Thanks to Martyn, a slight diversion to investigate the site of Fryup Church. I must have cycled up this lane to the Yorkshire Cycle Hub dozens of times and I never knew there was once a church in this field opposite Stonebeck Gate Farm. But the evidence is there. The wall this side of the gate is a typical dales dry stone wall with crudely shaped stones. The other side, however, has dressed stones. Over the wall, just a solitary dressed corner coping stone.
The church was demolished in 1965. From an image of an old postcard available on the internet, it was an elegant looking church, although not consecrated and had no stained glass in the windows “as the views from inside the church were very fine”. When it was built by Viscountess Downe in 1871, it came under the ministry of Danby where Rev. Canon Atkinson was the vicar. I now realise there are several references to the church in his classic work ‘Forty Years in a Moorland Parish‘. In the 1930s Lady Downe would drive from Danby Lodge up little Fryup for Evensong at the church, returning by Great Fryup where she visited tenants.
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