ST AIDAN, CAYTHORPE
St Aidan was built as a Chapel of Ease for the village of Caythorpe in 1900.
It is almost unique in that it is a Tin Tabernacle which is still being used for worship today. In some cases these chapels have been replaced by permanent buildings. Others have been relocated, or used for secular purposes.
It is not known why the church was dedicated to St Aidan. Saint Aidan is believed to have been born about 600AD in Ireland. He went to Iona, became a monk and rose to the rank of Bishop. In 635 he was sent to convert Northumbria at the invitation of the local King Oswald who was a Christian. He set up a monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne in sight of King Oswald’s castle at Bamburgh. Possibly it was felt that the church in Caythorpe reflected Aidan’s simple style of mission and Christianity.
St Aidan’s church was built as a Chapel of Ease for the village of Caythorpe in 1900. It is almost unique in that it is a Tin Tabernacle which is still being used for worship today. In some cases these chapels have been replaced by permanent buildings. Others have been relocated, or used for secular purposes. It is not known why the church was dedicated to St Aidan. Saint Aidan is believed to have been born about 600AD in Ireland. He went to Iona, became a monk and rose to the rank of Bishop. In 635 he was sent to convert Northumbria at the invitation of the local King Oswald who was a Christian. He set up a monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne in sight of King Oswald’s castle at Bamburgh. Possibly it was felt that the church in Caythorpe reflected Aidan’s simple style of mission and Christianity.
In 1900 the inhabitants of Caythorpe had to walk to the parish church in Lowdham which was four miles away. The Vicar, the Rev John Henry Browne, had started to hold services in private houses and even in the Primitive Methodist Church. There is a description of the parishioners escorting the Vicar back to the vicarage on a dark night. A Chapel of Ease had been built in Gunthorpe in 1850, but Caythorpe remained without a place of worship of its own for another fifty years. In the 1901 census there were 232 people living in Caythorpe: 112 were males and 120 females. Villagers worked either in farming or framework knitting.
Tin Tabernacles, as these ironclad buildings were called, were easy to erect and cheap to put up. They were usually regarded as temporary buildings to be replaced when funding was available for something more permanent. There was a Tin Tabernacle erected in The Meadows, one in Hyson Green and another in St Ann’s, all areas of rapid growth, where houses were built to accommodate the growing population of factory workers.
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THE CACHE
You are looking for the memorial to Vera.
Note the dates as AB/CD/EFGH to IJ/KL/MNOP
The cache can be found at:
N 53 00. M J D
W 000 58. (H-J) F (A+B+C+D+M+N+O+P)
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