Churches of the British Isles

Scruton Wesleyan Methodist Chapel is on the eastern side of Station Road, close to the Coore Arms public house. The chapel was converted from a dwelling in 1879, and could seat a hundred. The photo here was taken in 2003. By 2010, the doorway had been blocked up, with a coloured glass window in the upper section. The garage door had been replaced with wooden 'barn doors' with a small 'Pel House' plaque at the top. The building has also served as a nursery.

Thrintoft Chapel sits at the north-west corner of the village of the same name, on the northern side of a westerly lane that leads from Bramper Lane. Close to the River Swale, it was built between the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries and dedicated as the Chapel of St Mary Magdalen. In 1253 it was endowed as a chantry chapel but probably fell out of use following the Reformation. In later times it was a barn and then a ruin before being rescued as a private residence.

All Saints of Yafforth stands on open ground at the north-east corner of Moor Lane and Yafforth Road, on the eastern side of the village of that name. Yafforth appears in Domesday Book, described as a 'berewick' in the royal 'manor' of Northallerton. The church may have been built in 1208, but little survives of it, including a single-light window in the south wall of the chancel, and an octagonal font on a long octagonal stem inscribed 'et: st: ml 1663', near the porch outside.

The church remained a chapel of ease to Danby Wiske Parish Church. With typical Victorian 'enthusiasm', it was almost entirely rebuilt in 1870 by J P Pritchett in the thirteenth century style and with a Norman window on the west side of the tower. Ashlar and coursed rubble stone was used in the walls. A single bell was hung for ringing with six angular canons. The building consists of a chancel, nave, a west tower of three storeys, a vestry, organ chamber and south porch.

St Helen Ainderby Steeple is on the north-west side of the A684, immediately south of Church Lea on a mound at the eastern edge of the village. A church was first erected here in the twelfth century or earlier, and the current fourteenth century building followed the same general layout in terms of the nave. The church's high tower, which can be seen for mile around, gave the village the appellation of Ainderby with the Steeple from the fourteenth century onwards.

Five photos on this page kindly contributed by Colin Hinson, and one copyright © Bob Embleton, and reused under a cc licence.