A panelled wooden screen, about eight or nine feet high, divides the south transept from the rest of the church. Although there is no door leading into the mausoleum, the interior can be seen from the vantage point of the pulpit. There are four loculi, all occupied, built in a block lying against the south wall of the mausoleum. On the east wall is a 17th century monument to John Legard, and the south window is filled with stained glass commemorating three Legard sisters.
Not known
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Grade II* (England and Wales)
1843
The Legard family lived at Ganton Hall from 1586 until 1910. It was not until the mid 19th century however that they partitioned off the south transept and made it into a mausoleum. It is possible that this part of the church was previously the family pew with a burial chamber beneath it. The fact that there are memorials on the walls predating the construction of the mausoleum appears to support this theory. By the 19th century many of the vaults under churches were becoming over crowded and this often prompted the construction of new ones in the churchyard. In this case the Legard family may have decided to convert their pew to a mausoleum rather than build afresh. This might have been carried out during the restoration of the church that took place in 1843. The dates of death recorded on the loculi are all between 1848 and 1854.
Fairly good. The church is beginning to look a little rundown (2003).
BoE: Yorks,
VCH:
None
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Church of St Nicholas
Ganton
East Yorkshire
YO12 4NX
England