St Andrew's Church, Aysgarth

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Rhiannon Parker-Nicholls

St Andrew’s Church lies West of the main village and just South of Aysgarth Falls. The medieval Church is believed to possess the largest churchyard in England, covering over four acres.1 The Church is known for its beautiful medieval chancel screen, brought from Jervaulx Abbey when the abbey was suppressed by Henry VIII. The screen is reported to have been carried on the shoulders of twenty men from Jervaulx Abbey to Aysgarth Church, which would account for the lack of damage to the screen2. There has been a place of worship in this location since at least the 10th Century, revealed by the finding of a 10th Century cross-head embedded in a nearby stone wall in 1968. Unfortunately, the cross-head was lost in 1996 and has never been rediscovered.

In the West wall is a memorial window to Morris Robinson, 3rd Baron Rokeby and elder brother of Matthew Montagu, of ‘Littleburn’ near Thoralby, who died on the 19th of April, 1829, aged seventy-one. His memorial window was erected by Elizabeth Dunn, the daughter of Morris’s friend and companion, Lawson Dunn, a portrait painter, who died on the 9th of May 1829, just three weeks after Morris. According to Morris’s Will, he left substantial legacies to the Dunns, including Hill House at Thoralby. Morris is buried at the Church.

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