St Leonard is a church in Cleator,

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the deanery of Calder, and the

diocese of Carlisle In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. Its

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

is Crosslacon. The church is a grade 2 listed building.

History

St Leonard's Church is first mentioned in the reign of King Henry I (1100 – 1135). The present chancel dates from that time but there is possibly even earlier evidence of a building phase (432) in the base of some walls. Below the ancient walls are the remains of earlier walls possibly pre Norman. It may be that these are the remains of the first church built in this Parish, erected by those who first evangelised these parts in Celtic days, possibly in the time of

St Ninian Ninian is a Christian saint, first mentioned in the 8th century as being an early missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland. For this reason, he is known as the Apostle to the Southern Picts, and there are numerous dedicatio ...

(died 432), or St. Aidan (around 651). Richard of Cleator's brother, Nicholas, is recorded as ‘Nicholao persona’, and this has been interpreted as the first reference to the church at Cleator, ‘persona’ seemingly meaning ‘parson’. The rectory of the church at Cleator was held by

Calder Abbey Calder Abbey in Cumbria was a Savigniac monastery founded in 1134 by Ranulph de Gernon, 2nd Earl of Chester, and moved to this site following a refoundation in 1142. It became Cistercian in 1148. It is near the village of Calderbridge. Hist ...

, founded 1134/5 as an offshoot of

Furness Abbey Furness Abbey, or St. Mary of Furness, is a former monastery located to the north of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The abbey dates back to 1123 and was once the second-wealthiest and most powerful Cistercian monastery in the country, behi ...

. It is uncertain when the church at Cleator came into the possession of the monks of the abbey, as the chartulary for Calder Abbey no longer exists, but it was recorded at the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

as being in their possession. Restoration took place in the 15th century and again in 1792, 1841 and 1900.

Architecture

The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was rebuilt in 1841–42 by the architect George Webster. The western baptistry, the north porch and the vestry were all added in 1903 (the date is marked in the

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

s to the porch door) by J.H. Martindale (Carlisle). The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

has

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

blocks on a chamfered plinth with

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es and blocking course; the rest is snecked

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

with stepped buttresses and castellated parapets. There are graduated slate roofs with apex crosses to the stone copings and a gabled bellcote to the west end, over the porch. There are

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

d octagonal stone chimneys to the vestry on the north side. There is a nave with the western baptistry and the north porch and lower chancel. The windows to the chancel's side walls are original, with triple lancets to the east end that possibly date to the 19th century. All the other windows are early 20th-century and copy the 16th-century windows ( traceried to the west end and the south side). There are 2 segment-headed arches opening on to the north porch; a vestry door to the east, a porch door (with inscription above) to the west, and a stone bench along the nave wall. The interior is characterised by a 4-bay nave with a hammer-beam roof. The chancel has foliate bosses to a wooden barrel vault. The 4-centred arches to the baptistry and chancel have Gothic panelling to the reveals. In the chancel there is a medieval

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...

with Gothic-style

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the United States) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity t ...

possibly from the 19th century. On the south side of the nave, there is a mural stair which leads to a polygonal pulpit carved in stone. As to the font, this is possibly from the 17th century, and it has a hexagonal bowl carried on a column mounted on an octagonal plinth. The seating in both the nave and the choir is from 1906. The stained glass windows are by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (London) and Abbott & Co. (London and Lancaster).

Churchyard

The churchyard has approximately 200 grave stones including 2 Commonwealth War Graves from the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

References

External links

* https://crosslacon.net/our-churches/st-leonards-cleator/ * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cleator, St Leonard Church of England church buildings in Cumbria Diocese of Carlisle

St Leonard Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges or Leonard of Noblet; also known as Lienard, Linhart, Lenart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard; died 559) is a Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, ...