Beamsley Hospital almshouses, Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, England UK
Almshouses are a familiar ingredient in our towns and villages, but the Hospital at Beamsley is more unusual. Set back from the conventional row of dwellings on the main road lies this circular stone building. In it were rooms for seven women, encircling a chapel, through which most of them had to pass to reach their doors, a daily encouragement to piety. Until the 1970s the little community of Mother and Sisters lived here, their lives governed by ancient, and ferociously strict, rules. The Hospital was founded in 1593 by the Countess of Cumberland, at a time when the poor had only private charity to depend on. Her building is an Elizabethan conceit, alluding both to the six circles, or annulets, on her husband’s coat of arms and to the round churches of the Templars. Her daughter, that formidable northern heroine Lady Anne Clifford, added the front range. She also furnished the chapel and, almshouses being of their nature conservative places, these fittings survive.
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Photo credit: © John Morrison / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 16th, almshouse, almshouses, anne, architecture, beamsley, building, century, chapel, clifford, dales, eccentric, england, hospital, lady, landmark, north, odd, snow, trust, uk, unusual, wharfedale, winter, yorkshire
