Everingham Chapel Music Collection

Collection of printed and manuscript Catholic music from Everingham Chapel, c. 1770-1950, including publications, part books, and other manuscript items. The publications include individual compositions of masses, litanies and motets, together with an undated late eighteenth-century volume containing 60 Anglican Chants. Composers of these printed works include Matthew Camidge, Samuel Webbe and Edward Gordon. The manuscript material includes variations of masses, motets and other ephemera.

The chapel of SS. Mary and Everilda at Everingham, a small village in East Yorkshire, was consecrated by Bishop Briggs on 9 July 1839. It was built by the Catholic landowner, William Constable Maxwell (tenth Lord Herries), in an Italianate style, based on the Maison Dieu at Nimes. The chapel, built to accommodate 400 people, was adjoined to Everingham Hall, the seat of the Maxwell family, by a long corridor. There was also a school and, until 1865, a convent run by the Poor Clares. From the beginning, music played an important part in the chapel. A large organ, containing two manuals and a pedal board, was built by Charles Allen in 1837 and a large library of manuscript and printed music was amassed. It is possible to deduce from the number of printed duplicate copies (sets of 3-4 or 7-8) that the choir consisted of a small core of singers performing devotional works at services like Vespers or Benediction and, perhaps, at less important Sung Masses; a larger group was used for special High Masses. By the later nineteenth century, there is evidence to suggest that not only were more Masses being sung but a wider range of works by different composers had been employed, including J. Edgar Turner, Charles Gounod, Albert Edmonds Tozer and, later, Richard Terry, replacing the earlier standards of Haydn and Mozart. The use of printed music had also become more pronounced, replacing the manuscript copies characteristic of earlier periods, and there was also a noticeable change of publishers, from Vincent and Joseph Alfred Novello, who were the dominant publishers of mid-nineteenth century music, to Cary & Co and Burns & Oates. Such developments suggest that Everingham Chapel was on a par with other great Catholic chapels with strong musical establishments, such as St Mary’s Chapel (Lulworth, Dorset), the All Saints Chapel (Wardour Castle, Wiltshire), and the Petre Chapel (Ingatestone Hall, Essex), all strongly influenced by Stonyhurst College; an important, indeed formidable, English Catholic nexus for Catholic landlords and their chapels in the nineteenth century. As the twentieth century progressed, the important role played by music at Everingham declined. This occurred partly as a result of the sale of Everingham Hall to the Howard family, whose interests lay primarily in the south of England, and also the broader trend of Catholic power and influence moving away from the rural aristocratic household chapel towards the larger industrial parish.

The collection has not yet been arranged.

This collection has not been catalogued so consultation may not be possible.

Rescued from Everingham Chapel by John Rowntree in the early 1980s and passed on to the Bar Convent. Donated to Durham University Library by Sr Frances Orchard of the Bar Convent, 21 February 2014.

No catalogue exists of this collection.

Papers of the Constable Maxwell Family of Everingham (U DDEV), Hull History Centre

Collections relating to Everingham Hall, including Everingham Park Estate catalogue of documents (DDX1947/1) and Everingham Estate sales particulars (DDX868/1), East Riding of Yorkshire Archives

Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Head of Collections, University Library and Collections (e-mail pg.library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

The contents of the collection have not yet been fully appraised.

Chapel Records, Church Music, Ushaw College Archive (UC/AF4)

Music Library (Ushaw College)