Our Church history

The earliest recorded history of Calverley Parish Church was in part of a lecture entitled "Calverley and its story" given by the vicar, Revd. Alfred Brown, on the 14th October 1869 in aid of the church restoration appeal (from which the collection amounted to £3-14s-6d.) In spite of the speaker`s opening remarks that he had been unable to gather much information on the subject from existing records, the lecture was widely used by succeeding historians..

In 1880 Mr Samuel Margerison published his scholarly transcripts of the parish registers which he prefaced with detailed notes of church documents hitherto little known. This was followed by a full history of the church and its background entitled "Memorials of Calverley Parish Church" written by Revd. Henry Stapleton in 1913 and still generally available in the village. 

In May 1932 Mr Frederick Thornton wrote a paperback pamphlet "Historical Notes of Calverley Parish Church" which was republished with additions in the 800th church anniversary programme in 1954. The present guide has been written to bring up-to-date all available information in as compact a form as possible. It is by no means exhaustive and much detail and all references have been omitted. As each successive history has done, it does, however, acknowledge with much gratitude the valuable work of its predecessors on which it has been freely drawn.

(Ted Garnett. First Published 1977 Reprinted with amendments May 1990)