inscribed and dated "Scarthingwell Hall and Church Sep 9 1875" and nsigned with initials "LWT"
Tom and Laura Taylor and thence by descent
The hall was built in the 18th century for the Hawke family with landscaping following in the same century. Later, in 1854, a private Chapel was erected by the lake which became the Church of the Immaculate Conception St John the Worker, a grade II listed building. Scarthingwell Hall was demolished in 1960, and a care home was built upon the site in 2022.
II Roman Catholic Church, former private chapel to Scarthingwell Hall. 1854, designed by Atkinson for Lord Hawkes, in the Neo-Norman style. Coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings. Slate roofs. Nave with apsidal chancel. Moulded plinth and moulded sill band, Lonbard frieze at eaves. Ashlar coped gables with small square turret surmounting western gable. Apsidal east and has 7 tall round headed lancets. Nave has 4 tall round headed windows each divided into 2 lights with quatrefoils. To the south of the western gallery a C20, vestry, and a small gabled porch. West gable wall has 3 round headed niches, and, a smaller niche in the Gable. Interior has lavish plaster work decoration with a nibbed plaster vault in the apse, an ornate, round chancel arch, segment arched plaster vault over nave with 4 round arches surrounding the windows. Western wooden gallery supported in 3 arched western arcade reached by small staircase. The gallery now contains an organ, but it was almost certainly designed as the family pew, it has a ribbed round arched plaster vault.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Scarthingwell, is the older of the two churches in the parish. The church was donated by Mr Constable Maxwell in 1854, whose family originated in Peebleshire, Scotland, but had moved to Scarthingwell in 1850. The church was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady by Cardinal Manning and was the first in England to bear that title. The bell was blessed By Bishop Briggs of Barnsley in 1857 and Saint John Henry Newman is known to have preached at Scarthingwell.
Saxton with Scarthingwell is a civil parish just south of Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, England. The parish contains the villages of Saxton and Scarthingwell, with two churches and the remains of a castle. Historically the area was a township, however it has been its own civil parish since 1866. Although the main part of the Battle of Towton was fought to the north out of the parish, some of the dead were interred in the parish, and at least one minor skirmish was fought within the parish boundaries.
Saxton is mentioned in the Domesday Book as having a church, meadow and ploughlands, but Scarthingwell is not recorded as a name until 1202. Land in the parish was granted to Margaret Kirkton by Alice de Lacy in the late 13th century. The Church of St Mary in Lead was founded in 1292 by Roger de Saxton.The church, now known as a chapel, still exists, and though at times Lead was within the parish of Saxton with Scarthingwell (having been transferred from Ryther), it is now in its own civil parish.
The churchyard at Saxton contains at least one burial from the Battle of Towton who was interred after the battle – Randolph Dacre, who had been MP for Cumberland in 1442.Dacre fought on the side of the Lancastrians. Other bodies were interred at Saxton in 1745 (nearly 300 years later) when they were uncovered at the Towton battlefield site. Before the Battle of Towton, the Yorkist side advanced towards Towton Dale from the south, moving through the Saxton parish. In 2018, the boundaries of the battlefield were extended to also take in land within the Saxton parish. The site is recognised by Historic England as being of national importance.
The parish is the site of the smaller conflict of the Battle of Dintingdale, a minor fight on the same day as the Battle of Towton. Lord Clifford, fighting for the Lancastrian side, was killed at Dintingdale. The Battles of Ferrybridge, Dintingdale and Towton, were all held on the same day, but because of the casualties at Towton, it eclipses the other two. Historically, Towton was within the parish boundaries, and Saxton and Scarthingwell were a township in the parish.
The A162 road cuts through the parish on a north/south axis and connects the parish with Tadcaster in the north 4 miles (6.4 km), and Sherburn-in-Elmet to the south. Three bus routes totalling eight services per day connect the parish with Tadcaster and Sherburn. The nearest railway station is Church Fenton, some 3 miles (5 km) to the east.
Although now delisted from the main works, a section of the proposed HS2 railway line to York was projected to run through the far south-eastern corner of the parish.
Laura Wilson Barker (6 March 1819 – 22 May 1905), was a composer, performer and artist, sometimes also referred to as Laura Barker, Laura W Taylor or "Mrs Tom Taylor".
She was born in Thirkleby, North Yorkshire, third daughter of a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Barker. She studied privately with Cipriani Potter and became an accomplished pianist and violinist. As a young girl Barker performed with both Louis Spohr and Paganini. She began composing in the mid-1830s - her Seven Romances for voice and guitar were published in 1837. From around 1843 until 1855 she taught music at York School for the Blind. During this period some of her compositions - including a symphony in manuscript, on 19 April 1845 - were performed at York Choral Society concerts.
On 19 June 1855 she married the English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine Tom Taylor. Barker contributed music to at least one of her husband's plays, an overture and entr'acte to Joan of Arc (1871), and provided harmonisations as an appendix to his translation of Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865).
Her other works include the cantata Enone (1850), the violin sonata A Country Walk (1860), theatre music for As You Like It, (April 1880), Songs of Youth (1884), string quartets, madrigals and solo songs. Her choral setting of Keats's A Prophecy, composed in 1850, was performed for the first time 49 years later at the Hovingham Festival in 1899. The composer was present.
Several of Barker's paintings hang at Smallhythe Place in Kent, Ellen Terry's house.
Barker lived with her husband and family at 84 Lavender Sweep, Battersea. There were two children: the artist John Wycliffe Taylor (1859–1925), and Laura Lucy Arnold Taylor (1863–1940). The Sunday musical soirees at the house attracted many well-known attendees, including Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Henry Irving, Charles Reade, Alfred Tennyson, Ellen Terry and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Tom Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62. After his death, his widow retired to Porch House, Coleshill in Buckinghamshire, where she died on 22 May 1905, aged 86.