The Jesus Chapel Ackworth

I began preparing this post in 2012 to mark the the 160th anniversary of the death of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Time and computer problems have caused several delays, but I thought I would try to finally get it completed and published to coincide with the publication of Gerard Hyland's new book on Pugin, about which I posted in An important new book on Pugin.

Pugin was in the news quite a lot in that anniversary year - indeed he appears fairly regularly. It was been the bicentenary of his birth on March 1st 1812, and interest has not been confined to England as can be seen in  Pugin Bi-Centenary Celebrations in Australia. There was also been the happily averted sale of church furnishings from Ramsgate Abbey. They have been saved and returned to the church Pugin designed there and where he is buried. The current state of his creation at Ramsgate is described by Fr Blake in Pugin Bi-Centenary Mass, and the recent designation of St Augustine's as the official shrine of its patron saint is recounted in Pugin’s Church Becomes Official Shrine of St Augustine on New Liturgical Movement. From what I gather that appears to be progressing very well indeed as an initiative.

The following story about another of Pugin's churches has, alas, no such happy ending, but is rather an account of the destruction of one of his earlier works, and the scattering of its furnishings. Where possible I am giving references for those who want to look further into the history of the building.

2011-12 was also the 170th anniversary of the building of the Jesus Chapel at Ackworth Grange near Pontefract, which was designed by  Pugin, and tragically demolished in 1963. Although an early and important work by Pugin, and one with which he himself was pleased, the chapel is not well covered in the more recent books on him, and even its date of destruction often, and inaccurately, given as 1966.

  

I can date it as I remember going as a grammar school boy in the early summer of 1963 to look at the very recently demolished remains - a pile of masonry rubble on the foundations and still crowned by the chancel arch, looking very like a pair of whale bones as they might be displayed in a public park. Some of my schoolmasters lodged at the house and we were invited out to see the remains of the recently demolished chapel. Together with my mother I rescued a couple of bits of carved stone which years later, in 1995, I gave to the local museum in Pontefract. 

Gavin Stamp in his Lost Victorian Britain refers to the chapel as an "exquisite creation" (p99), and all the evidence appears to justify that description. 

Ackworth Grange itself had been built circa 1800, and was listed as Grade II in 1968 - too late for the chapel. The house had been purchased by the Tempest family in 1836. The Tempests of Broughton near Skipton are amongst the leading recusant families in Yorkshire with a history of witness to the Catholic faith from 1536 when one member of the family, Nicholas, was executed after the Pilgrimage of Grace.
 

 Ackworth Grange with the Jesus Chapel and an interior view

Image supplied by G.J.Hyland

There is a similar photograph showing the house and chapel at Ackworth Grange in Paul Atterbury and Clive Wainwright (eds.) Pugin: A Gothic Passion (Yale UP in connection with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1994) 

The chapel was built by George Myers (vide Patricia Spencer-Silver  George Myers - Pugin's Builder  2nd edn Gracewing 2010). Pugin drew up his proposal, for a new chapel and a Master's lodging and school (this, I think, still stands in East Hardwick and facing the Pontefract - Barnsdale Bar road. The back road to the house leaves the main road by the house. At the back of the house is what looks, from the outside, like a schoolroom), and is referred to the text of Pugin's letters from vol ii of The Collected Letters of A.W.N. Pugin ( Edited with notes and an introduction by Margaret Belcher. OUP 2001). 

Rosemary Hill in God's Architect links it to the still surviving church at Kenilworth and it can be seen in the foreground of the famous engraving of the massed ranks of Pugin's church designs.

Pugin's churches

The Jesus Chapel is in the foreground at bottom left

Image:thepuginsociety.com

The chapel was completed in 1842 and received its certificate for religious worship at the Pontefract Sessions in April 1844.

The Jesus Chapel near Pomfret by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852)

An illustration from The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture, facing p. 101

Image:victorianweb.com

In The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England, published in 1843, Pugin describes the chapel as follows on pp 96-7:

