St. Anthony's Chapel is another small building also in ruins. It is interesting owing to its historic surroundings, being in the near vicinity of Holyrood Palace. It comprises a hermitage, sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, and a Gothic chapel forty-three feet long, eighteen feet broad, and eighteen feet high.
One of the most remarkable of these little churches is that at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, which is a very queer little chapel elegantly hewn out of the solid rock, the roof being beautifully ribbed and groined in the Gothic style. At the back of the altar is a large niche, where an image used to stand, and on one side of it is a place for the "holy-water" basin. There are also figures of three heads—designed, it is believed, for an emblematical allusion to the order of the monks at the once neighbouring priory. Possibly they were cut by some of the monks. The order was known as Sanctæ Trinitatis. A few yards away there is another head. It has been surmised that this is a representation of St. John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is supposed to be dedicated. There is a cavity in the floor, in which some ancient relic was rested. The chapel is ten feet six inches long, nine feet wide, and seven and a half feet high. Near the entrance is the following inscription:—
"Beneath yon ivy's spreading shade,
For lonely contemplation made,
An ancient chapel stands complete,
Once the hermit's calm retreat
From worldly pomp and sordid care,
To humble penitence and prayer;
The sight is pleasing, all agree—
Do, gentle stranger, turn and see."
The chapel is known as St. Robert's Chapel. St. Robert, the hermit who used it for devotions, was born about 1160, and was the son of Sir Toke Flouris, who was mayor of the city of York. In his youth he was noted for his piety, and he entered the Cistercian Abbey of Newminster in Northumberland. He was only there eighteen weeks, however, removing to York, and then to Knaresborough, where he retired from the world to live a life of contemplation in this restful spot. He died in the September of 1218. On one side of the entrance to the chapel, under the ivy, is the figure of a Knight Templar, cut in the rock, in the act of drawing his sword to defend the place from the violence of intruders. This is a queer and remarkable building, and, though not now used as a place of worship, the reference here made to it may prove interesting.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)
INTERIOR VIEW OF PERIVALE CHURCH.
The cathedral of St. Asaph, in Flintshire, might be mentioned in this category as being the smallest cathedral in the country. It is in the shape of a simple cross in plan, consisting of a choir transept, nave, with five bays with aisles, and a central tower forty feet square and one hundred feet high. The choir was built in 1867-68 from the designs of the late Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., and is of Early English architecture.
Passing references might also be made to the diminutive church of Warlingham, in Surrey, which runs the midget church of Wotton in that county very close; and to Grosmont Church, Monmouth, erected by Eleanor of Provence, a quaint little structure with an octagonal tower. There used to be a church known as St. Mildred in the Poultry, which was removed to Lincolnshire. It formerly occupied a position in the eastern end of Cheapside, and in 1872 it was taken to pieces and re-erected at Louth. It is generally considered to be the smallest church designed by Wren.
At St. Andrew, Greensted, near Ongar, there is a very small church, and it is a curiosity, inasmuch as it is believed to be a relic of the only church of Saxon origin built of wood remaining.