History Of Aysgarth Church

St Andrews Parish Church 1850

AYSGARTH is a parish, township, village and the head of a union, pleasantly situated on the south side of the river Ure, or Yore, in Wensleydale, with a station 1 mile north-east on the Northallerton and Hawes branch of the North Eastern railway, 8 and a half miles west-south-west from Leyburn, 9 miles east from Hawes and 4 miles south-east from Askrigg; it is in the Richmond division of the Riding, wapentake and petty sessional division of Hang West, county court district of Leyburn, rural deanery of West Catterick. Archdeaconry of Richmond and diocese of Ripon.

The church was dedicated to St Andrew, and was the "mother" church to all the district of Upper Wensleydale, including Lunds.

The first structure was built in the early 13th century.

The church of St. Andrew is an ancient building of stone in the Early English and Inter styles, consisting of chancel with aisles, nave, aisles, south porch and embattled western tower with pinnacles containing a clock, presented by J C. Winn esq. in 1904. 6 bells were cast in 1829.
The upper stage and pinnacles were added to the tower at the restoration of the church in 1864.

Aysgarth Church around 1905
The elaborately carved and decorated rood screen now affixed to the south wall of the chancel, was brought from Jervaulx Abbey, and the finely carved ends of the reading desk are also the work of the monks of that house.

The Reredos of Caen stone, adorned with a representation of The Last Supper," after Leonardo da Vinci, was given in the year 1887 by the daughters of the late H. T. Robinson of Edgley, and The Cliff, Leyburn.

There is a brass eagle lectern and elegant brass coronae, and several of the windows are stained, including one to the Rev. Fenwick William Stow M.A. Vicar 1873-1905.

There is also a tablet to the Rev. Clement Thomas Hales M. A. founder in 1877 of the Aysgarth Preparatory School, near Jervaulx (d. 1900): the church was restored, and to a considerable extent rebuilt in 1866 at a cost of about £6,000, and affords 620 sittings. The register dates from the year 1707.

The living is a discharged vicarage; net yearly value £130, including 38 acres of glebe and residence in the gift of Trinity College. Cambridge, and held since I904 by the Rev. Daniel Henry Moore M.A. of that college, and surrogate.

The monks of Jervaulx Abbey became impropriators of the tithes of Aysgarth in 1423; they were never restored to the parish, but in Queen Mary's reign were made over to Trinity College, Cambridge, which thus became patron of the benefice Kellys Directory 1909

The Reverend William Kiteley Wyley
Rural Dean Of Wensleydale
Vicar of Aysgarth Church
1913 - 1932