Patrick Comerford
During my brief visit to York earlier this month, I attended the Sung Parish Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church, I was offered what felt like a personalised guided tour of the Church of the English Martyrs by the parish priest, Canon Michael Loughlin, viewed the peace gardens at Saint Martin-le-Grand, and dropped in, of course, to York Minster, albeit for only for a few moments.
I also visited some significant Quaker buildings in York, including Bootham School, the Mount School, and the former home of the Rowntree family.
During that weekend, I also stopped to look at three other churches, one a former mediaeval parish church that has been transformed into a prayer centre, and two former Methodist churches – one Wesleyan Methodist and the other once a Primitive Methodist church – although I did not manage to see inside any one of the three.
Saint Cuthbert’s Church, now known as the Well Prayer House, is a Grade I listed church on the edge of Peasholme Green, a stone’s throw away from York Minster and the busy life of Parliament Street.
It is difficult to appreciate the full extent and scope of Saint Cuthbert’s Church, wedged between a modern office development on one side and a restaurant and museums on the other. Although the east wall dates from the 11th century and the corner buttress was built in the 14th century, most of the church walls date from the 15th century, and the porch and vestry date from the mid-19th century. The square windows in the south wall are typical of the late perpendicular style, and have simple yet beautiful tracery.
Saint Cuthbert’s has a continuous two-bay chancel and a three-bay nave with a south porch, a two-stage west tower, a north-west vestry, and a charnel vault that was converted into a crypt.
Towards the east end, a priest’s door has two cinquefoil panels, a four-centred head with oak and vine carved spandrels carved in a chamfered surround and a coved hoodmould.
Other surviving features also include decayed gargoyles, an embattled parapet, the former charnel vault, and a coffin lid with an incised cross shaft set in tower west wall of the tower.
Although I did not manage to see inside the church, I understand the fittings include a hexagonal pulpit with arcaded panels carved with foliage, and altar or Communion table with column legs and fluted rail, boards with the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and Creed in round-headed moulded surrounds, and a Lord Mayors’ board with a Queen Anne cypher, as well as two faded painted boards said to represent Moses and Aaron, and three hatchments.
Saint Cuthbert’s Church is mentioned in the Domesday Book, when the advowson belonged to William de Percy. The patronage passed to Holy Trinity Priory in Micklegate in 1238.
The church was restored ca 1430 and largely rebuilt by William de Bowes MP, who was Lord Mayor of York in 1417 and 1428.
At the Dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, the patronage was transferred to the Crown. The parish was united with the parishes of All Saints’, Peasholme Green, Saint Helen-on-the-Walls and Saint Mary in Layerthorpe in 1586.
The church was restored in 1859, when the stonework was repointed, the floor was levelled and new pews were introduced. It was restored again in 1911-1919.
Saint Cuthbert’s was a parish church until the 1970s, when it joined with Saint Michael le Belfrey Church. The building was converted into parish offices in 1980.
The church is now knwn as the Well Prayer House, and is open for prayer every Thursday from 9:15 am to 6 pm, with Morning Prayer at 9:30, Mid-day Prayer at 12:30, Sung Worship at 5 pm, and Evening Prayer at 5:30, with informal prayer time in between.
Prayer rooms have been fitted out along different themes, including prayer for the city, for answered prayers, a Bible reading room, Holy Communion, art, and lament, grief and disappointment, as well as two general prayer rooms.
The former Wesley Chapel on Priory Street, in the Bishophill area, is a Grade II* listed building. It was built in 1856, on the newly-developed Priory Street in an area that was once part of the grounds of the Holy Trinity Priory.
The chapel was designed by the Scottish architect James Simpson (1830-1894) of Leith. When it opened, the chapel could hold 1,500 people. It was extended the following year, with the addition of a school, a Sunday school, and a house for a preacher.
It is built of brick in a classical style, with a stone pediment, and stone around the windows and doors. The front is of five bays and two storeys. It has three main entrance doors and two arched windows on the ground floor, and three arched windows above. The left and right façades of seven bays were designed in a similar manner.
Inside, the foyer was fully panelled, with a glazed screen separating it from the auditorium. The screen incorporated a memorial panel to members of the congregation killed in World War I. Doors to the side of the screen led to staircases up to an oval gallery above the auditorium. There were stained glass in every window except one, much in an Art Nouveau style.
A lecture hall was added behind the building later in the 19th century. It has been ascribed to George Townsend Andrews (1804-1854), the architect who designed York Railway Station, although Andrews died two years the chapel was built. A new organ built by James Binns was installed in 1892, and the buildings were extended in 1907 and 1910. A new porch was added in 1910.
During World War II, the council took over the school as the Manor Secondary Modern School. That building is now the Priory Centre.
The chapel was originally part of the York Circuit of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1867, it became the head of the new York Wesley Circuit, covering the city west of the River Ouse.
The Wesleyan Methodists became part of the new Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 and the chapel headed the revised Wesley Circuit. The chapel closed in 1982, and the congregation transferred to the Central Methodist Church on Saint Saviourgate.
The building was bought by a congregation linked to the Assemblies of God, and it was renamed as the Assembly of God Church. It was renamed the Rock Church in 1993, and it was still part of the Assemblies of God. It had an average weekly attendance of 250 adults by 2006. It was renamed again in 2018 as QChurch.
Victoria Bar Primitive Methodist Chapel opened in 1880, when it replaced the Nunnery Lane Mission Room, a Primitive Methodist mission house and Sunday School that had been built on a site near Saint Thomas’ Hospital on Nunnery Lane in 1865.
The chapel was built on the corner of Victor Street and Newton Terrace, at the junction with Lower Priory Street and inside the recently made Victoria Bar.
The opening was made in the York City wall in 1836 to make an easier way out for the residents of Victoria Bar. The York Circuit of the Primitive Methodists bought the site inside Victoria Bar in 1879.
The new chapel was designed by the architect William Peachey (1826-1912) of Darlington. Peachey is known mainly as a railway architect, but his works in York also included the Baptist Church on Priory Street.
When it was built, the Primitive Methodist Chapel could hold 900 people and it included lecture rooms and classrooms, as well as a chapel room and minister’s vestry.
The chapel was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style with red and white brick. One end of the building was curved accommodating a curved gallery. The right-hand staircase on to the gallery was built into a tower.
Initially, Victoria Bar Chapel was part of the York Circuit of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. The circuit was divided into two in 1882 and Victoria Bar Chapel became head of the newly created Second York Circuit, known as the Victoria Bar Circuit.
Following the unification of the Primitive, Wesleyan and United Methodist churches in 1932, the chapel was closed in 1939 and it was sold in 1940.
The building became a furniture shop and then a soft toy factory. It was used again for worship for three years from 1992. It was converted into 14 one-bedroom flats and three two-bedroom flats in 1995.
The former chapel remains a striking feature to look at coming through Victoria Bar.
As for the former Saint Thomas’ Hospital on Nunnery Lane, I hope to look at it on another evening.
