A very picturesque small mid-nineteenth century chapel built in Romanesque style for the Scrope family of Danby Hall, many of whom are buried in the vault beneath the building. The present building may incorporate elements of an earlier chapel on the site. Joseph Hansom, the architect, also worked for the Scropes at Danby Hall. The octagonal tower is a local landmark, and the church has good group value with the adjoining (earlier) former presbytery.

There was a chapel at Ulshaw Bridge as early as 1733, which may have been on the site of the present building, since a plaque in the church records both seventeenth and eighteenth century interments in the crypt of members of the Scrope family. Pevsner notes the existence of a chapel on the site in 1859, which was presumably rebuilt by Hansom in 1868.

Description

See list description, below, which does not name Joseph Hansom, the architect. The building incorporates parts of an earlier chapel, in particular the crypt which contains the remains of various members of the Scrope family, who are commemorated in a handsome memorial plaque in the sanctuary.  The chapel is attached to the rear of a substantial late seventeenth century house (remodelled in the early-nineteenth century), formerly the presbytery.

List description

II

Roman Catholic Chapel. Dated ‘S. T. S. 1868’ above door. For Simon Thomas Scrope of Danby Hall. Coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, stone slate roof. Irregular cruciform plan. Quoins. Openings have depressed round-arched heads. Doorway in south-east angle. North window of 3 lights. Above western arm an octagonal tower and belfry with paired openings with stiff-leaf capitals, decorative tile roof. Interior: liturgical east to the geographic north. Below the church, an older crypt, the burial place of the Scropes of Danby. Attached to north of Presbytery. The tower is a notable feature in the landscape.

Heritage Details