Whitechapel Church, Cleckheaton (2020)

Whitechapel Road, West Yorkshire, BD19 6HR

Available anytime

Pre-booking not required

Whitechapel Church has a Norman font, an Ellacombe system of bells, a Hatchment, the only Bronte grave in Kirklees, three WW1 graves including one for two brothers and stained glass window memorials.

Whitechapel is the historic site of the area and has been a place of worship since Norman times. The present church was built in 1821 and replaced an earlier one of 1706/7.
The Norman font is dated no later than 1120 and its carvings include Celtic fertility figures which are described by experts as lewd. It has had a chequered history, but babies are still being baptised in it today.
Heaton Chapel, as it was then known, was built as a Chapel-of-Ease to the Parish Church of Birstall so that 'no man might die without Baptism'. Before 1534 it was a Catholic Church with the Medieval Latin mass. In 1611 James I ordered an authorised version of the bible and Book of Common Prayer in English which is still in use once a month at Whitechapel. From 1649 to 1660 the church was used as a Non-Conformist Chapel, and it is thought that the font was then removed to the churchyard. Around 1706/7 the church was rebuilt when Dr Richard Richardson was Lord of the Manor and he had a new font made bearing his coat of arms which was placed on the repaired and upturned Norman font used as a base; this is now on a new plinth inside the church.
Rose Ann Heslip, aged 95, a niece of Patrick Bronte, was buried here in 1915.
The Ellacombe system of bells can be played by visitors.
Major roof and tower repairs were completed in 2007. Internal refurbishment including rewiring, replacing the heating system, decorating, repairing stained glass windows and enclosing the porch was completed in 2018.