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Our churches
 | The Stanwick Group of Churches comprises:
- the church of St. John the Baptist, Stanwick (in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust but used occasionally for services)
- the parish church of St. Paul, Aldbrough St. John
- the parish church of St. Cuthbert, Forcett
- the parish church of St. James the Great, Melsonby
- the chapel of ease of St. Hilda, Caldwell
- the private chapel of Christ Church, East Layton
The picture above shows a winter view taken in the village of Caldwell and incorporating two of the mainstays of village life, the church - in the distance through the trees - and the pub, the Brownlow Arms in Caldwell. For more about the church see the story below.
The villages and hamlets that our benefice serves are
- Caldwell
- Carlton
- East Layton
- Eppleby
- Forcett
- Melsonby
- Stanwick St John
You will find a map of the area covered by the parish in the page of links to the parish.
A Church Near You
The churches in our benefice also have their details published on the Church of England's new church-finder site, A Church Near You.
That site has details of most churches in England and it is easy to find them by county or diocese.
There is a link to www.achurchnearyou.com from the Links page.
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The Church of St Paul, Aldbrough St. John
 | The first question most people ask about the church of St Paul is "Why is it dedicated to St Paul when the village is called Aldbrough St John?". The reason is the somewhat prosaic one that the Post Office needed a means of distinguishing between our Aldbrough and Aldborough near Boroughbridge. At that time the village was within the ancient parish of St John at Stanwick and so the name of the then parish church was added. St Paul's only became the parish church in 1990 when St John's was declared redundant.
The church was built in 1890 at a cost of £2000 paid by Eleanor, the Dowager Duchess of Northumberland who lived in Stanwick Park. It was intended as a chapel of ease to save the villagers the walk across the fields to Stanwick. The building work was done by local craftsmen and the stone, from a nearby quarry, was carried by local farmers as their contribution to the project.
The design is very simple, the most conspicious feature being the barrel vaulted ceiling with stencilled decorations and the words of the Te Deum along the frieze.The plain wooden pews and choir-stalls are original but the electronic organ is, of course, fairly recent.
Many of the artefacts in the church were made and/or donated by parishioners.
If you visit St Paul's there is a more detailed information leaflet favailable. |
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Christ Church, East Layton
 This private chapel was built by Mrs Maynard Proud of East Layton in 1895 using local builders though the design was, I have been told, based on a one-third replica of Worcester Cathedral.
It is, therefore, a traditional monastic design church with a central tower at the crossing of the nave and transepts. Throughout it is embellished in typical Victorian Gothic fashion.
The building, being a private chapel, belongs to the E.O. Proud Trust, not the Church of England.
Along with the church, Mrs Proud built a fine parsonage which she intended to be used by a retired clergyman who would officiate at her chapel. This building has, like most such parsonages, now been sold. In addition, Mrs Proud also built a cottage to be occupied by the verger. It is probably significant that this development took place just 5 years after the Duchess of Northumberland had built the very plain chapel of St Paul at Aldbrough with no parsonage or verger's cottage to accompany it.
Christ Church, East Layton is used as a chapel of ease for the village though it comes within the parish of Forcett.
This little chapel is also note-worthy in that it has 4 bells for full-circle ringing though there is no ringing band within the parish at present. The Bells have recently been restored to full ringing condition and it is hoped that a band can be assembled and trained, if necessary, to ring them.
If there is any interest in this within the benefice, do e-mail us and let us know.
Melsonby also has a ring of four bells which are currently unrung except on rare occasions by visiting band. |
St James the Great, Melsonby
 There was a church on this site before the Norman Conquest in 1066, and a resident priest is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.The parent parish was Gilling but it seems that Melsonby was already a separate entity by then. From this period,two Anglo-Saxon carved grave slabs remain and are displayed at the entrance to the tower. Another carved fragment displaying a carved hart and hound is on a sill at the west end of the church.
The present church building was begun in 1153 and completed during C13. It belongs to that period when the Norman style was developing into the early English style of architecture.Unfortunately St James' was restored in 1870, a bad period for church restoration as there was a fashion for covering beautiful, ancient stonework with plaster. The chancel was rebuilt at this time and the porch and vestry added. The perpendicular east window was also replaced by the present three lancets.
