Bolton Priory

Bolton Priory, whose full title is The Priory Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Bolton Abbey, is a Grade I listed parish church of the Church of England in the village of Bolton Abbey, within the Yorkshire Dales National Park in North Yorkshire, England. There has been continuous worship on the site since 1154, when a group of Augustinian canons moved from their original community in nearby village of Embsay and started construction of the present building, which is now situated within a scheduled monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Despite the loss of most of the Priory buildings during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the western half of the original nave was preserved so that the local parish could continue its worship there. There is today a full liturgical calendar, together with the Bolton Priory Concert Series and the annual St Cuthbert lecture. The Priory is a member of the Greater Churches Network, and welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year.

History

Foundation

The church has its historical origins in an Augustinian priory founded at Embsay, five miles to the west of the village of Bolton, in 1120. The community moved to Bolton in 1154 and started the construction of the present building. The east end of the church was an oblong building, parts of which are still seen in the walls of the original chancel, that may have been built over a former Saxon chapel. Round this structure a short chancel, tower and transepts were built, and a conventional cloister was added to the south west of the south transept.
The full nave was completed in the middle of the 13th century. The north wall of the existing cloister was used as the basis of the south wall and the church was completed by the addition of a west front which was joined to the north transept by a north aisle. The exterior of the south wall of the church has corbels that supported the cloister roof, a line of stone seats demarcated by pillars and arcades, and a holy water stoup by the south-east door.

14th century additions

The canons made significant enhancements in the 14th century. The chancel was extended to the east; the choir, which was originally housed in the crossing, moved into the west end of the chancel and the rood screen, originally at the foot of the present chancel steps, was moved into the western arch of the tower. A north aisle was constructed and the two doors at the west end of the north aisle and the aisle windows were elaborately decorated. The height of the chancel was increased and decorated windows were added to the chancel and the aisle.
The framework of the chancel windows is still visible, although much of the tracery in the chancel has been destroyed. The transepts were largely rebuilt, again with the addition of decorated glass, although only two small fragments of the originals remain. A new octagonal chapter house was built to the east, the east range was altered and extended to the south and the Prior moved his accommodation from the north of the west range to the south end of the east range.
These buildings have been virtually destroyed, and only the bases of their walls and of the pillars that supported the first floors remain. It is however possible to see the carved bases of the seats in the chapter house, a sealed window at the top of the night stair, the remains of the day stair and fragments of the outer parlour.

Incomplete tower

In 1520 Prior Moone, who was to be the last Prior, set about building the West Tower. Intended to be three times the height of the section that remains, it was erected on its own foundations with the intention that, when it had settled, the west wall would be demolished and the great east arch of the tower would become the entrance to the nave. Progress was slow – possibly because the roof of the nave was found to be defective and work had to halt while it was repaired. . Only a third of the tower had been built when work was halted by the Dissolution.
The tower was therefore left without a roof and without glass in its windows and with gaps between the tower and the west front in which the tie-stones are still visible. It did however protect the west wall which has survived as ‘a composition of remarkable beauty which takes a high place among masterpieces of thirteenth century art’. Of the tower itself he says ‘it is one of the noblest designs of its age and, had it been completed, it would have had few parallels in England’.
Over the doorway of the West Tower there is an original inscription bearing the Prior's symbol and stating that he ‘began this foundacyon in MCVXX’. It is flanked by models of hounds, which may be an allusion to the Prior's duties as Master Forester or a play on the name of the husband of the Foundress, William Meschin.
A third dog on the north side, which has an open mouth, is linked in local folklore with the rhyme 'Hey Diddle Diddle' and the little dog that laughed, although Professor Thompson merely describes it as the figure of an animal. On the south side there is an effigy of a pilgrim – probably the patron William de Forz – who may have paid for the nave and died on pilgrimage in 1241 a year after it was completed. The side pillars of the door once bore the Priory Cross and of the next generation of Patrons, the Cliffords.

Dissolution

The Priory was dissolved in 1539. Because the Priory was an Augustinian foundation, with the canons therefore supplying priests to local churches rather than being enclosed monks, it was in effect the local church for the surrounding community. Therefore, the western half of nave was spared and was sealed from the eastern half, soon to fall into ruin, by a crude stone wall.
The Priory's ‘jewels’ went to the King, the lead from the roof and the three bells went to Thomas Cromwell, the Priory's churches went to Christ Church, Oxford, the gatehouse eventually became Bolton Abbey Hall and the extensive estate was broken up – the largest part being bought by Henry Clifford, 1st Earl of Cumberland. Many of the remaining buildings in the Priory, their protective lead roof having been removed, gradually collapsed or were demolished, the stone being reused within many buildings in the surrounding area. Prior Moone and the canons were pensioned off.
For the next 200 years the church was administered by Holy Trinity Church, Skipton and was under the care of a curate. Virtually nothing is known about this period, although there is the occasional historical reference to broken and boarded windows.
The restoration of the church was started by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington who, in 1728, provided new flagstones and new doors, whitewashed the interior and repaired the windows.
In 1796 William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire and the incumbent, the Rev. William Carr, re-arranged the layout of the nave, to reflect an emphasis at that time on the Gospel and preaching, rather than on the Eucharist.
The pews, which until then had faced the altar to the east, were instead set on three sides of a square facing a three-decker pulpit on the south wall, with a wooden screen to the east blocking off the altar.

