Roman Candlemas

IT’S 8.30am on a cold, cold Candlemas, some of the male congregation of the wondrous church at Ulshaw Bridge reluctant to part from their countryman’s caps, much more their copious top coats.

Harry Scrope, whose family history enfolds the area, may be accustomed to the chill. In 2001, as a 27-year-old Coldstream Guards captain on a mission to Antarctica, he helped rescue a colleague left for two hours dangling by a rope over a 200ft crevasse.

Major James Harris, tied to Capt Scrope and another man, knew he’d be saved. “Harry,” he said, “is like an ox.”

Harry, who doesn’t mention the drama on Forbidden Plateau – the internet proving less modest – is among 50 or so at Mass in the Byzantine chapel among Wensleydale’s less -trodden acres.

Among the others is Jim McCormack, baptised there when just four days old because he wasn’t expected to live and able, 93 years later, to suggest they were mistaken. “It’s just the tranquillity of this place that I love,” he says.

A single bell calls them to worship across the dawning dale, briefly becoming two-tone when a miscreant mobile marks time. Father Pat O’Neill emerges from the sacristy that has a fireplace but no fire, his greeting warm nonetheless. “We’ve been very blessed with our priests,” someone says, “but none better than Fr O’Neill.”

ULSHAW Bridge is south of Leyburn, Danby Hall – a mile up the road – the home of the Scrope family since 1548.

They’ve been around since Norman times, said in the three centuries between Edward II and Charles I to have provided one archbishop, two bishops, a Lord High Chancellor, two Chief Justices, four Treasurers, five Knights of the Garter, two earls, 20 barons and sundry others, peers and peerless.

When Simon Thomas Scrope died in 1872, the preacher at his funeral spoke of the unswerving uprightness of character, true nobility of soul and loftiness of principle which seemed to belong as a heritage to the illustrious house of Scrope.

He may have forgotten about an earlier Simon Scrope, born in 1666, known simply as The Cockfighter and said to have gambled away £60,000 of the family fortune while not even winning his spurs. When he died, it’s said, his sons were allowed to take his portrait into the garden – the portrait of him with a cock under his arm – to use as target practice.

A fascinating new book on church and family is euphemistic. “Simon had very unfortunate sporting and convivial tastes,” it says. “Cock fighting was probably not a wise sport for him to engage in.”

The sport was nonetheless encouraged by many clergy, it’s said. Some allowed their churchyards for the purpose, some even their churches. Ulshaw Bridge had a cockpit, on the site where the church now stands.

Scrope family fortunes were further diminished by the punitive legislation still in force against Roman Catholics.

In 1715, it’s recorded, soldiers searching for priests forced their way into Danby and tried to enter the bedchamber of Mrs Scrope, who had recently given birth. Family tradition has it that the cook, armed with a spit, took guard by the bedroom door and swore to stab the first man who tried to pass her. The Scropes, from the days of Henry VIII, have been ever faithful to Rome.

LEGISLATION passed in 1559 made life harsh for Catholics, recusants as they were known.

Failure to attend Anglican services was itself treasonable, with a fine of up to £20 a month. Catholics couldn’t hold high office, travel more than five miles or own a horse worth more than £5.

The Scropes remained defiant, at risk of their own lives. A chapel was created at Danby Hall, priests in residence since the early 18th Century, often in the guise of grooms or gardeners.

About six are buried beneath what is now the drawing room floor.

“Danby Hall,” wrote Sally Doyle in her book, “became the heart of a small and secret community of Catholics in Wensleydale.”

When restrictions were eased, the first chapel at Ulshaw Bridge was built in 1787. In 1865, Joseph Hansom – perhaps better remembered for his cabs – was commissioned to enlarge and rebuild the church, dedicated to St Simon and St Jude.

Church and priests were wholly supported by the Scropes until the church was given to the diocesan of Middlesbrough, within which jurisdiction still it sits, in 1948.

Internally it remains little changed, though carpeted and redecorated in recent years. Perhaps particularly they’re proud of the mosaic Stations of the Cross, the first and last decorated with the Scrope coat of arms. The motto is “Devant si je pius” – Forward if I can.

THE service is low Mass, no hymns and a three-minute homily on the reading about casting out unclean spirits. Fr O’Neill records that the spirits asked to be sent out, urging his folk to face their problems. “We may not say we are unclean, but that’s what it means. When there is recognition, then healing begins.”

Until 1978, Ulshaw Bridge had its own priest. Since 2002, Fr O’Neill – the most amiable of men – has served both Leyburn and Bedale as well.

Sally Doyle died last June, after several months of illness, her book the culmination of several years’ research.

Tony, her husband, talks after the service of how, in 1995, they moved to nearby Middleham and discovered the “little treasure” of a church. “Sally recognised not just the history of the place but the role which it had played at the heart of the community. She knew she was dying. She just wanted time to finish the book.”

Back at Danby Hall, the vast and stone-flagged reception piled with welly boots, warm clothes and other evidence of a winter weekend house party, even the out-of-sight breakfast appears convivial.

Simon Egerton Scrope, 74 and head of the family for 44 years, has been unable to attend Mass because of a recent back operation but shows us the private chapel, points out the priest holes – one accessed via the chimney – and argues that the recusancy laws were as unworkable as the anti-hunting legislation is today.

“We’re still being clobbered,” he says. “It’s extremely difficult with the burden of taxation when you have land and you’re farming, but we’re very determined to keep it going.

“We’ve been persecuted, but we kept our heads down and got on with it. I expect that’s what we’ll do again.”

■ The Catholic Missions of Danby Hall and St Simon and St Jude by Sally Doyle (£7.50, available from Castle Hill Bookshop, Richmond, Central Stores, Middleham or Tony Doyle, 01969-623520 or tonybcd1@gmail.com)