Roman Catholic Church of St Michael the Archangel, boundary walls, gate piers and gates

Summary

A Catholic chapel, likely incorporating the remains of the late-C17 Mass House, rebuilt in 1798-1806, with C19 alterations and extensions, and internal remodelling during the C20 and C21.

Reasons for Designation

The Roman Catholic Church of St Michael the Archangel is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the strong architectural design of the exterior which features impressive stonework detailing and good quality additions including a C19 bellcote;
* for the high quality of the interior, which features embellished roof trusses and skilfully crafted stained glass.

Historic interest:

* as a particularly early example of a post-Reformation Catholic chapel, built on the site of a C17 mass house in 1798, shortly after the Second Catholic Relief Act permitted Catholic places of worship to be built in England for the first time since the Reformation.

Group value:

* it forms a cohesive contemporary grouping with the adjoining rectory, which is listed Grade II in its own right.

History

England’s many medieval churches had been built for a Roman Catholic mode of worship (the Latin rite). Elizabeth I’s 1559 Act of Uniformity rendered them all part of the Church of England and outlawed the Catholic Mass. The following two centuries imposed upon a diminishing minority of Catholic worshippers in England severe civil inequalities, public suspicion, and periods of outright persecution. Aside from a small number of private chapels and foreign embassies, there were very few buildings dedicated to Catholic worship.

A large Catholic community existed at Hathersage throughout penal times and records of secret Catholic masses at the nearby farm settlement of Nether Hirst date from the sixteenth century. The Furniss family were recusants who owned land in Hathersage, and towards the end of the C17 they provided land for a Mass House. It is thought to have been erected in 1692 but was sacked by a protestant mob soon after and remained empty and roofless for the next hundred years.

Following the Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791, which permitted Catholic places of worship to be built in England and Wales for the first time since the Reformation, the mission priest William Southworth registered the ruined chapel as a place of Catholic worship. The work of restoring the building began in 1798 and was completed in 1806. A new rectory, adjoining the east side of the chapel, was constructed at the same time in a complemetary design. Plans and elevation drawings of the church and rectory, dated 1797, show that both buildings were executed largely as planned. The design of the chapel was typical of those built soon after the Relief Act, which were forbidden from featuring bells or steeples and were typically small, classically or domestically detailed, and were often hidden or set back from public view.

In 1825, the mission priest, George Jinks, built a coach house in the grounds north of the chapel, as well as a Sunday school and a small community library beyond the church grounds. He may also have been responsible for the addition of the western gallery to the interior of the church. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most of the remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence. The sanctuary was extended in 1832 and the liturgical east window and the addition of tracery to some of the other windows are thought to date to the 1860s. A new roof and west bellcote were provided by the fifteenth Duke of Norfolk in 1880, probably designed by M E Hadfield who designed the school chapel at Bamford for the Duke at about the same time. Renovations to the church and rectory took place in 1908-1909, when a pitched roof was placed over the sacristy link, requiring the blocking of the window and formation of a new one. The sanctuary was reordered by John Rochford and Partner following reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), during which time the altar was brought forward. It was reordered again in 2013.

Details

A Catholic chapel, likely incorporating the remains of the late-C17 Mass House, rebuilt in 1798-1806, with C19 alterations and extensions, and internal remodelling during the C20 and C21.

MATERIALS: the chapel is constructed of coursed gritstone with ashlar dressings and a stone slate roof.

PLAN: the chapel has a rectangular footprint orientated on a roughly north-south axis, with the chancel to the north end (liturgical east) and nave to the south. A small sacristy on the east side of the chapel links it with the adjoining presbytery (Grade II).

EXTERIOR: the chapel is of four bays beneath a pitched roof. It is composed of a three-bay nave, and a chancel bay. The principal elevation faces south and features a late-C19 bellcote surmounting a coped gable with moulded kneelers. Below is a large circular window within a heavily moulded and deeply recessed frame, with curved hoodmoulds with stops. Beneath this is a reed moulded doorcase featuring a deep cornice supported on scroll brackets and a shallow dripmould above C20 plank doors.

The exterior of the nave has a moulded plinth, deeply rusticated projecting quoins, and a projecting eaves band. The windows to both sides of the nave feature windows with depressed semi-circular heads and heavily moulded and deeply recessed surrounds, with plain impost blocks and keystones, beneath curved hoodmoulds with stops. The southernmost windows on each side feature multiple panes of glass divided by timber glazing bars. The northernmost nave window on the west elevation has carved stone Y-tracery with trefoil heads, while the adjacent window on the east side has been internalised within the early-C20 sacristy.

The chancel is recessed slightly in from the nave on both sides. The north elevation features a three-light window with curvilinear tracery set within a gothic arched opening, beneath an arched dripmould with stops. On either side of the chancel is a window set within a flat, round-arched surround, with plain imposts and keystones, together with small lancets.

The sacristy, adjoining the east side of the church and west side of the presbytery, is of a single bay under a pitched roof. It features single two-over-two sash windows with horns to both north and south elevations.

INTERIOR: the church is entered from the south through an interior porch beneath an inserted timber gallery, both of panelled timber. The church has a plain plastered interior featuring low-level timber panelling, and queen post trusses with curved spandrels. The chancel is set beyond a pointed chancel arch and features a modern stone altar, timber reredos, pulpit and lectern, all with stylised carved columns. The pews are modern replacements. The circular window to the south gable contains mid-C20 stained glass commemorating the Padley Martyrs, Nicholas Garlic and Robert Ludlam. The windows to the chancel and those to the centre of the nave feature C19 and early-C20 stained glass dedicated to various parishioners. The late-C19 west window of the nave is by Joseph Clarke of Dublin.

The sacristy is accessed through a modern timber door at the north end of the nave. It features an internalised eight-pane nave window, with the same heavily moulded surrounds as those to the exterior. On the opposite wall is a long multipaned window to the presbytery. The window to the south side of the sacristy is set within a deep, panelled architrave with shutters and a convex sill.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
BOUNDARY WALLS, GATE PIERS AND GATES: the boundary walls to the front of the chapel grounds are of coursed gritstone with half-round coping. Ashlar gate piers are topped with pyramidal capstones. The serpentine east section of wall projects towards Main Road. The wrought iron front gates feature bowed tops and decorative scroll detailing. The boundary walls to the west of the chapel are of the same construction, with irregularly coursed stone to the lower sections. The stepped south return links to the west side of the chapel with a pair of barred iron gates.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

81192

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Martin, C, A Glimpse of Heaven: Catholic Churches in England and Wales, (2006)
Proctor, R, Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975, (2014)
Hartwell, Clare, Pevsner, Nikolaus, Williamson, Elizabeth, The Buildings of England: Derbyshire, (2016), pp 443-444
Little, B, Catholic Churches since 1623, (1966), pp 25-26

Other
Busch, Canon B, 'A Short History of the Chapel of St Michael the Archangel and the R. C. Parish of Hathersage', c. 1936 (reprint, n.d.)
Smith, B., A History of the Catholic Chapel at Hathersage, 1987

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.