‘Dales church resembled an alehouse at a village feast’ (From Craven Herald)

‘Dales church resembled an alehouse at a village feast’

11:40am Saturday 26th November 2011 in Craven History

A travelling writer who stopped off at Burnsall Church in 1827 was deeply unimpressed by the music on offer but, as editor Adrian Braddy found out, he was fascinated by the church’s unusual gateway, which opens under a system of weights and a pulley.

In the summer of 1827, a writer set out on a journey from Skipton to Keswick. His journal was subsequently published in the Table Book of Daily Recreation and Information, under the title of “Notes on a tour, chiefly pedestrian, from Skipton in Craven, Yorkshire, to Keswick in Cumberland”.

Much of the journal, believed to have been written by Dr James Dixon under the pen name TQM, focuses on the Cumbrian section of the trip, but there are some interesting snippets about Craven, in particular the church at Burnsall, where TQM enjoyed – or rather endured – a Sunday morning service.

He did not hold back in his colourful description of the church, churchwardens and congregation.

“While attending divine service, one or two things struck me as remarkable,” he wrote. “The church has an organ, on which two voluntaries were played; one after the psalms for the day and the other after the second lesson; but during the singing of the metrical psalms the organ was silent.

“Instead of it, two or three strange-looking countrymen in the organ gallery raised an inharmonious noise with a small fiddle, a flute and a clarinet.

“Why do the churchwardens allow this?” he protested. “The gallery of the church should not be allowed to resemble the interior of an alehouse at a village feast.”

Not only was TQM unhappy with the standard of music, he grumbled about the cleanliness of the building.

“The church would have looked better had it been cleaner: the pew wherein I sat was covered with cobwebs,” he wrote. “The business of the churchwardens seemed to me to consist rather in thumping the heads of naughty boys than in looking after the state of the church.”

TQM was more impressed with the exterior: “The church, an old structure, apparently of the reign of Henry VII, is pleasantly situated on ‘the banks of the crystal Wharfe’.”

The writer was also struck by the lychgate – or lich-gate – at the entrance to the churchyard.

The words lych and lich are derived from the old English word ‘lic’, meaning body. Traditionally, corpses were sheltered under the porch-like roofs of lychgates before the clergyman’s arrival for burial services.

The example at Burnsall is one of only three lychgates in the country to be opened by weights and a pulley. It is not known when it was constructed, though church records show it was repaired in 1745.

TQM liked the Burnsall gate so much, he drew a picture of it: “Previously to the commencement of the service at Burnsal (sic) church, I sketched the ‘lich-gate’, which differs considerably from the beautiful one of Beckenham, in Kent; a drawing whereof is in my friend Mr Hone’s Table Book.

“The manner wherein the gate turns on its pivot is rather curious, and will be best exemplified by the drawing above.”

The unusual lychgate is deemed worthy of mention in a number of 19th century books and while TQM may have shied away from describing the operation of the gate, The Church Builder, published in 1862, had a crack at it.

“At Burnsall there is a curious arrangement for opening and closing the gate. The stone pier on the north side has a well-hole, in which the weight that closes the gate works up and down.

“An upright swivel post, or ‘heart-tree’ (as the people there call it), stands in the centre, and through this pass the three rails of the gate; an iron bent lever is fixed to the top of this post, which is connected by a chain and guide-pulley to the weight, so that when anyone passes through, both ends of the gate open in opposite directions.”

Bailey John Harker, in his Rambles in Upper Wharfedale of 1869, offered further information about the gateway, explaining how this “primitive” structure was moved piece-by-piece to improve the view of the church.

“The general fabric [of the church] was substantially renewed in 1857-8,” he said. “One of the most striking improvements in connection with the restoration of the church is the removal of a house and shop, which stood at the upper end of the churchyard, and adding the site to the burial ground.

“Another improvement is the taking down of the Old Lich Gate and lowering the ground, so as to bring the church into more prominent view.

“This was done at the expense of William Chadwick, Esq, who, in addition to about £150 worth of property sacrificed by him, was also at the cost of re-building the churchyard wall. At the same time, he gave a large plot of land for a playground, in front of the Grammar School.

“When the Old Lich Gate was removed to its present position, the architect was careful to retain its former style in every particular. All the stones had previously been marked, so that every part of it is in the exact relative position that it was before the restoration. It is of most primitive construction.”

Harker also attempted to describe the operation of the gate: “The piers supporting the roof consist of random masonry, with massive quorns of millstone grit from the adjoining fell. The one on the north side has a hollow space, or well-hole, in the middle, in which a stone weight works up and down as the gate opens or closes. The three rails of the gate are passed through the upright swivel-post or head-tree, as it is locally called, and are connected at the ends by styles or ‘gate-heads,’ which shut against a projecting cheek in the sides of the piers.

“An iron bent lever is fixed into the top of the central post, which is connected by means of a chain and guide-pulley with the stone weight in the well-hole of the pier, so that when anyone passes through, both ends of the gate open, but in opposite directions, the weight causing it to close again.

“The roof is covered by thick and massive flagstones of the neighbourhood and has plain angular ridge-stones.

“The woodwork of the roof is of old oak, and consists of a rectangular framework or bedplate, into which, at each end, are tenoned the king-posts, supporting the principals and ridge-tree, which latter is strengthened by wind-braces from the foot of the king-posts.”

To this day, the lychgate still stands at St Wilfrid’s Church, and the pulley system remains intact. It should be stressed, however, that the interior is much cleaner than it was back in 1827.