Capernwray Hall is a former

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhouse (Great Britain), town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the cit ...

situated 3 miles east-northeast of

Carnforth Carnforth is a market town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England, situated at the north-east end of Morecambe Bay. The parish of Carnforth had a population of 5,560 in the 2011 census, an increase from the 5,350 reco ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a Historic counties of England, historic county, Ceremonial County, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significa ...

, England, and is currently used as a Christian Bible school and holiday centre. The house is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. It stands in grounds included in the

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens The Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by Historic England ...

at Grade II.

Early history

The house originated in 1805 for the Marton family, and was named Keer Bank. By 1830 its name had been changed to Capernwray Hall. In 1840 the

Lancaster Lancaster may refer to: Lands and titles *The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire *Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies *Duke of Lancaster *Earl of Lancaster *House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty ...

architect

Edmund Sharpe Edmund Sharpe (31 October 1809 – 8 May 1877) was an English architect, architectural historian, railway engineer, and sanitary reformer. Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, he was educated first by his parents and then at schools locally and ...

had designed a private chapel in the grounds of the hall, now known as

Capernwray Chapel Capernwray Chapel is in the village of Capernwray, Over Kellet, Lancashire, England. Formerly the chapel to Capernwray Hall, it is now an independent Evangelical chapel. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designat ...

. In 1844 Sharpe remodelled the hall for George Marton, retaining its rectangular core. He more than doubled the size of the house by adding a west wing containing dining and drawing rooms, a top-lit staircase, a tower, and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style windows. The tower also acted as a water tower for the house. Later, in 1848, after Sharpe had been joined as a partner by E. G. Paley, a stable and a service block were added to the east of the house. In 1875–76 a southeast block including a billiard room and a clock tower was added by the successors in the practice,

Paley and Austin Sharpe, Paley and Austin are the surnames of architects who practised in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, between 1835 and 1946, working either alone or in partnership. The full names of the principals in their practice, which went under vario ...

Architecture

Exterior

Capernwray Hall is constructed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

with

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roofs. Its architectural style is

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

, and the hall is largely

embattled A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interv ...

. It is mainly in two storeys. Its plan consists of a north entrance front, east and west wings, and a central range. Behind the north range is a four-storey tower, with a higher turret containing bell openings and a clock face. It is surmounted by a pyramidal roof. The north front has nine

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

. The lateral two bays on each side project forward. In the centre is a porch with corner turrets and an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found projecting from an upper ...

in the upper storey. The west front contains two two-storey

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

s containing Perpendicular

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

. The south front has a single-storey canted bay window. To the east of the hall is the stable block. On the east side is a gatehouse with battlemented towers.

Interior

The staircase hall has an open timber roof, and contains a

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed staircase and a first floor gallery. The dining and drawing rooms have moulded timber ceilings and contain

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorpho ...

fireplaces. The rooms are divided by an 18th-century wooden screen with Corinthian

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s. columns and an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

. It is said that the screen was moved from St Mary's Church, Lancaster.

Grounds

The grounds consist of about 70 hectares of land sloping down to the

River Keer The River Keer is a river in England. It flows through the English counties of Lancashire and Cumbria. For parts of its course, the Keer marks the boundary between Lancashire and Cumbria, as well as the ancient counties of Lancashire and Westm ...

. There are three driveway entrances, each of which has a lodge. To the southwest of the hall is a

rose garden A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Most often it is a section of a larger garden. Designs vary tremendously and roses m ...

, set out by

Thomas Mawson Thomas Hayton Mawson (5 May 1861 – 14 November 1933), known as T. H. Mawson, was a British garden designer, landscape architecture, landscape architect, and town planner. Personal life Mawson was born in Nether Wyresdale, Lancashire, and ...

in 1901. To the northeast of the hall is a

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

. The remainder of the grounds are used mainly as pasture.

Later history

During the Second World War the pupils from Ripley St Thomas School in Lancaster were evacuated to the hall, and the grounds were used by the army for storing petrol. On 11 September 1946, the whole of the Capernwray estate went under auction in Lancaster Town Hall, Capernwray Hall being described as "...one medium-sized family residence". On instructions from her husband,

Major W. Ian Thomas W. Ian Thomas (13 September 1914 - 1 August 2007) was an evangelist, Christian evangelical writer, theological teacher and founder of the Torchbearers Bible schools. Early life Ian Thomas was born in London on 13 September 1914. At th ...

(who was away in Germany with the British Army), Mrs Joan Thomas attended the auction and finally won the bidding process. Capernwray Hall thus became the property of the Thomas family (subsequently through their shareholding in Capernwray Hall Ltd). Since 1947 the hall has seen continuous use as a Christian centre, originally under the direction of Major Thomas and later by the next generation of the Thomas family, running a Bible school (for approx 190 students) and residential-stay holidays. On 31 March 1999 the majority of the assets and business of Capernwray Hall Ltd were transferred by way of a gift from the Thomas' family into the newly registered charitable company, The Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers. In 2019 the Platinum Jubilee Project started to renovate several main areas of the Hall in line with regulations from Historic England.

References

Citations Sources * * *

External links

Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers' website
{{City of Lancaster buildings Grade II* listed buildings in Lancashire Grade II* listed houses Buildings and structures in the City of Lancaster Country houses in Lancashire Edmund Sharpe buildings E. G. Paley buildings Religion in Lancashire Grade II listed parks and gardens in Lancashire Gothic Revival architecture in Lancashire 1805 establishments in England