Church Of Christ The Consoler, With Eleanor Cross To East

Church of Christ the Consoler with Eleanor Cross to East

This church and cross were built between 1871 and 1876 by William Burges for Lady Mary Vyner, with the cross added in the early 20th century. The church stands near Newby Hall on the west side of Main Street at Skelton.

The church is constructed of grey Catraig stone with facings and mouldings of Morcar stone from nearby Markenfield Hall, and white limestone from Lord Ripon's quarries near Studley Royal for the interior. The roof is of grey slate. The Eleanor cross is of grey limestone.

The building is designed in an early English style of around 1270 with French detailing. The plan consists of a nave of four bays with north and south aisles, a south porch, a square three-bay chancel with priest's door left of centre, and a partly enclosed massive tower with spire on the north side.

The south porch features a richly moulded outer doorway with foliate order below a continuous hoodmould, and carving of the Good Shepherd in a stepped niche in the gable. Stone copings have a ridge cross. Inside the porch are two female stone heads—the left crowned, representing the Christian Church, and the right blindfolded, representing the synagogue. The inner board door has elaborate wrought scrolled ironwork and hinges.

The aisles have paired trefoil-headed lancets, while the nave has triple lancet clerestory windows with quatrefoil tracery, all with banded attached columns. The chancel has paired trefoil-headed lancets under cusped quatrefoils and elaborate pointed arches. Stepped buttresses flank the aisles and chancel, with pilaster buttresses to the clerestory. The tower on the north side has four stages with angle buttresses and corner pinnacles to a banded spire featuring lucarne windows; the fourth stage has paired belfry windows with a corbel table above.

The chancel east end contains a wide pointed five-light window with a central rose and a figure of Christ the Consoler in a mandola to the gable. The window is flanked by two massive buttresses surmounted by helmeted animals. Buttresses on the north and south sides of the chancel display the armorial bearings of families connected with the Vyners. The west end features a huge rose window with four sculptures on the outer circle representing the Four Ages of Man, and a blind trefoiled arcade below. Stone copings crown the gables.

The interior uses coloured marbles extravagantly throughout. The nave has four-bay arcades of moulded pointed arches on quatrefoil columns with attached black marble shafts, the inner ones rising to roof level and terminating in sculptured corbels representing six stages of human ageing from infancy to old age. These corbels carry the tie beam of a king-post roof type, with a barrel vault above. The aisle walls have a trefoiled arcade along their entire length, also with black marble shafts.

Above the chancel arch is a dramatic sculpture by Nichol of the Ascension. The arch has clustered columns and a deeply moulded soffit carved with angels on Jacob's Ladder. The chancel has a ribbed limestone vault carried by shafts of red, green and black marble with carved bosses. The low screen is of white marble with panels of porphyry, mosaic and alabaster, and double brass gates elaborately scrolled with flowers and leaves. The chancel inner tracery has cusped lights with cinquefoils, and the east window inner arch has angels holding censers carved in the spandrels.

The tower base houses the vestry, through which a red and white marble pulpit is reached. The organ loft and chamber sits over the vestry and overhangs the nave on large corbels sculptured with foliage and grotesque animals in relief.

Fittings include a Norman-style font of Tennessee marble at the south-west end of the nave, with short columns and an open crocketed oak cover containing painted figures of Christ and John the Baptist. The font bears an inscription to the daughter of Lord Ripon. The pulpit and organ form part of the tower structure. The altar reredos is of stone inset with alabaster and mosaic medallions carved with figures of the Madonna and Child with Magus and the prophets. Stained glass by Weekes and Saunders provides bands of decoration to the unpainted interior. The blind arcade below the west window, with family memorial plaques below, bears an inscription in Gothic letters: "There is one God and one mediator between God and Man, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself a ransom for all."

The church was built in memory of Frederick Vyner, Lady Mary Vyner's youngest son. In April 1870, Frederick was travelling in Greece when his party was captured by brigands. A ransom of £32,000 was demanded, but before it could be delivered, Greek soldiers opened fire and four members of the British party, including Frederick, were shot. Using either her contribution to the ransom money or compensation from the Greek Government, Frederick's mother commissioned this memorial church near her home at Newby Hall. Frederick's sister had married Lord Ripon of Studley Royal and also commissioned a memorial church, All Saints, also designed by Burges.

The Eleanor cross linked to the east end by moulded stone curbs is inscribed to the memory of Eleanor Vyner (died 1913) and Robert Vyner (died 1915). It has five stages with figures in recesses to the second stage and a short spire.