The wider parish: our associated churches

Beverley Minster is not one church but the heart of a small family of them. This Companion is as much theirs as the Minster’s.

How are they connected to the Minster?

Three village churches — St Leonard’s, Molescroft; St Peter’s, Woodmansey; and St Paul’s, Tickton — are formally “associated churches” of the Minster parish. A fourth, All Saints’, Routh, is a separate parish in its own right, linked to the Minster since the 1960s and sharing our Vicar. Together the five form the Beverley Minster benefice: they share clergy and lay ministers, and much of the life of prayer — while each keeps its own building, its own congregation, and very much its own character. For this week’s service times at any of them, the Minster website is the live source.

St Leonard’s, Molescroft

A warm and welcoming church on the growing northern edge of the town, St Leonard’s was built in 1896 and seats around seventy; a later extension added a kitchenette and toilet. Hospitality is part of its character — refreshments follow every service. The year turns around a much-loved Harvest Festival, a Book of Common Prayer service sung with the Minster Choir that draws the church’s largest congregation and is rounded off with a harvest supper. There is a Pet Service, a Mothers’ Union Songs of Praise, and the great festivals besides, and two fine stained-glass windows — one, behind the font, thought to be the work of the Victorian studio of C. E. Kempe. The Sunday service is Holy Communion at 9.30.

St Peter’s, Woodmansey

Consecrated in 1898, on the Hull Road opposite the village school, St Peter’s is woven deep into village life and holds a particular place in remembrance. Its churchyard is a Commonwealth War Grave site, and service personnel are commemorated within the building; the year includes an Armistice Day service at the village cenotaph. There are close ties to Woodmansey Church of England Primary School — the clergy lead worship there, and the school keeps its Easter, Harvest and Christmas services in the church — as well as seasonal carol singing, and a steady rhythm of prayer and pastoral care through the year. The worship ranges from a formal Communion to a relaxed all-age service.

St Paul’s, Tickton

St Paul’s is something a little different: a Local Ecumenical Partnership, formed in 1994, in which Anglicans and Methodists worship as one fellowship. Pastoral care is shared between the Minster’s Vicar and a minister of the Beverley Methodist Circuit, and there are two church buildings between them — St Paul’s itself, built in 1846 and seating about a hundred, re-ordered with a kitchen, a toilet and an accessible porch, and the Methodist Church nearby. Its stated aim is simply “to enable the Christian people of Tickton to worship together in one fellowship”. There is lively work with children and young people, deep links with the village Church of England school and its governors, and a real appetite for village life — the Scarecrow Hunt among it.

All Saints’, Routh

A short way north-east of Beverley, All Saints’ is the ancient one — proudly its own parish, but sharing our Vicar and much of our common life since the 1960s, when Routh found itself without a Rector of its own for the first time in six hundred years. A Grade II* listed building, it repays a visit for its history alone: medieval brass effigies believed to be of Johannes Routh and his wife Agnes; a tombstone reaching back to the thirteenth century; and windows that remember a son of the parish’s safe return from the Great War.

Can these pages grow?

Yes — and we hope they will. Each of these churches has more to say about itself than a paragraph can hold, and in time we would like to give each of them fuller space here, in their own words. If you worship at one of them and would like to help tell its story, please let us know.

Section 16 of 26 in the Companion