LAST week’s mystery building was Parcevall Hall at Skyreholme , near Appletreewick, and was correctly identified by Mary Dibb, Kevin Gibson, and John Barrow. John tells us that his mother used to visit as a friend in the early 1960s, soon after its opening as a church retreat, and her main interest was the plantsman’s garden of Sir William Milner.

Parcevall Hall is the retreat house of the Anglican Diocese of Leeds and in normal times, welcomes residential guests and day visitors all the year round.

Individual private guests and groups of many kinds, secular and religious, have gone to experience peace and tranquillity since the hall opened as a retreat house in 1963, says the diocese.

The hall was built on land which once belonged to Bolton Priory and is Grade Two star listed, with its oldest part dating back to 1586.

Sir William Milner, the eighth baronet of Nun Appleton, bought the house in 1927 from a Skipton antique dealer, Frank Laycock. Sir William, a godson of Queen Mary and an architect by profession, set about restoring the hall and grounds.

He had a passion for plants and a strong aesthetic sense, which he expressed in the design of Parcevall’s gardens, the planting of rare species collected in Western China and Tibet, and in his co-founding of Harlow Carr Gardens near Harrogate.

He was a deeply religious and shy man. He never married, and when he died in 1960 he bequeathed Parcevall Hall to the Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham of which he was a significant benefactor.

Parcevall Hall Gardens are due to re-open on April 1 but for locals only as a means of taking exercise.

What about this week’s church, above? Suggestions to news@cravenherald.co.uk