Early Days

There has been a church on the present site since 1871 but an earlier chapel had existed in Skelsmergh from before the Restoration.

The Roman Catholic chapel of St John the Baptist was built over one of the five ancient wells known to exist in Skelsmergh parish, named St John’s Well. When this building was erected is not known though the dimensions of the ruins indicated a building 36 ft long by 22 ft 6 ins wide. Sir Peter Gilpin was Chaplain at Skelsmergh before the Restoration of 1660 but no records have yet been found that identify either the duration of his Chaplaincy or the names of his predecessors and successors.

When the Reverend Thomas Machell visited Skelsmergh in 1692 he found the ruins of a chapel and he spoke to people who remembered the chapel when it was functioning as a place of worship. The location of the well was known to be at the east end of the building and it had been covered by planks of timber; at one time the water flowed right under the building and out onto the highway.  At the time of his visit parts of the walls were still standing but no trace of the well was visible.

When the Reverend Thomas Machell visited Skelsmergh in July/August 1692 he found the ruins of a chapel not far from the Kendal to Penrith road and he spoke to people who remembered when it was still functioning as a place of worship. The location of the well was known to be at the east end of the building and it had been covered by planks of timber; at one time the water flowed right under the building and onto the highway. At the time of his visit parts of the walls were still standing but no trace of the well was visible. It has proved to be impossible to determine with any degree of certainty where the chapel was located and suggestion range from Otter Bank, near Garth Row, to Skelsmergh Hall. The latter is a strong possibility as the Hall has a history of close links with the Roman Catholic church, to an extent that at one time a hidden chapel was installed in an attic, together with a concealed Priest’s hole in the walls of the house.

Reverend Machell was able to talk to Mr Thomas Gilpin, a septuagenarian farmer,  who remembered the church from 50 years earlier when there were seats in the Quoire (sic) and the roof was intact. The chapel had not been used during that period. He also remembered seeing a painting of a bearded St John the Baptist in the chapel and also the “Great Bible”  At that time the people living in and around Skelsmergh attended service in the Holy Trinity Church, Kendal.

Tithes were paid in the form of “corn in kind” to the “leases of Trinity College, Cambridge”, “wool in kind” to the rectory and all other tithes to the Vicar of Kendal Church.

Reverend Thomas Machell was born in 1647 at Crackenthorpe Hall, he attended Appleby Grammar School and he was Vicar of Kirkebythore church, where he was buried on November 12 1698. At one time he was Chaplain to King Charles II.