" This edifice has been erected by Mrs Tempest,  who resides at The Grange, near Pomfret, to serve as a private chapel to the mansion with which it communicates by means of a cloister on the north side. It consist of a nave, chancel, chantry chapel containing afamily vault, and a sacristy;....The architecture is taht of the decorated period, and to the smallest details has been carefully and faithfully revived from original aothorities. The niches on each side of the chancel window contain images our Blessed Lady and the angel Gabriel, and the Holy Trinity in the centre niche of the gable. A belfry for the Sanctus erescted on the eastern end of the nave, and a foliated cross on the centre of the west gable. A massive and deeply moulded arch leads ffrom the nave to the chancel, across which an oak screen of open panels, surmounted bty a rood has been erected. The roof of the nave is waggon headed, divided by and divided intocompartments by the principals of the roof, which are again subdivided by moulded ribs into panels, diapered in colours. The ceiling of the chancel is arched, also divided into compartments by ribs, but of a richer character than those of the nave; at each intersection is a boss, carved with emblems of the passion and other devices;and from each of these spring four foliage cusps, corresponding to the angle of the panel. The relieved portion s of this ceiling are pricked out in gold and colour; the field is painted azure, powdered with stars and suns. all the windows are filled with stained glass; those of the nave contain figured quarries, rich borders and quatrefoils filled with sacred emblems; in the east window of the chantry, the centre light is filled with an image of our Ladye with our Lord under a canopy, and a serpent crushed beneath her feet: the other two lights contain the emblems of the four Evangelists, and the holy name in bordered quatrefoils. The upper part of the window is filled with angels, holding labels and scriptures.

    

       The east window of the chancel contains the crucifixion of our Lord, the adoration of the wise men, and the resurrection, with appropriate scripture. The side widow of the chantry chapel is filled with armorial bearings of the tempest family. On the Gosel side of the chancel is avery ornamented niche, which is also open towards the chantry, and within it a high tomb to serve for the sepulchre art Easter. Immediately opposite to this are the sedilia,with crocketed canopies and pinn, and a sacrarium of the same ornamental character. The front of the principal altar is divided into five compartments and niches, with crocketed gablets, and each containing an image. the altar of the chantry is plain, and hung with a frontal of velvet, relieved with gold embroidery. Ech alatr is furnished with apair of candlesticks and acrucifix on standing crosses. Curtains of silk are suspended on projecting rods on each side of the chancel altar, andon the upper steps are placed two high standards for the elevation candles. There is also a suspended lamp to burn before the blessed sacrament. The flooring of the chancel and chantry are laid with incrusted tiles of various patterns, similar to those with which the ancient chueches were originally paved; and in all respects this chapel presents a very faithful revival of a small religious edifice of the fine period of Edward the Third. "

 

The interior of the chapel  - a plate from The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture

Image supplied by G. J.Hyland

Mrs Elizabeth Tempest had been born on 21st December 1766, the second daughter and co-heiress of Henry Blundell of nce Blundell, Lancashire - another famous recusant family, of whom there is more here. On 1st May 1787 she married Stephen Tempest of Broughton Hall, Skipton, the son of the author of the Religio Laici; so two old recusant families were linked. By the nineteenth century the family was of some standing and able to maintain a domestic chaplain and a school for associates of the household.

Stephen died, aged 68, on 28th November 1824. Elizabeth survived her husband by over twenty years, dying aged 78 on 25th April 1845. They had a large family of 13 children, although only 7 out-lived their mother. Their son Thomas took holy orders and a daughter, Frances, became a nun. Their third son, Charles Robert Tempest (1794-1865), who served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire, inherited the Broughton estate, but died unmarried and the estate devolved to his next brother’s family. This line of the Tempest family still live at Broughton.

The chapel at Broughton  is "Gothick" rather than Pugin's scholarly gothic in style, but is also dedicated to the Sacred Heart, so it may have inspired the choice of patronage. The conscious choice of Pugin is perhaps  interesting given the age of Elizabeth Tempest when she commissioned the chapel. The family was clearly conscious of their medieval and recusant heritage. By at least the early 1840s when she commissioned the chapel and at  the time of her death in 1845 Elizabeth was living at Ackworth Grange. She was buried in the  Jesus Chapel. I assume this burial and that of others of the family was in the chantry on the north side of the structure.

The memorial brass for Elizabeth Tempest was also designed by Pugin and engraved in 1847 by the firm of John Hardman of Birmingham at a cost of £67. Closely based on medieval examples it shows her as a widow holding a model of the Jesus Chapel. She stands under a single canopy, with the families’ arms in the occulus, surmounted by a cross. Two scrolls with the prayer ‘Jesu mercy’ and a foot inscription seeking prayers for the souls of Elizabeth and her husband Stephen complete the composition. 

The brass of Elizabeth Tempest 

Image: MBS

Following the demolition of the chapel at Ackworth  the brass with its slab somehow found their way to Ampleforth College and from there was eventually taken to Broughton Hall. The slab had become badly broken and was disposed of, and the brass resided in pieces in an outbuilding for some years. The present owner, Mr Henry Tempest, was finally persuaded to have the brass conserved and mounted on a board. In 1994 the brass was lent to the Victoria and Albert Museum for display in their exhibition devoted to Pugin. Eventually the brass was mounted on a board on the wall of the Tempest chapel in St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic church in Skipton, where there are also other later effigial brasses to members of the Tempest family. The church website has pictures and background and can be viewed here.

