Heritage Church
St Hedda’s, the Cathedral of the Moors
THIS magnificent Catholic church is found in the hamlet of Egton Bridge, which lies in the eastern part of the North York Moors National Park at a key crossing place of the River Esk near Whitby. The hamlet is low-lying with the uplands of the Moors rising steeply to the south east and south west and is also on the famous Wainwright Coast to Coast route.
The church itself was built in 1866. Fr. Francis Joseph Callebert was the driving force behind it as when he arrived in Egton Bridge in 1859, he found the existing chapel in a deplorable state. With the Sunday congregation numbering around 500, there was clearly a need for a bigger church. When he first asked Bishop Cornthwaite for permission to build, he was told, “All you young fellows want to build churches, but you have no means to do it.”
Taking this as a challenge rather than an outright refusal, he set about raising funds. Within only four years he had collected several hundred pounds and finally got permission from the Bishop to proceed. The existing 18th-century chapel became part of what is now the local school and Canon Callebert went on to serve the people of Egton Bridge as their priest for 59 years.
The building of the church was a huge community effort. On 5 December, 1864, a quarry was opened at Moorhill End, about a mile south of the site of the new church. Fr
Callebert reported that on the first day seven persons of the Egton Bridge congregation gave their labour gratis. Tea was provided and they brought their own meals. These first volunteers consisted of a mason, four tailors, a joiner, and a shoemaker.
For the next 19 months similar teams of volunteers worked almost daily, either in the quarry or on the building site. On 12 December, 1864, William Bennison, a local Catholic farmer, used his own wagon to transport 30 cut stones and five tons of rubble down Scally Hill. This was the first of over 360 cartloads of stone which volunteers from the congregation brought down for the new church.
When the foundation stone was laid in 1866 a local lady made an offering of £50, and this was to be the largest single contribution to the whole project; all the rest of the cost was defrayed by a large number of small donations, and by 1885 the whole of the debt had been paid off.
St Hedda’s was opened on Tuesday 21 August, 1867, with Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Dr Cornthwaite, the Bishop of Beverley, and a sermon preached by Canon Mottler of Bradford on the Doctrine of the Mass. In his address at the end of the proceedings Fr Callebert said that although he had had many difficulties to contend with he was compelled to acknowledge with the utmost sincerity the great kindness “of all the lot of them.”
St Hedda’s stands 114 feet long, 47 feet wide and 43 feet high and is able to seat 600 parishioners – as well as the need for a church this size, the story goes that it ended up so large due to a rivalry with nearby Ugthorpe village who were also building a church, with the two communities trying to outdo each other!
The cavernous ceiling is painted with blue and gold stars and the altar dates to 1878, installed by the celebrated firm Messrs Mayer & Co of Munich. The oak pulpit is also of note. Carved by a Belgian artist, it consists of five panels, representing the four evangelists and St Hedda.
The Stations of the Cross were opened in November 1894 thanks to a donation by Mr Francis Burnett in memory of his mother Mrs Catherine Burnett, a former parishioner of Egton Bridge. Constructed of terracotta, they were made by the Ghent firm of Matthias Zens, who also supplied the Rosary reliefs which can be seen on the outside south wall of the church, and the Pieta which was erected in 1900 to mark the Holy Year.
The Lady Chapel, which had been blessed on 26 April, 1874, had its side altar modified in the 1960s to accommodate the Postgate relics, and later a pair of wrought-iron gates were fitted. It was restored as a chapel by Fr Peter Ryan in 1999 on the 125th anniversary of its original dedication.
Today the Postgate relics, for which the church is well-known, are displayed in a purpose-built showcase to the right of the sacristy door. They include Fr. Postgate’s Rosary, the Tabernacle door, a collection plate, the altar stone, fragments of vestments,
two silk pyx cases, a tiny fragment of cloth soaked in his blood, a lock of his hair, his crystal crucifix, said to contain a relic of the true cross, and a book bearing his signature on the flyleaf.
A new stained-glass window depicting Blessed Nicholas Postgate was commissioned for and generously donated to St Hedda’s by the late Dowager Marchioness of Normandy who was a member of the congregation. The stained-glass artist is Thomas Denny, who is also a talented painter in oils. His fame has spread nationally and he has created windows for Durham Cathedral, Hereford Cathedral, Sunderland Minster, Great Malvern Priory and Tewkesbury Abbey among others.
The window depicts Postgate walking on a moorland track, a vast windy space extending behind him to the sea with a glimpse of Whitby Abbey ruins. The landscape is illuminated by shafts of light and darkened by showers of rain. He is wearing the weather-beaten white canvas cape that he used to protect himself from the elements on the Moors.
It was hoped by Thomas that the window would become a place for contemplation where one might consider the walk of a holy man, and it was blessed during the Postgate Rally Mass on 3 July, 2011, by the Bishop of Middlesbrough, Terence Patrick Drainey.
Christmas is a special time at St Hedda’s. An enormous fir tree at least 20 ft high takes pride of place and is simply decorated with pretty white lights. The tree is cut down from a nearby farm (they always choose the biggest tree they have) and every year is put up by the local farmers.
In front of the tree stands almost life-size figures from the nativity. The camels are moved down the side aisle along with the wise men closer and closer to the crib as it gets nearer to Christmas, representing their journey. The atmosphere of Midnight Mass is also superb.
St Hedda’s has astounded many walkers over the years who have come across it unexpectedly, and no doubt will continue to do so, while also remaining the beating heart of this close-knit community.
REV DAVID AND ANNETTE MOSS David, Annette’s late husband, was Deacon of St Hedda’s for 10 years and is fondly remembered.
BLESSED NICHOLAS
Just beyond St Hedda’s church is the site of a small cottage where Nicholas Postgate was born around 1597. Ordained in France as a Catholic priest in 1629, he returned to England knowing that under the Penal laws of the 16th century, anyone who practised the Catholic faith was punished, and from 1563 a priest who said Mass was liable to suffer the death penalty.
His first home was with Lady Saxton until 1642, after which he moved to the home of Lady Dunbar until her death in 1659. A few years later, he returned to his native moorland and a small thatched cottage near Ugthorpe.
Father Postgate served the Catholics of a vast area between northern Cleveland and south of Whitby, and inland to Pickering. He became a well-known and much loved old man, visiting his people and ministering to their spiritual needs. For almost 20 years he avoided capture. The role of the missionary priests was not to seek converts but to confirm existing Catholic beliefs.
Father Postgate was a victim of the infamous Titus Oates Plot, which motivated John Reeves, a manservant to the late Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, to come to Whitby seeking Catholic priests and anyone harbouring them. Matthew and Mary Lyth of Redbarn Farm at Littlebeck invited Nicholas to baptise their son on 8 December, 1678. John Reeves chose the same day to search Matthew’s house and seized Father Postgate.
The trial of the priest took place at the Assizes in March
1679 when he was indicted for high treason for being a Catholic priest. On the morning of 7 August he was placed on a hurdle and dragged through the streets of York to the gallows on the Knavesmire. He then suffered the barbarous hanging, drawing (disembowelling) and quartering which the law inflicted on priests.
Ever since his death, blessed Nicholas Postgate has been honoured by the Catholic
Church, and alongside 84 other martyrs he was beatified in 1987. Beatification is one step from canonisation. An annual outdoor rally is held every summer to give thanks for his faithful ministry and the Postgate Society was also formed to spread knowledge of the Yorkshire martyr.
MONICA VENTRESS