ST AIDAN’S CHAPEL OF EASE, OSWALDKIRK GERARD SIMPSON

Thechapel of St Aidan built in the years 1961 - 1963 was appropriately named after the great friend and adviser of St Oswald, the patron of the nearby Anglican church, who brought St Aidan from Iona in the seventh century to convert his kingdom of Northumbria.

Before the church was built, Mass was said in private houses and then, as the congregation grew, in the Village Hall. It was a condition of employment for the first lay teachers at the College that they lived in Ampleforth, Gilling or Oswaldkirk and so when the church opened it had a regular congregation of around 50 which included several large Catholic families. Fr Cuthbert Rabnett (A28) and Fr Edmund Hatton (O40) appealed for funds. Parishioners saved up for 20 years to build the church which cost £11,270. Adrian Stewart (C43), and later a member of the Physics Department, remembered being one of the first Old Boys of the College to subscribe in 1953. By 1972 parishioners were inviting visitors to help them clear the remaining debt of £2,300.

The site was donated by Richard Fairbairns (O34) and the Architect was Ewan Blackledge (O37). Sarah Fram of Easingwold, Ewan’s youngest daughter, said her father had great ideas but was restrained and disappointed by the brief that the church should be built on a shoestring! However, William Hunter (O65) described it in the book, Ampleforth Country, written by Ampleforth students and published in 1966, as ‘a handsome modern building which strikes one forcibly from the road with its simple front and commanding golden cross. Although modern in style, it is dignified; simplicity is its keynote’.

The south facing windows in the church, behind the altar, were specially tinted to cut down the glare from the sun and were designed and executed by Derek Clarke (B31) of Edinburgh. The figures representing choirs of angels around the throne of God were sandblasted into the glass. The style of representing angels without heads, signifying super-human qualities, comes from Sicily and the Middle East. Unfortunately, they were fitted without expansion joints and gradually cracked. One of them survives and is specially framed and mounted inside the church. Across the rear of the church John Bunting (W44) carved four oak panels with the 14 Stations of the Cross. The pews were from the old Abbey Church. Fr Edgar Miller (O61) remembers as a junior monk the hard work of sanding them down to remove all the dark stain!

Our ‘Priests in charge’ have been Fr Cuthbert Rabnett, Fr Gregory Carroll, Fr Vincent Wace (B33) and, for the last 31 years, Fr Edgar Miller. Much of the woodwork around the altar has been made by Fr Edgar in his workshops.

One of the great joys has been to see ecumenical links between the two village churches becoming stronger: The Harvest Festival, Service of Remembrance and more recently Compline services, alternating between the two churches; sharing of St Aidan’s lunches and St Oswald’s Safari lunch and supporting each other’s fund-raising events. A big ecumenical occasion for many years was the Christmas Eve Carol Service in St Oswald’s with the Oswaldkirk Symphony Orchestra (up to 39 players squeezed into the Choir of St Oswald’s - complete with double bass, euphonium, timpani, ...) And, of course, the Stations of the Cross through the village every Good Friday.

When Fr Colin Batell was Prior, he gave Fr Edgar the role in the Monastery of hosting visitors from Eastern Europe. From this our congregation has developed strong links with families in Hungary and the Czech Republic. 10 of us accompanied Fr Edgar on a trip to Székesfehérvár in 2011, 23 Czechs and Hungarians visited to help us celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the church in 2013 and in 2017 a coach party of about 50 Czechs visited us for a week.

But now our Catholic chapels in Oswaldkirk and Gilling will have no clergy to serve them. Fr Abbot announced that St Aidan’s and Our Lady & the Holy Angels in Gilling would close on September 5, 2021. The future of the buildings in Gilling and Oswaldkirk is ‘undecided’.

Here in Oswaldkirk there was great sadness, but also celebration. Fr Edgar retired after 31 years as our ‘priest in charge’. He has devoted much time and energy over the years to Oswaldkirk and has been well loved by both Catholic and Anglican congregations. On 5 September we shared a special Mass at 11am followed by a lunch with a number of our Anglican friends. This belatedly celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Fr Edgar (5 July 2020), and also thanked Fr Edgar for his service and loyalty to us. He will be greatly missed.

Gerard Simpson taught maths in the College for many years, took part in many expeditions and ran the Sea Scouts. He still lives opposite St Aidan’s Church building, of which he has been long been a mainstay.