Acknowlegements to Patrick Farman's article for the Monumental Brass Society January 2006 brass of the month.This includes a detail of the depictieon of the chapel being held in Mrs Tempest's hands.

Pugin may have been responsible for, or inspired, the tiled floor in the house which had gothic capital Ts for Tempest in golden yellow on ared or blue background as I recall it.

The decline in the fortunes of the Chapel began in 1920 with the building of the Catholic church of Our Lady of Lourdes (itself recently closed by the diocese) which was established on June 6th that year in Ackworth, near where the parishioners lived - the Grange is about three quarters of a mile from the village. Hitherto the chapel had acted as the parish church, but by 1927 it was described as closed. The Grange was then the home of Wilfrid Francis Tempest, esq. J.P.

Kelly's Directory of that year describes the chapel as follows:

"The Roman Catholic church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and attached to the Grange, was erected in 1840 [sic], and is a building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, north porch and a belfry containing one bell: all the windows are stained, and there is a finely carved stone altar and tomb, designed by Pugin: in the church are brasses to Stephen and Elizabeth Tempest (1814), John Tempest (1831) and Mary Coulthurst (1836); a memorial tablet in Caen stone and black marble to Agnes Mary Tempest (1885); also a brass tablet to the memory of Wilfred Norman Tempest, 2^nd Batt. King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, killed in France, Sept. 25, 1916: the church is now closed for public services."

I gather that the monstrance from the chapel was at the Church of Holy Family in Chequerfield at Pontefract - but that was another church closed in recent years. I think I heard or read that the vestments went to the new church in Ackworth - but I may have imagined that. That I suppose was in 1920 or thereabouts.

After the Second World War the Tempests sold the property and moved away, and as the first picture shows the property, both house and chapel, decayed.

I understand that it was in 1959 that the high altar was taken to the historic Anglican parish church at Campsall, a few miles away. I was told it was transported on a farmer's flat cart. Today, its colouring somewhat faded it can still be seen in the south transept of the church.

I also understand that the statues from the church went to the relatively new church of St Leonard and St Jude at Scawsby, north of Doncaster, and on the A635, Barnsley Road. In 1963 I was told that the glass went to Durham cathedral, but on my visits there I have not identified it. That was when the then owners demolished the chapel. The main reason appears to have been the lack of any grant aid to maintain it.

In 1963 as I said I rescued afew pieces of carved stonework in an ogee design. Looking at the photograph of the interior and recalling where I found them they must have been portions of the sedilia. These I gave in 1995 to the Wakefield MDC Museums service. When I visted the Grange some years later - probably 1966 or 67 the rubble and been tidied away but there was still some window tracery there left from the destruction of the chapel.

 

Ackworth Grange today

The chapel adjoined the house to the left

Image:yourlocalweb.co.uk

With thanks to the assistance of Dr Gerard Hyland of the Pugin Society,  and the Eminence Grise for technical assistance. 

An important new book on Pugin

Despite the huge growth of Pugin studies in recent decades, there has, surprisingly, been no comprehensive catalogue of his architectural output until now. This is now being remedied with the publication of G.J.Hyland's  The Architectural Works of A.W.N. Pugin.
 

 

 Image: Pugin Society

In his ground-breaking study my friend Gerard Hyland has identified over 290 executed works and at least 84 unexecuted designs by Pugin, and which are spread over five countries and two continents. 

In his survey they are grouped by building type into eleven categories, each with an introduction. The entries comprise an architectural description together with information about patronage, later building history and a list of sources. There are also six appendices providing important background information and a summary lists of works usefully arranged by both diocese and county.

Dr Hyland, a theoretical physicist by profession, has long been fascinated by Pugin s achievements and this important new book is his tribute to one of our greatest and most influential architects. It is enhanced by illustrations of key buildings, nearly all of them in colour.

The volume will be published by Spire Books on May 28th at £35.00, but can be pre-ordered.

Quite apart from appreciating Pugin's work, and knowing Gerard, I have a particular interest in this book in that I was able to assist him as author with some details about the Jesus Chapel at Ackworth in Yorkshire - alas now demolished. I will post my own, long delayed, piece on that specimen of Pugin's work in the next few days.

