, by R. G., London 1694; pair of plain plates, 'The gift of Andrew Taylor, 1696', by T. L., London 1673; flagon, a domestic jug with vase-shaped octagonal body and bentwood handle, by Peter and Jonathan Bateman, London 1790. Pulpit: octagonal, 18th-century, repaired.