England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Lunds St Oswald

The Parish

The chapelry of Lunds, its mother parish being Aysgarth, lies in the extreme northwest of Yorkshire, within the North Riding, and forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Westmorland. Lunds is located roughly 6 miles northwest of the small town of Hawes and stands on the B6259, a linking road connecting the Westmorland town of Kirkby Stephen with the A684 (Hawes to Sedbergh) road. This area is the roof of the Pennine range, the county boundary forming the watershed between the River Eden, headed for the Irish Sea, and the Ure, headed for the North Sea. All of the land within the chapelry lies above 300 metres and whilst the had been some mineral extraction at times, the main economic factors are upland grazing of hardy sheep. There is no village whatsoever, the area being dotted with isolated farmsteads and stone-built barns. Today the area is one for tourism with hikers tackling the fells around, cyclists challenging the steep climbs and for car-based tourists simply admiring the stunning moorlands. The iconic moorland inn, The Moorcock, provides a welcome retreat too in fouler weather. Despite the height and isolation modern developments have come to the chapelry as the Settle to Carlisle railway line passes through, a feat of Victorian engineering given the environment. Lunds is drained eastwards by the Ure which passes down Wensleydale to eventually pass out of the hills onto the Vale of York and meet with the other Dales rivers to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. The redundant chapel stands at around 330 metres above the sea whilst mountains all around rise to almost 700 metres, to the northeast Abbotside Common 666 metres, to the northwest Wild Boar Fell 708 metres and to the southwest East Baugh Fell 678 metres. Roughly 11,500 acres of the vast Aysgarth parish were assigned to Lunds which barely supported 100 parishioners.

The Church

The chapel of St Oswald is nowadays redundant having been so declared in 1981. The church stands east of the B6259 and is only approachable by rough mountain footpaths. Built in the mid-18th century it is tiny as befits its equally tiny congregation, measuring just 24 by 14 feet. Pevsner clearly felt it little worth his while describing the building as "no more than a small house". Its romantic location, however, inspired artistic folk as it was a location for the 2011 filming of Wuthering Heights, an appearance that sparked interest in the church and enabled a restoration in 2023. About 3/4s of a mile north of the Moorcock a footpath sign and stile points a rough path northeast across the moor after crossing a footbridge and stile the church sits 100 metres across a field, it is usually locked. The site has no obstacles, other than the difficulty of access, for the photographer.