Remains Of Chapel At Manor House Farm

The remains of a chapel, dating to the 12th century with alterations in the 13th, 14th/15th, and 19th centuries, stand on the north side of Thorpe Lane in Thorpe in Balne. The structure is built of magnesian limestone rubble and has a 19th-century pantile roof. The surviving section comprises a two-bay chancel, with remnants of the north, east, and south walls. On the north side, a chamfered plinth and large quoins are visible. A rebuilt north-east corner is marked by a refaced buttress. A 12th-century doorway features a lintel with an arched soffit and a plain tympanum beneath a semicircular hoodmould. To the left is a broad, pointed 13th-century window, partially bricked up and lacking tracery. A chamfered eaves band runs along the top, supporting a hipped roof in poor condition. The east end displays a blind Perpendicular window flanked by the outer jambs and parts of the heads of 12th-century windows, with the arch of the central window cut by the eaves band. The south side has a complete 12th-century window and an offset in the wall above. On the west side, a semi-octagonal north respond of the infilled chancel arch remains, with a chamfered plinth and a mutilated moulded capital. Inside, a string course runs around the east end, with a 13th-century trefoil-headed piscina with a projecting sill on the south wall and a rebated aumbry recess on the east wall. A three-light east window retains a fragment of panel tracery. The inner arches of the 12th-century east windows, and the complete 12th-century window on the south wall and the pointed north window, feature damaged roll-moulded arrises. A 19th-century roof with pattern-book trusses is present. The site of the nave’s south wall is visible within a cattle shed to the west; this shed incorporates some ashlar piers, likely reused material. The chapel's origins likely date back to the mid-12th century when Thorpe in Balne was gifted to Otto de Tilli by William Vavasor, and subsequently confirmed by Henry de Laci. In 1452, the chapel was the location of the forced abduction of Joan, wife of Charles Nowel, by Edward Lancaster of Skipton in Craven, leading to an Act of Parliament. The loss of the south chapel is unrecorded, although it was described by John Hunter around 1830.