The chapel was built by Mr and Mrs George Marton between 1835 and 1840 as a private chapel for Capernwray Hall.
George Marton was
Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and in addition to Capernwray Hall, owned
Borwick Hall,
Borwick railway station, and a number of farms.[2] It was designed by the
Lancaster architect
Edmund Sharpe and at that stage consisted of a simple rectangle.[3] The chapel could seat 100 people, and the gallery formed the family pew.[4] In 1856
E. G. Paley, Sharpe's successor, added the tower,
chancel and west window.[3] During the Second World War, the boarders from
Ripley St Thomas School, Lancaster, were
evacuated to Capernwray Hall and used the chapel for worship. After the war, in 1946,
Major W. Ian Thomas and his wife bought the hall and the chapel for the use of
Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers. By 1962 it had become too small for the numbers using it and it was converted into a
dormitory by adding a false ceiling and
dormer windows to make an upper floor. Having been disused for a time, the
Evangelical Fellowship were given the use of the chapel by Mrs Thomas.[2]
Architecture
Capernwray Chapel is constructed in
sandstonerubble with
slate roofs. Its plan consists of a four-
baynave, a two-bay chancel at a lower level and a southwest tower over the porch. The windows on the north and south walls are all
lancets, at the east end is a three-light lancet window and at the west end is a five-light window. There is a doorway in the north chancel wall. The tower has five stages with clasping
buttresses. In the lowest stage is a west doorway above which is a lancet window. The bell openings consist of
louvred three-light lancets. At the top of the tower is a pyramidal roof with a
weather vane.
Gargoyles protrude from the gutters and on the gables are cross
finials.[1]
^Brandwood, Geoff; Austin, Tim; Hughes, John; Price, James (2012), The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, Swindon:
English Heritage, p. 212,
ISBN978-1-84802-049-8