Saxon Church
At Upper Denton, not far from Gilsland you'll find a tiny church with a fine Roman arch and Roman stones. This Anglo-Saxon church was built in 826 using a lot of Roman stones from Nether Denton Fort.
The church was made redundant in the 1970's. Some say it was deconsecrated but I have found that not to be true.
It was rededicated to St. Patrick and St. Cuthbert in 2019 by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Reverend James Newcombe.
There was some renovation in 2019. The walls were professionally repointed using lime mortar where necessary. The belcote in the west wall was renovated and some stained glass was installed.
In the late 1960's Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), an eminent architectural historian published, as part of his major work on English and Irish Buildings, his assessment of the church after visiting it. He described it as ' Norman with Anglo-Saxon elements'.
The Anglo-Saxon elements include the foundations, the stone in the walls taken from both the Roman forts of Nether Denton and Birdoswald, a small window and a blocked doorway in the north wall of the nave.
In the south wall of the chancel there is a lancet window which is typical of High Middle English architecture (1000 - 1215). This is indicative of an early Norman build and it is this along with the Anglo-Saxon elements that give some provenance to the claim that the church id the oldest standing building in Cumbria.
The interior of the church includes a chancel arch from re-used Roman stone and a font hewn from a huge block of stone from either Nether Denton or Birdoswald. This font was returned from Tuille House in 2019 after having been removed when the church was made redundant in the 1970's.
There is the gravestone to what is thought to have been a warrior priest in the innterior north wall.
There are some notable people buried in the cemetery.
- Janus August Worm Paludan, Danish ambassador to the Belgian Congo from 1972-6 and ambassador to China from 1982-6.
- His wife Ann Paludan who was a world renowned expert on Chinese architecture and her second son, Robert James Powell Jones (from her first marriage) who entered Oxford University at sixteen and became a notable barrister.
Janus died in 2004, Ann in 2014 and Robert in 1998.
Also buried here is Margaret Bleasedale who died in 1777 at the age of 97. She was thought to be the Meg Merrilies of Mumps Hall in the novel Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott, a known visitor to Gilsland. Unfortunately this is not true . In the 19th century when Scott was world famous for his Waverley novels there were many tourists who flocked to Gilsland to the Spa and the 'association' with Scott. Margaret was not of Mumps Hall, the alehouse, but Mumps Hall a district of Gilsland. The inscription on the rear of her gravestone implies that she was a woman with a wicked sense of humour.
'What I was once some may relate,
What I am now is each one's fate.
What I shall be none may explain,
Till He that called, calls again,
