St Clare'S Abbey Chapel

This Roman Catholic chapel was designed in 1856–7 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom in collaboration with his brother Charles Hansom. It is built of red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and a Welsh slate roof.

Form and Layout

The chapel has a rectangular plan beneath a single pitched slate roof. It includes a projecting public chapel on the north side and a projecting vestry on the south side.

Exterior

The east end is supported by a pair of diagonal, offset buttresses. A large pointed arched window with geometric tracery sits beneath a head-stopped drip mould, with a blind trefoil window in the apex above.

The main body of the chapel comprises six bays with a moulded stone eaves cornice and stepped plinth. Windows throughout are pointed arches with geometric tracery.

On the north wall, a projecting public side chapel occupies bays 1–3, featuring a single three-light pointed arched window in its north wall and paired lancets in the east wall. Bays 4–6 alternate with stepped buttresses with pitched caps rising to the eaves cornice. A two-stage octagonal spire stands at the north-west corner, containing a louvered belfry in the lower stage with a conical roof. This stage contains a lucarne and is surmounted by a cross. A garden wall is attached to the left with a shoulder-arched entry to the grounds.

The south wall has a single-storey projecting vestry attached to the easternmost three bays of the chapel. This vestry contains a mixture of one-, two- and three-light pointed arch windows. Above the vestry, the chapel wall has three pointed arch windows, and bays 4–6 alternate with stepped buttresses as on the north wall.

At the west end, a vestibule has a pointed arched entrance with a double wooden boarded door and strap hinges. Single trefoil-headed lancets appear above and to the left, with a three-light mullion window of similar style above, lighting the organ loft.

Interior

The sanctuary contains a single large stained glass window with geometric tracery depicting the Virgin Mary and St Joseph, six saints, and biblical and religious scenes. The window was made by a Mr Maycock of Clifton, likely to Hansom's own design.

The reredos forms an elaborate cusped and crocketed stone arcade comprising alternating carved stone panels bearing biblical and religious scenes with niches containing carved stone figures on pedestals in relief. At the far right, incorporated into the reredos, is an ornately carved stone piscina. The tabernacle sits centrally on the east wall with a cross in a niche above and the ornately carved stone high altar to the front. The altar front bears three carved panels alternating with marble colonnettes, the central panel containing a depiction of the Crucifixion. The reredos panels were made by Mr Farmer of London (likely William Farmer, later Farmer & Brindley, architectural sculptors and ornamentalists) and installed in 1860, again probably to Hansom's designs.

The walls are painted cream and the roof consists of open trusses resting on stone corbels with a ceiling of decorative red and gold painted panels.

The public side chapel to the left has a stone traceried screen with a central entrance fitted with a secure metal gate. Its walls are plain and painted, and the roof is scissor-braced. A full complement of benches is retained.

The vestry to the right is entered through an arched door with a heavy stone surround. It has plain painted walls with a wooden vestment chest and a wooden turn and hatch in the west wall for passing objects including vestments and gifts through to the chaplain.

A stone choir screen or jubé separates the sanctuary from the nuns' choir in the form of a double arcade of five arches adorned with head-stopped drip moulds, inset carved stone angels supporting a platform with an ornate carved stone balustrade pierced with trefoil decoration and a centrally placed reliquary-like niche. Columns forming the outer arcade are formed of clustered shafts with Doric capitals carved with floral decoration. The inner arcade has octagonal shafts which formerly housed a dado with tracery windows and grills.

The nuns' choir has plain painted walls and a simple band with simple patée formée crosses and medallions. There are two tiers of fixed benches arranged against the north and south walls.

The pointed arched organ loft, high in the west wall, houses a Harrison and Harrison organ and has a stone balustrade pierced by seven trefoils with a carved stone angel to either side.

The main nuns' entrance to the chapel from the monastic ranges lies in the centre of the west wall, containing heavy boarded wooden doors and strap hinges. This leads into a vestibule containing a stone piscina, with double boarded doors leading to the exterior and a spiral staircase in the thickness of the wall giving access to the organ loft above.

Historical Context

The Order of Poor Clare Sisters, a Franciscan contemplative enclosed order, returned to England in 1795 to escape persecution during the French Revolution. After temporary stays, they settled at Scorton, North Yorkshire until 1850, when a site for a new monastery was sought. Twenty acres of land was purchased for £2000 from the adjacent Carmelite community in Darlington. The order remained in Darlington from 1856 until 2007, when dwindling numbers forced their move south to join a sister community in Herefordshire. The daily life of the Poor Clares is occupied with both work and prayer and is a life of penance and contemplation, according to the rule of St Francis's collaborator, St Clare of Assisi, in 1253.

The monastery was constructed for the Sisters between 1856 and 1857 to designs by Joseph Aloysius Hansom, a leading Catholic architect of the time, under supervision of the Clerk of Works, James Frith. Hansom not only designed the building but took a personal interest in the foundation from the earliest time, advising the abbess on the choice of site and monitoring the work regularly. At times he contributed financially, and his daughter Winny was a pupil at the convent. The sisters preserved a full set of records regarding the construction and subsequent use of the abbey, including original plans, photographs and financial accounts. Most important is a two-volume diary of James Frith in which all aspects of the building works are revealed from the period 7th April 1856 to 14th November 1857.

Alterations

In 1987 the chapel interior was reordered with little disruption to original features. The only features removed were the stone dado with tracery windows filled with grills from the inner arches of the choir screen which separated the sanctuary from the choir. The ceiling was repainted and an extra step was added to the sanctuary, which was also extended forwards slightly.