Friday, August 15, 2008

The Mount Grace Lady Chapel at Osmotherely

The Mount Grace Lady Chapel at Osmotherely

According to wikipedia: "A Lady chapel is a traditional English term for a chapel inside a cathedral or large church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most large medieval churches had such a chapel, as Roman Catholic ones still do, and middle-sized churches often had a side-altar dedicated to Mary".

However, we like to be different in Yorkshire.



"The Mount Grace Lady Chapel in North Yorkshire is a long established place of pilgrimage. It is situated on a hillside above Mount Grace Priory and within walking distance from the picturesque village of Osmotherley in the North York Moors National Park".

"The Lady Chapel originated as an outlying chapel of the nearby Carthusian priory of Mount Grace, now belonging to the National Trust but managed and maintained by English Heritage. The Lady Chapel site is close to the route of the Cleveland Way and provides a panoramic view across the Vale of York towards the Yorkshire Dales and beyond to the Pennines
".

Prior to my release from prison in 2004, I had the pleasure of doing community work at The Lady Chapel, whilst on day release from Kirklevington Grange resettlement prison at Yarm in Cleveland. I was fascinated to read about the connection between Hull and the Lady Chapel during the rescusant pilgrimage, when bodies would be carried over the North Yorkshire Moors for secret burials.

"Built in the late fifteenth century the Lady Chapel stands close to a Holy Spring to to which steps ascended from the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace, down in the woods below. At one time the residence of a hermit named Hugh, Lady Chapel became, at the Dissolution, the pension home of the last prior, John Wilson.

Unroofed and deserted during the late sixteenth century, it had become a lively centre of recusant pilgrimage in the early years of James I, and evoked the attention of the Ecclesiastical Commission of the Archbishop of York in 1614. In the reign of Charles I Mary Ward, foundress of the IBVM, went there on pilgrimage, and in the reign of Charles II a full restoration was even considered when Lady Juliana Walmsley established the Franciscans in Osmotherley for the help and support of pilgrims. The Titus Oates Plot and the fall of the Stuarts put an end to that.

As a regular visitor to Osmotherley in the 1750s John Wesley records preaching at the Catholic Chapel in Osmotherley and visiting the ruined chapel on the hill-top. And pilgrims continued to visit the holy spring even after the Franciscan finally withdrew in 1832.

The ruin came back into Catholic hands in 1952, and excavation was made of the floor of the chapel with the possibility of finding burials there, one such possibility being that of Margeret Clitherow who had been secretly buried after her execution in York in 1586. Burials were indeed found in the chapel, but their identities remain unknown.

The chapel was restored by the Scrope and Eldon families. The arms of the families involved are shown in stained glass in the west window of the chapel, illustrated on the left. The chapel was blessed in 1961 by Cardinal Godfrey and reopened as a pilgrimage centre. Shortly afterwards the Franciscans returned to help and support pilgrimages until they withdrew in 1994
".

5 comments:

  1. Cherrypie: Because it is high up, where that lady is sat on the bench, you can look out for miles across the North Yorkshire Moors. The scenery is absolutely stunning.

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