St Patrick's Chapel, Heysham Early Saxon Church and Rock-Cut Graves One of the first sites I wanted to visit on the Lancashire coast was St Peter's Church at Heysham, mainly to see the viking hogback stone, often described as one of the finest in the country. It is impossible to visit St Peter's without wandering up the hill to see St Patrick's Chapel and the rock-cut graves. The graves gained popularity after they appeared on the cover of 'The Best of Black Sabbath' album released in 2000. Heysham is a trading port on the Irish sea so it's not surprising to discover an association with Ireland's primary patron saint, even if there is no evidence to say St Patrick ever visited Heysham.
The chapel, which is dated to the middle of he 8th century, was extremely small before almost doubling in length after being extended to the east in the 10th century. The structure is now roughly 8 metres in length and 3 metres wide. The doorway in the south wall features long-and-short jambs the full depth of the walls, see image above. At the head of the doorway is an arch cut out of a single piece of stone, it bears three concentric grooves. A lot of the early Irish churches we have visited also had doorways in the south wall. The green area in the image below right, was used as a graveyard sometime in the 10th century. The two medieval graveslabs, pictured below, can be found in the southern part of the graveyard. Further areas for burial developed to the east and west of the first graveyard. |
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Arched head of the doorway |
From the south |
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Rock-Cut Graves I imagine most people that visit, like me, are curious to see the rock-cut graves, I don't recall seeing anything similar in Ireland. They are split in two separate groups, the main group, pictured below, consists of six rock-cut graves carved out from the bedrock with a socket at the head of each grave. It has been suggested that each of the sockets may have held a cross. According to the excellent notice board the graves may have contained disarticulated bones rather than complete skeletons and possibly functioned as reliquaries.This group is about 7 metres west of the chapel, the other two rock-cut graves are in the eastern section of the cemetery, to the south of the chapel. Only one of the graves has a socket at the head, see image at the bottom of the page. A socket for a free standing cross was found peeping out from under the east gable another cross socket lies directly west of the central graveyard. It is believed the rock-cut graves may actually predate St Patrick's Chapel.
The main group of rock-cut graves with Morecambe Bay in the background |
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Situated: From The M6 take exit 34 for heysham. Follow the A683 for about 8 miles. Take a right at the roundabout for Heysham Village. Take a left signed Wesley Methodist Ch. Then the left (School Rd) before the T-Junction. then left againat the T. Then take a right up Main Street. Park at St Peters and walk up the hill to St Patrick's. SD 40991 61658. Last visit Aug 2024. Longitude: 02° 54' 10" W Latitude: 54° 02' 51" N Photos: Jim Dempsey |
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