19th century restoration

In the mid nineteenth century, facing the rise of Nonconformity and the Catholic Emancipation, many within the Church of England were advocating a return to the ‘medieval’ church. In 1854 William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire commissioned a stained-glass design from Augustus Pugin, of Houses of Parliament fame, to replace the plain glass in the six windows on the south wall. Then, in 1866, two years after Bolton Abbey became its own parish with its own Rector, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire began a major restoration, supervised by George Street.
The orientation and design of the church once again faced the altar, to emphasise the centrality of the Eucharist. To preserve ancient structures on the north and south walls, the raised altar and chancel were enclosed within a low wall, following the design of the Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano in Rome, with lectern and pulpit to north and south. The gates were designed by George Pace, who also made a pyx installed in the north aisle.
The crude wall that had been erected in the western arch of the tower at the time of the Dissolution was removed and replaced a new wall emphasising the moulding of the arch. The new wall was decorated with paintings of plants and emblems of religious significance by a local artist, George Bottomley. The plaster and whitewash was removed from the walls, the chancel was tiled, the floor of the nave was renewed, the screen was moved to the back of the church, east-facing oak pews and a new font were installed and the doors were replaced. A new three-manual organ was commissioned.

20th century

Worship continued for the next hundred years, but by the latter part of the 20th century the size of the congregation in this sparsely populated rural parish had dwindled to single figures; the church was dilapidated, there was no Rector, and the Diocese considered the option of abandoning it. Its fortunes were revived by the energy and enthusiasm of Canon Maurice Slaughter, who resigned his previous appointment to become Priest-in Charge. He stimulated interest in the Priory among the wider population of North and West Yorkshire, and oversaw a major fund-raising effort during the 1980s that financed a comprehensive overhaul of the building.
The organ was fitted with a detached console, a previously overlooked stone altar was reinstated, the font was moved to the east end and the choir vestry to the west end of the North Aisle. The bell turret was replaced, the original bell was re-hung, the windows in the west tower were glazed for the first time and the tower was finally, after 450 years, roofed over. The roof is supported on corbels bearing on one side the moon symbol of Prior Moone, who started the tower, and on the other the effigy of Canon Slaughter who preserved and completed it. Canon Slaughter's ashes were recently buried under a memorial stone by the north wall.
When, in 1950, the village of Bolton Abbey was connected to the National Grid, electric lights – mainly suspended from brackets on the side walls – were fitted. These were replaced in 2016 with LED lights fitted unobtrusively behind the roof beams, at the top of the pillars of the arcade, at the base of the windows and below the corbels supporting the roof of the tower. This ambitious scheme circumvented the difficult and dangerous task of replacing bulbs that had ‘blown’, illuminated architectural features that had hitherto been invisible and enabled the lighting to be remotely controlled to meet the varying needs of the services, concerts and lectures that take place in the Priory.
21st century
The 21st century saw a number of formidable challenges. Since well before the beginning of the century the church as a whole was having to face the problem of global climate change. In 2019, after much research, Bolton Priory embraced the challenge by moving away from fossil fuel and installing under-pew electric heating from a renewable energy source. Between 2019 and 2025, the Priory made considerable strides forward in reducing its carbon footprint and became the 67th Church in England and Wales to become a Gold Eco Church for the high standards achieved. Another formidable challenge was the global pandemic COVID-19. The pandemic struck at the end of 2019 and Bolton Priory closed its doors in March 2020. The Church remained closed for much of the next two years although the Tower remained open for prayer and the lighting of votive candles. During the COVID-19 pandemic the church produced audio on-line services so that the parish could continue its worship on-line and, following the end of the pandemic, WI-FI was introduced allowing services to be streamed across the world. Worshippers have come from as far afield as South Africa, Singapore, Switzerland and South America. The gradual decline in the use of cash, particularly among young people, saw the introduction of digital collection plates and donation portals. Finally, the meteoric rise in the use of Artificial Intelligence was also evidenced at Bolton Priory by the first AI generated sermon being delivered on 12 January 2025.