Today I would have said if asked the the church just off Wetherby Rd, Leeds was in Oakwood, but back in 1826 when St Johns church was completed it was firmly in the village of Roundhay.
Saint Johns church is an elegant structure built of stone in the lancet style of architecture with tower and spire. The church was built by the gift of the late S Nicholson who also had built some rather nice almshouses on Wetherby Road adjacent to the church.
Roundhay back in 1871 had a population of 583 and the church of St John was in the care of the Rev T Davis the living being a perpetual curacy in the gift of the representatives of the late Mrs N Nicholson.
All that is now long in the past and the church was closed by the Church of England in 2008 and later sold to a small evangelical church for a very nominal £1. That church appear to have abandoned St Johns and it looks to be in the care of the elements. Today or rather when I strolled around the churchyard last week the roof of the church has more than one hole in it and anyone who knows anything about buildings knows that the integrity of a roof is everything.
If anything the original churchyard is in perhaps an even poor state as the church structure. This makes me despair because churchyards like a cemetery are not just a place where the long dead and buried reside but interesting original sources of local social history.
All is not lost however, I used to despair of the church of St Mark in Woodhouse and in the last year or so that building has been repaired and restored by stonemasons amongst others.
The former church of St John the Evangelist at Roundhay can be found on Wetherby Road in Oakwood and the postcode is LS8 2LE. If you are traveling from Oakwood clock along Wetherby Rd the church is a little distance past the Victorian entrance to Roundhay Park on the left hand side of the road just before the almshouses that are now Church Cottages.
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I do hope someday both churchyard and church get a proper restoration (the restoration of St Mark in Woodhouse is promising!) - I too find churchyards fascinating...and you're right, they are irreplaceable stores of social history.
ReplyDeleteMy parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle are buried in this churchyard. It is a sad state of affairs indeed. Hard to believe that the church that took the property over are so disrespectful of the sacred ground where people are still being buried and loved ones visit.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I went to see my father's grave and was shocked at the terrible state of both the church and the graveyards. I shouldn't be surprised if my mother decides not to be buried there... and awful dilemma!
DeleteMy mother did a NADFAS church recording of the church many years ago and still has a copy of the finished product along with some wonderful colour photographs of the beautiful windows. We are wondering if they would be any use to someone. Do you know of someone that keeps records of disused churches?
Maybe we can have hope that given the probable future King or Queen's ancestors are buried here something will be done.