Pilgrimage to Birmingham

Yesterday I went on a pilgrimage to mark the Year of Faith organised for parishes from the North Oxford Deanery. The idea was to link together visits to places associated with, and indeed the relics, of St Chad, patron of the Archdiocese and cathedral, Bl. John Henry Newman,  and Bl.Dominic Barberi, and to see in them men who had lived by faith.

Our first stop was at the Birmingham Oratory. We joined member sof the congregation in saying the rosary before the  statue of Our Lady, splendidly coped and crowned for May, before Fr Richard Duffield C.O., the main organiser of the pilgrimage, gave a talk about the life of Bl. John Henry and the building of the church - the present structure was erected as a memorial to Newman in the early years of the twentieth century.

 
The High Altar at the Birmingham Oratory

 
Image: Catholic Church (England and Wales) on Flickr

We then went through to the shrine chapel, the only part of Newman's church to survive, and redecorated in advance of his beatification in 2010. Here we had atime to pray, to view some relics of the Cardinal, including his mitre and crozier and the bull creating him a Cardinal, as well as seeing the modern chasse that contains such few fragments of bone as were found in his grave at Rednall, and which also incorporates the original handles from his coffin. There are mounted so that pilgrims may indeed touch them to establish a tangible, tactile contact with him.

The altar in the shrine chapel of Bl. John Henry Newman

Image:anglicanpatrimony.blogspot

There were too many of us to visit Newman's room, which has been preserved as it was at the time of his death. I have been fortunate enough to do so on three previous visits to the Oratory, and that is very remarkable exprience indeed - it is not areconstruction or redecoration, it is a genuine, undisturbed nineteenth century room, and that of one of the great voices of the age.

I think we could all have spent more time exploring the Oratory church and the other displays about Bl. John Henry, but the exigencies of timing sent us on to the cathedral in the centre of the city for the next stage of our pilgrimage.

The Cathedral and Basilica of St Chad Birmingham

 Image: Simon_K on Flickr

If the Oratory is wonderfully Philippine in its baroque style and decoration, St Chad's cathedral is one of the great workks of A.W.N. Pugin, and built in 1839-41. In recent years a lot of work has been done to restore and reinstate aspects of Pugin's scheme, and the interior is striking and beautiful. like the oratory church, very much a place of prayer.

Interior of St Chad's Cathedral

Aidan MCRae Thomson on Flickr

In the cathedral we had a votive Mass of St Chad, whose relics are preserved in the shrine above the High Altar. and time to look around before having our packed lunch and then back into the cathedral for a group photograph on the steps leading to the altar.

The cathedral has some splendid treasures amongst its furnishings, including late medieval items which were acquired from the Low Countries by Pugin. In the oils chapel is a reliquary with some hair of Bl.John Henry, one of his Cardinal's red zucchettos and his ring.

Either side of the steps leading to the altar are the Coenopium or Ombrellino and the tintinnabulum which indicate its status as a Minor Basilica, and honour granted to mark its centenary in June 1941, and about which there is more here.  

The last stage of our pilgrimage took us north of the city centre to the inner suburb of handsworth and to the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, and built by Pugin for them in 1841 on land given bt his collaborators the Hardman family. A daughter of the family, Juliana, became the first Mother Superior of the house, and in those early months the foundress of the Sisters, Ven. Catherine McAuley stayed there, before returning to Dublin to die the same year.

St Mary's Convent Handsworth

Image: birminghamheritage.org.uk

The convent is typical of Pugin, and was supported not only by the Hardman family but also by his great patron the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury. The church to the east which served as both the sister's church and as parish church was, alas, wrecked by a bomb in 1942, which also destroyed the House of Mercy which had provided shelter for vulnerable women. The descending cloister whuich linke dteh convent and church, atypically Puginesque feature, survives in part, and there are pictures of the lost church - rather like those he designed in Marlow and in Salisbury - on display in the extended house chapel, togetehr with examples of Hardman plate and furnishings.

Pugin's original design

Image: English Heritage

In the chapel is a chair and table which were used by Bl. Dominic Barberi when he visited the Sisters as their Extrordinary Confessor. It is also known that Bl. John Henry Newman used to visit the convent as a place of quiet.

Today the conevent continues to work with the local community, serves as a focus for Mercy Associates, and also is a heritage centre, open to visitors, which recounts the history of the Sisters in Handsworth and in the life of the Church and country.

The whole pilgrimage was very enjoyable, and we were blessed with beautiful weather, and the sight of the countryside finally bursting into leaf and flower as we travelled to and from Birmingham.

