St Ninian's Chapel, Whitby
We mentioned St Ninans back in our post on the 199 Steps as it was a Chapel of Ease to St Mary's Church. However, we had never heard of St Ninian before and the reason for that is there is only two Anglican churches in England to be dedicated to the saint. We've not come across the other one.
The church closed in 2019 but before then it had quite the varied history considering it was basically an overflow for St Mary's. There is some debate for whether or not this was the original Church of Ease though. In the 14th century there was one dedicated to St Ninian's in Baxtergate but it was close to the harbour walls which sparked speculation that it was actually a Medieval Bridge Chapel and not the Chapel of Ease for St Mary's on the cliff. Our subject church was of the 18th century and was built on the opposite side to the 14th century building, but it wasn't dedicated as the locals built and owned it, not the Church of England. So it is a Proprietors Church but it was opened as an Episcopal Chapel and simply went by Baxtergate Chapel until 1863 when it received its dedication. Obviously the fact it was built by the locals caused a bit of a stir, but from their point of view it made sense. Not everyone could scale the steps/path up the cliff, so something was needed for those who couldn't on ground level and clearly the church would not meet the request. Baxtergate Chapel then came under fire as the alter didn't face the east so it was listed as not being orientated either which caused a bigger stir and so the people had to pay for a minister and the like to have it run. But this was easy enough to do as they went through the Archbishop of York who was relieved about not having to build another church and so granted the church a licence to be a church of ease and an Anglican minister.
This church is the only Proprietors Church in Yorkshire and in turn only one of 4 across the whole of England. The locals who paid were entitled to a free pew and then the rest were for everyone else and there were thirty who paid their fee. As a lot of the patrons of the church were fishermen or were from the shipyards, the church stayed close to the fishing community and it also accounts for the stunning woodwork within. Unfortunately, as a Proprietor church it means the descendants of the original founders are then responsible for the church and when it came down to recent repairs and issues hardly any of them could be found.
When 1994 hit things became hard for the second oldest Anglican church in Whitby. Not only did it kick up a stink about women being ordained as priests and so left the CoE in favour of the Anglican Catholic Church, but it also had to appeal to the Archbishop of York to revoke its licence due to repiars being sorely needed. The church had decayed to the point it was a danger and so those 30 owners needed to do something, but only 15 could be found and as any decisions made had to be by a 51% margin they were at a stalemate.
A conclusion was obviously come to as the church survived for another four years until the Archbishop of York revoked the licence for traditional Anglican services due to the traditionalist members raising disputes which could not be resolved. Somehow the church then survived with Catholicism until 2013 when it was decided that they'd break away and become independent. This came into play in 2019 when it closed for worship and it is now run by a support group who open it to those visiting Whitby.
We only visited the site externally when running around late at night searching for Bram Stoker references and making the most of our calm night in the sea air as we knew that if we went back to our Inn we'd be asleep in minutes. By extending our full day in Whitby we got to see a lot that we missed last time, and hopefully next time we can visit inside to see the masterpieces by the shipyard men.
We didn't feel anything spooky aside from the fact that the churches in Whitby obviously inspired Dracula for a reason, but there wasn't anything we noticed that concerned us which was good. We felt far more scared bolting through the screaming tunnel then anything on this level of town.
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