The Church of All Saints, Harlow Hill,

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and civil parish in the North Yorkshire District, district and North Yorkshire, county of North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist de ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England, is a

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

mission church, or

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

, completed in 1871 on land donated by

Henry Lascelles, 4th Earl of Harewood Henry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Henry (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters * Henry (surname) * Henry, a stage name of François-Louis Henry (1786–1855), French baritone Arts and entertainmen ...

, within the parish of

St Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

. It was consecrated by the

Bishop of Ripon The Bishop of Ripon is an episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Ripon in North Yorkshire, England. The bishop is one of the area bishops of the Diocese of Leeds in the Province of York. The area bishop of Ripon has oversight o ...

in 1871. The building was designed with a round

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

, in

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style, by Isaac Thomas Shutt and Alfred Hill Thompson. After some years of closure due to structural problems, as of 2014 it was being restored for use by a

funeral director A funeral director, also known as an undertaker or mortician (American English), is a professional who has licenses in funeral arranging and embalming (or preparation of the deceased) involved in the business of funeral rites. These tasks o ...

's company.

History

By the 1860s, Harrogate was growing westwards, and St Mary's parish required another church to accommodate the increasing number of parishioners, and to provide at the same time a mission church and

. The Church of St Mary had no burial ground and needed one, so a large plot of land was donated by

(1824–1892) so that All Saints was from the beginning a cemetery chapel. On 19 April 1870, the foundation stone was laid on the porch, and it carries this legend: "To the glory of God. As a memorial of the foundation of this church, this stone was laid on April 19, 1870. Claude W. Roberts, Curate in Charge. I.T. Shutt, A.H. Thompson ARIBA, architects."

Opening and consecration

The building was opened by the

on Tuesday 11 April 1871. After the opening, the Bishop, clergy and guests were treated to a cold

collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fi ...

at the Adelphi Hotel, Harrogate.''York Herald'' 15 April 1871, p10 col4: Opening of a new church at Harrogate
/ref> Due to "some technical informalities in connection with the title deeds in the conveyance of the church and land", the consecration was delayed until after the opening, so that for the opening the Bishop had to be granted a licence for holding the service in the church. The building and graveyard were therefore consecrated on Friday 25 August 1871 by the same bishop in a "strong breeze" and under a sun of "great power", accompanied by a large group of clergymen and church officials in their vestments. This was more than a year after the foundation stone was laid, the

consecration cross Consecration crosses are crosses on the interior walls and exterior architecture of a Christianity, Christian church (building), church or cathedral showing where the bishop has anointed the church with chrism or holy water in order to Consecrati ...

having long been carved in the wall below the foundation stone in the porch. The ''Building News and Engineering Journal'' said: "The building itself is not unostentatious, yet not without architectural pretensions; and is designed in the continental style of

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

architecture ... The roof is open-timbered, and the whole interior is effective and handsome. The exterior is bold in style, and free from much ornamentation."

People and events

The church was run by the vicar of St Mary's, who hosted the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

meetings, and appointed

churchwarden A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion, Lutheran Churches or Catholic Church, usually working as a part-time volunteer. In the Anglican tradition, holders of these positions are ''ex officio'' mem ...

s and sidesmen. It never had its own vicar. A major figure in the early days of All Saints was Rev. G. O. Brownrigg, who worked for seventeen years in the large

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of St Mary's, All Saints and Oatlands Mount, with their respective

day A day is the time rotation period, period of a full Earth's rotation, rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, ...

and

Sunday school ] A Sunday school, sometimes known as a Sabbath school, is an educational institution, usually Christianity, Christian in character and intended for children or neophytes. Sunday school classes usually precede a Sunday church service and are u ...

s. He became ill and moved to

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...

, succeeded in 1893 in the parish by Rev. J. Chapman of

Christ Church Highbury Christ Church Highbury is an Anglican church in Islington, north London, next to Highbury Fields. History Architecture and construction The site was given by John Dawes, a local benefactor and landlord, and the church was built by Thomas Allom ...

. The organist and choir master at All Saints in the early days was Frederic Bartle (1834–1895), father of twelve children and headmaster of St Mary's Church School. A major event in April 1888 was the funeral of Joseph Fletcher (1824–1888) a

saddle A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not know ...

r of Royal Parade, who had many friends and business acquaintances. Blinds were drawn in Royal Parade, and the

hearse A hearse () is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin to a funeral, wake, or graveside service. They range from deliberately ...

and four

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

s were preceded by tradesmen walking solemnly, two abreast, all the way to Harlow Hill. His

pallbearer A pallbearer is one of several participants who help carry the casket at a funeral. They may wear white gloves in order to prevent damaging the casket and to show respect to the deceased person. Some traditions distinguish between the roles o ...

s were his workmen, and his coffin was pitch-pine with brass mountings and an engraved plate. He is buried on the north side of the cemetery.

Building exterior

This is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

, designated as such on 4 February 1975. The three main reasons for listing are said by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

to be: the

style, the "circular bell tower reminiscent of Irish bell-houses", and the building as an example of a work by architect I.T. Shutt. It was built parallel to the Otley Road (B6162), so that it is not quite oriented east–west, i.e. the chancel points to east-north-east, and the west window looks west-south-west. All Saints Harlow Hill 033

It is built of rusticated

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 ...