Feast of Dedication of Birmingham Cathedral

Today is the feast of dedication of St Chad's Metropolitan Cathedral in Birmingham. Built in 1839-41 by A.W.N. Pugin, whose bicentenary is this year, it has served as the cathedral of the diocese since 1852 following the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. Since 1941 it has had the status of a Minor Basilica - a dignity only held elsewhere in England now by Downside Abbey. There is an account of the cathedral here.

The interior of the cathedral

Image: farm5.staticflickr.com

The interior as designed by Pugin, complete with the Rood Screen - now at Holy Trinity Reading

Image:media.vam.ac.uk

The modern Archiepiscopal throne in the style of Pugin
Image: theanglo-catholic.com

Relics of St Chad

Today is the feast of St Chad, the apostle of Mercia, founder of the see of Lichfield and patron of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. The cathedral, designed and decorated by A.W.Pugin, is dedicated to him and his relics are enshrined above the High Altar.

There is a good account of his life and times here. The Oxford DNB biography by D.H.Farmer can be read here, and it includes some details as to the history of his relics.

Statue of St Chad in his cathedral in Birmingham
He is holding a model of Lichfield cathedral

The reliquary holding the relics of St Chad above the High Altar of the cathedral

I have adapted and developed the section about his relics from the article above as follows:

According to St. Bede, Chad was venerated as a saint immediately after his death, and his relics translated to a shrine. He remained the centre of an important cult, focussed on healing, throughout the Middle Ages. Indeed it was the presence of the relics that probably led in the twelfth century to the re-establishment of a co-cathedral at Lichfield following its removal to Coventry in the late eleventh century. Bythe later middle ages the cult had twin foci: his tomb, in the apse, directly behind the high altar of Lichfield cathedral, and, more particularly, his skull, kept in a special Head Chapel, above the south aisle, with a balcony from which the reliquary could be displayed.

The transmission of the relics after the Reformation was tortuous, and a testimony to the faith of recusant families in the centuries that followed. At the dismantling of the Shrine on the instructions of King Henry VIII in about 1538, Prebendary Arthur Dudley (d.1577) of Lichfield Cathedral removed and retained some relics. These eventually passed to his nieces, Bridget and Katherine Dudley, of Russells Hall, near the town of Dudley.

In 1651, they reappeared when a farmer, Henry Hodgetts of Sedgley, was on his death-bed and kept praying to St Chad. When the priest hearing his last confession, Fr Peter Turner SJ, asked him why he called upon Chad. Henry replied, "because his bones are in the head of my bed". He instructed his wife to give the relics to the priest, whence they found their way to the Seminary at St Omer, in France. After the penal times, in the early 19th century, they found their way into the hands of Sir Thomas Fitzherbert-Brockholes of Aston Hall, near Stone in Staffordshire. When his chapel was cleared after his death, his chaplain, Fr Benjamin Hulme, discovered the box containg the relics, which were examined and presented in 1837 to Bishop Thomas Walsh, the Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District, and were enshrined in the new St Chad's Birmingham, opened in 1841, in a new casket designed by Pugin. In 1850 the church became the cathedral of the new diocese.

The relics, which comprise some long bones, were examined by the Oxford Archeological Laboratory by carbon dating techniques in 1985, and all but one of the bones (which was a third femur, and therefore could not have come from Bishop Chad) were dated to the seventh century, and were authenticated as true relics by the Vatican.

In 1919, an Annual Mass and Solemn Outdoor Procession of the Relics was inaugurated at the cathedral in Birmingham. This observance which was at on epoint discontinued because of the redevelopment of the road system round the cathedral has been revived in recent years, on the Saturday nearest to his feast Day, 2 March. There are more pictures of last year's St Chad's Day on the website of St Chad's Cathedral Birmingham.

The Shrine lies in front of the nave altar on St Chad's day 2011

Images: St Chad's cathedral website

Pugin at Ramsgate

Clive Aslett had an article in last Wednesday's Daily Telegraph about the plans and appeal to restore Augustus Welby Pugin's last great creation, his house and the church and abbey of St Augustine at Ramsgate, which can be read here. I have posted about the appeal before and the article gives a good account of the buildings at Ramsgate and places them in the context of Pugin's life and work.

St Augustine's Ramsgate

Fr Blake has a post about the appeal to restore Augustus Welby Pugin's St Augustine's Ramsgate which can be read in At the House of Lords.

The campaign is one eminently worth supporting, and I would recommend it to anyone interested and with funds.

Writing of Pugin prompts me to get on and post about another Pugin design, but one that is, alas, no more - the Jesus Chapel at Ackworth in Yorkshire. Watch this blog!