Patronal Festivals
Dear Friends,
In the calendar of the church, July includes the saints’ days of both St Thomas (3rd July) and St James (25th July), to whom our churches in Osbaldwick and Murton are dedicated. We will celebrate our patron saint at St Thomas’s on Sunday 5th July, and at St James’s on Sunday 26th July.
If you live in Osbaldwick, you may have never been to St James’s church in Murton. It’s small but wonderful. There is a peaceful and intimate simplicity to the space – less is more. The church was built in the 12th or early 13th century, as a chapel of ease. A ‘chapel of ease’ was a secondary church in a parish, built to provide a convenient place of worship for parishioners living too far away from the main parish church. Sunday prayers were said and sermons were preached, but baptisms, weddings and funerals would have taken place in the main parish church (St Thomas’s Osbaldwick). Over time however, many chapels of ease became churches in their own right. This seems to have been the case in Murton too.
Over the centuries St James’s church remained practically unchanged. But in 1834 disaster struck. The roof of St James’s church was heavily damaged by a storm. There was no agreement on resources to repair it, and for almost 80 years the church lay derelict. Rumours are that at some point it was used as a pigsty!
Finally, in 1912, the then vicar successfully raised money to restore the building and bring it back in use. One century later, the community of Murton came together to raise funds to modernise the church with a vestibule, a kitchenette and a toilet. The new facilities were officially opened by the Bishop of Selby on 31st July 2016 - this month marks the 10th anniversary of the Murton Centenary Appeal.
It's worth celebrating this wonderful and well-loved church at the heart of its community. Please join us for a celebratory afternoon tea on Saturday 4th July (for tickets - see page 8), and to give thanks for St James on Sunday 26th July (see page 5). Please note there will be no 10am service at Osbaldwick on this day.
