As John Leland entered Bradford along St. Margaret’s Street in the 1550s, having passed close to the chapel and almshouse or hospital of St. Catherine, he observed, ‘There is a chapel on the highest place of the town as I entered’. To medieval man this chapel would have dominated the scene, perched alone above a steep, scrub covered rocky hillside its spiritual presence would have been far greater than the large Norman church nestling alongside the river.
As the nuns of Shaftesbury held the Church of the Holy Trinity at Bradford they were probably responsible for the chapel of St. Mary on the hill, but by 1540 their responsibilities had ended and passed to the Dean and Chapter of Bristol Cathedral. If Leland visited the chapel he is likely to have crossed the town bridge, probably then known as ‘Arches’ and much narrower than it is today. Along Church Street the chapel on the hilltop still dominated the view, but then the traveller passed between the old and new churches of the town.
What did Leland find when he examined the chapel? Unfortunately he left no description in his notes but John Aubrey, writing more than a century later, did. Around 1670 he wrote, ‘On the top of the North Hill, above Mr Methuen’s, is the finest hermitage I have seen in England; several rooms and a very neat chapel of good freestone.’
By hermitage we believe that Aubrey meant accommodation for pilgrims, similar to the chapel and hospice at Chapel Plaister, near Box. Both would have catered for pilgrims travelling to Glastonbury and although the chapel at Box provided separate areas for men and women to attend the same service it is unlikely that this was the case at Bradford. Either they were mixed in the small area or there were separate services. However there is a cell in the hillside below the chapel and this could have been the dwelling of a medieval hermit whose sanctity was commemorated by the chapel.
From Aubrey’s description it would appear that this was a fine building, although he may have been influenced by its elevated situation. He also wrote, ‘This high hill is rock and gravel, faces the south and south-west, therefore is the best seat for a vineyard of any place I know; better in England cannot be.’ We do not know if Aubrey knew that the Abbess of Shaftesbury had a one acre vineyard on her Bradford estate in 1086; might it have been on this hillside or was it in a nearby village?
The buildings seen by both men were built in the 15th century although it is likely that there was an earlier chapel, and probably a hostel on this site. The position certainly lends itself to an ecclesiastical building so a chapel keeping watch over the town and the abbey grange was most fitting. The church in many communities is on the highest point of land, in Bradford it is on the lowest and so perhaps a chapel closer to heaven was built.
Like the Saxon church the chapel of St. Mary fell into secular use. In the 1720s it was used as a fee paying school with ten pupils, while later that century the building was converted into a small cloth factory; one of 32 in the town. By the middle of the 19th century the chapel was in ruins and a print of 1858 and an early photograph shows the east wall, with window and a niche in the south-east corner. There is a doorway in the north-western corner and the remains of the north and south walls act as buttresses supporting the east wall.
It is fortunate that Thomas Bush Saunders (1808-94) came to live at The Priory and later, in 1869, purchased the chapel. He was a barrister and Queen’s Counsel but by this time was not practising, although he was a senior magistrate and the Chairman of Bradford Town Commissioners. He set about restoring the chapel and by 1871 it was again being used as a place of worship. The original niche is now complemented by a matching modern one in the other corner of the east wall while the restored rubble walls must be similar to the original ones. Both chapel and hostel, now a private house, have been in the care of the Saxon Church Trust since 1927.
The interior of the chapel was renovated in 1974 and more recently, in 1999, the Perpendicular east window has been adorned with new stained glass. Designed and made by Mark Angus of Bath the theme is rosa alba with white, colours associated with purity, and a splendid blue.
Monthly services are held here throughout the year and there is an early morning service on Ascension Day. For the visitor the chapel is normally open daily from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. and one can enjoy quiet contemplation or try to find carvings on the reused stones.
The surrounds have changed greatly since Leland’s and Aubrey’s times. In the late 17th and 18th centuries Newtown, Middle Rank and Tory were built on the once barren hillside. Since then the traveller from the south has been confronted by terraces of houses and gardens rising from the riverside.