There is a leaflet available in the church with details of some of the points of interest within this ancient building.
St James' has four bells hung for full-circle ringing but there is currently no band at Melsonby. The belfry also has plenty of space to extend the ring to a more flexible 6 or even 8 bells if the funds and interest could be raised.
Do e-mail us if you are interested in restoring ringing to Melsonby. |
St Cuthbert's, Forcett
 | | I would like to include a brief history of St. Cuthbert's, Forcett but have been unable to find any information. If you can provide any, please contact me via the e-mail link from this site. |
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St John the Baptist, Stanwick St John
 | This picture was taken as the snow was beginning to melt on 5 February
The site occupied by the church of St John the Baptist, Stanwick has been a sacred place since long before the present church was built. It is situated within the ancient Brigantean fortress now known as Stanwick Camp and it may have been a religious site before it became a Christian place of worship. The circular churchyard (though a section has been cut off by the road) indicates a pre-Conquest burial ground and the outline of a Saxon church has been found near to the present church. There are also several Saxon remains including a cross shaft, and other carvings which have simply been used as ordinary building stones in the walls.
The present building has substantial parts that can be dated to C13 (tower, main doorway, east window of south aisle) and a number of old grave slabs have been incorporated into the porch indicating details (though not the names) about the persons whose graves they covered. Several of these indicate that the church may have been in the control of the Knights Templar at one time. The fact that there are so many stone grave slabs here is not so much an indication of the wealth of the area as the fact that stone from local quarries was so readily available.
From C14 to C17 Stanwick was owned by the Catterick family but in 1638 it was conveyed to a Smithson grandson. In the church is a splendid monument to one of the several Hugh Smithsons and his wife The great grandson of the Hugh Smithson commemorated in marble, married Elizabeth Percy, took the Percy name and became Earl of Northumberland. His illegitimate son left his fortune to be used to establish the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. The Percy family as Earls, and later Dukes, of Northumberland held the estate until the 1920s when the estate was broken up.
During the latter part of C19 and early C20 Stanwick was ruled by Eleanor, dowager duchess Northumberland and it was she who had the church restored by Anthony Salvin in 1868. Like many Victorian restorations, Salvin's at Stanwick rather overdid it and many old features were lost as a result but the C19 font, still has its C17 cover (much restored) and several memorials and hatchments were retained. Since 1990 St John's has been in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust though the church yard still belongs to the parish.
If you visit St John's at Stanwick you will find it a peaceful and evocative place. People have worshipped here for over two thousand years. Please help to keep up that tradition.
More information on the building is available in the church and a churchyard plan and grave list also now available there for reference. (See our
page on Parish Registers and Genealogical Research).
The hamlet of Stanwick StJohn, along with Carlton, has its own village website that gives information about the settlements there, past and present(see our links page)
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St Hilda's, Caldwell
 | This chapel of ease, dedicated to St Hilda of Whitby, one of England's greatest and most influential women of all time, serves the villlage of Caldwell. It is a plain and functional building but its simple, square design makes the congregation feel very much part of the service.
A board on the wall explains the origins of the chapel thus:
This chapel was erected at the expense of Charlotte Catherine Ann Countess of Bridgewater A.D.1844 And endowed with the sum of L1526.14s 4d in the 3% consolidated Bank Annuities. The Service to be performed as set forth by the Church of England And by her directions all the sittings are hereby declared free and unappropriated to the Inhabitants of the Township of Caldwell.
Bernard Gilpin, Officiating Minister
Frank Dent, Churchwarden
For those unfamiliar with the sum involved, 'L' is an old way of writing £. '£' was originally an L and short for libra, a Roman measure of weight from which lb (weight) derives. £1 was originally the value of 1lb of silver but inflation has long taken care of that;
14s = 14 shillings now 70p
4d = 4 pence (old money) - 'd'as an abbreviation of 'pence' is from another Roman coin, the denarius In 1971 when decimal coinage was introduced into the UK 2.4d became 1p so 4d is somewhat less than 2p
The reference to all sittings being 'free and unappropriated' is because it was once common for the better off members of a parish to reserve their own particular seats in the church and to pay for the privilege. This meant that those coming only occasionally, or visitors, were restriced as to where they could sit. The Countess decreed that there was to be no such discrimination as to who sat where in Caldwell chapel |
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