History of the church building
A modest town-centre Catholic church, designed by W. A. Bourne and opened in 1866, which has retrained much of its original character.
The present church is the successor to the early 18th century family chapel of St Anne at Kilvington Hall, the seat of the Meynell family. A Mass Centre was opened in Thirsk in 1839. Bishop Cornthwaite directed that the present church should be built and the priest transferred from Kilvington. Some of the furnishings and vessels from Kilvington Hall were also transferred to the new church.
The church and presbytery are built of local red bricks with red and black brick banding and ornament. The body of the church is a single tall aisleless body, with a steep roof covered in Welsh slate with ornamental banding. The canted apse facing the street has two-light windows in each of its three sides with quatrefoils in the tracery and there are similar windows in the side walls of the nave. The west gable is bisected by a tall stepped buttress with an empty image niche at half height. The buttress is flanked at lower level by three small single windows each side and at upper level by a two-light quatrefoiled window. There is a small projecting northwest porch, now rendered.
The interior is very simple, with plain plastered walls with a modern boarded dado and a steep, boarded timber roof with alternate principals brought down onto chamfered wall-posts. Simple timber west gallery, the front pierced with quatrefoils, now glazed below to create an entrance lobby. The glass in the windows is a mixture of clear quarries, grisaille and some stained glass of which Pevsner comments that it is ‘uncommonly sharply drawn and unmuddy’. The altar and reredos appear to be of circa 1900. The 20th century wooden benches have the carved mouse motif of Mr Thompson of Kilburn.
Two of the English Martyrs were born in this Parish. Blessed John Lockwood was born in Sowerby and worked in this area disguised as a gardener. In Thornton-le-Moor he was betrayed by a servant girl, captured and taken on horseback to York where he was martyred. He was over 70 years of age. It is stated that he fell off the horse several times during the journey. It is also recorded that before going to the Seminary to train for the Priesthood his father had offered him a large sum of money to choose another way of life. John chose the Priesthood.
Blessed William Harrington our second Martyr was born in Felixkirk. His family were well to do. It is recorded that St. Edmund Campion the Jesuit Priest Martyr once stayed at the home of the Harringtons. William was so impressed by Edmund that he decided to follow in Edmund’s footsteps and become a Priest. William worked for a short time in the South of England before capture. He was martyred at Tyburn in 1594. To the left of the Tabernacle in the Church there is a portrait of Blessed William.
How to calculate the coordinates of the physical cache
Find the red noticeboard on the front corner of the church, listing the times of Holy Mass.
The physical cache is hidden at N 54° 13.ABC W 001° 20.DEF where:
A = number of letters in the third word
B = number of letters in the seventh word plus number of letters in the eighth word
C = number of letters in the seventh word
D = number of letters in the fourth word
E = first number
F = number of letters in the second word
Checksum (A+B+C+D+E+F) = 33
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