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

, and the roof is of

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland''R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref>) is an area of North West England which was Historic counties of England, historically a county. People of the area ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

with a crested ridge and raised

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s. The gabled porch opens into the south side of the nave, and as of 2014 the porch door had the original

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

, hand-made and decorative,

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

hinges and door-handle plate. There is

plate tracery Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the s ...

on the east and west windows, and on the transept windows. However, there are paired cusped

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s in the nave, and single cusped lancets either side of the east window. The west window has a drip mould, and so does the porch, but these are omitted from the other windows. The chancel has a normal ridge roof, then a polygonal

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

with a gable protruding from it, and this construction allows for an east wall which is flat and high enough for the east window.

Tower

The three-stage, circular bell tower on the south-west corner of the church is attached to the building, but appears from some viewpoints to stand separately. The long first stage has lancet windows at the bottom, and

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

windows level with the nave roof. The first and second stages are divided by a sloping course supported by bud

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

s and surmounted by four

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture, Pagan and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with f ...

gablets, or small decorative gables, set above the four quatrefoil windows. The second stage is the belfry originally designed for a single bell, and this has lancet windows with decorative wooden louvres or abat-sons. The spire is built of stone laid in decorative bands. It now contains a carillon of eight

tubular bells Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the Percussion instrument, percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillons, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the soun ...

donated in 1914 by the family of Melville M. Walker, controlled at ground level by an Ellacombe chiming rack. There is no public access to the tower.

Building interior

Nave

It was designed for a congregation of 230.''Leeds Mercury'' 12 April 1871, p3 col4: Opening of a new church at Harrogate
/ref> It is a three-bay nave, that is, there are three spaces between the main timber roof trusses. This scissor braced truss roof is supported on hand-carved but fairly plain corbels. There are two tiny

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

s, and the entrance of each is supported by a central pillar dividing arches echoing the design of the chancel arch and its pillared corbels. Above the transept windows and west windows are

ventilation Ventilation may refer to: * Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation ** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing *** Respirator, a ma ...

slits which are now glazed: a reminder that this is a cemetery chapel. One window of the south wall and two windows on the north wall of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

contain stained glass. When the building was listed in 1975 it still had the original stained deal pews, but during the restoration of 2014 some of these were removed, and some were stacked in the chancel. The Church of England has removed the "beautiful

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

Harehills Harehills is an inner-city area of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is about northeast of Leeds city centre. Harehills is between the A58 road, A58 (towards Wetherby) and the A64 road, A64 (towards York). It sits in the Gipton and Ha ...

stone ... of elegant design and artistically wrought," although as of 2014 the lid still existed, hanging on its pulley. Both font and lid were carved and installed in 1871.

Chancel

The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

arch is in doubled form, having an inner and an outer structure. The inner structure is supported on pillared corbels: a half-

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

carved with

acanthus leaves The acanthus () is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration in the architectural tradition emanating from Greece and Rome. Architecture In architecture, an ornament may be carved into stone or wood to resemble ...

is supported on a short, smooth, round, half-

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

which is supported in turn on a corbel in the form of an inverted,

fluted Fluting may refer to: *Fluting (architecture) *Fluting (firearms) *Fluting (geology) * Fluting (glacial) *Fluting (paper) *Playing a flute (musical instrument) Arts, entertainment, and media *Fluting on the Hump ''Fluting on the Hump'' is the ...

half-cone. The chancel window has three lights with a lancet window on either side; all filled with stained glass. The vestry is attached to its south wall, and the organ chamber is a lean-to opening from the chancel's north wall and connecting to the north transept via a door. The hardwood choir stalls, the south pulpit, the lectern and the communion rail were made by Thompson of Kilburn (1876–1955) and are not original to the building. The remaining north pulpit is original as designed and commissioned by the architects.

Closure and re-use

By November 2006 the building had been shut down due to wet and

dry rot Dry rot is wood decay caused by one of several species of fungi that digest parts of wood which give it strength and stiffness. It was previously used to describe any decay of cured wood in ships and buildings by a fungus which resulted in a ...

, and a meeting was held with regard to its restoration as an "important landmark." In 2009 the building developed structural problems and was declared unsafe and services ceased. The parish was taken over by Kairos Network Church, which is a Bishop Mission Order associated with St Mary's parish, Harrogate. By 2014 the building had been

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also referred to as decommissioning or ''secularization'' (a term also used for the external confiscation of church property), is the removal of a religious sanction and blessing from something that had been previously consec ...

and sold to A. Vause & Son,

s, who were intending to restore the interior for use as a chapel of rest. These plans did not come to fruition and in April 2023 North Yorkshire County Council granted permission to convert the church to a private dwelling.

Cemetery

The cemetery is under the control of Harrogate Borough Council; Like the chapel, it lies on land donated by the

Earl of Harewood Earl of Harewood (), in the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. History The title was created in 1812 for Edward Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a wealthy sugar plantation owner and former Member of Parliament fo ...

in 1889. It was consecrated by the Bishop of Ripon on 3 October 1871.''Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer'', Wednesday 12 April 1871 p3 col4: Harrogate, opening of a new church
/ref>

References

External links

{{Commons category, Church of All Saints, Harlow Hill
North Yorkshire County Record Office: Holdings of papers relating to St Mary's and All Saints
Including faculties, closure, listing, plans of cemetery etc.
British Listed Buildings: Church of All Saints, Harrogate, 329899
Contains better map of site than the equivalent Historic England page Arts and Crafts architecture in England Gothic Revival church buildings in England

Churches completed in 1871

Churches in Harrogate