Estate Chapel

 Estate Chapel

The building of St. Bartholomew’s Chapel in Bretton Park was commissioned by Sir William Wentworth in 1744.  In spite of its peculiar shape (exaggerated entasis on the corner pilasters, and an unusual pepper‑pot-shaped belfry over the west end),  one of its best features is considered to be the well-proportioned Palladian window over the altar, and overlooking the graveyard.

In the burial ground, at the east end of the chapel, within an enclosed space surrounded by Regency ironwork,  all the owners of Bretton Hall have been buried since Sir William Wentworth’s day,  up to and including Wentworth Canning Blackett Beaumont, 1st Viscount Allendale, who died in 1923.

Earlier Wentworth owners of the Bretton estates were buried in the graveyard of All Saints’ Church, Silkstone.  

After the 2nd Viscount Allendale’s sale of Bretton Hall to the West Riding County Council in 1948, he and subsequent members of the Beaumont family were buried elsewhere.

 

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