The Church of St Lambert, Burneston, lies
at the south-east corner of Bedale Road and Church Wind. The church
is the only one in Britain to be dedicated solely to St Lambert, who
lived around AD 635-705, and became bishop of Maastricht during a
period of English conversion of the Germanics and Frisians. The
church was founded in the thirteenth century, when an aisless nave
was built. The chancel and chancel arch were added in the fourteenth
century.
In the fifteenth century the church was rebuilt,
with aisles being added to the nave and the two stage tower with
spire being added. The chancel arch may have been widened at the
same time, while the south porch dates from a period not long
afterwards. The font at the back of the church bears the date 1662,
while the building itself is now Grade I listed. Most of the seating
dates from 1627, with carved upper panels and turned finials at each
end.
The Church of All Saints, Pickhill, lies
on the eastern side of Swainby Lane at the junction with Lowfields Lane,
in Pickhill with Roxby. The church was built around 1150, in coursed
squared stone and ashlar, with a graduated stone slate roof. Only
the chancel and nave existed at first, with the north aisle and
chapel being added around 1200. There were additions in the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, with the chancel being enlarged in
the second phase.
The last of these additions saw the three stage
west tower erected, late in the fifteenth century, with offset
diagonal buttresses and a wide angle buttress to the east of the
south front which forms a stair tower with three slit openings. The
Victorians restored and enlarged the building in 1877 under the
direction of G E Street, although some of the original Norman work
survived. Until 2002 the tower contained a ring of three bells, with
three more being added in that year.
Swainby Abbey lay on the northern side of
Swainby Lane, as it turns sharply towards the south. It may have been
founded before 1168 as the Abbey of Saint Mary de Caritate.
Confusingly, it was also founded in 1188 as the Premonstratensian
Abbey of Swainby, suggesting a re-founding or re-use of abandoned
buildings. Today nothing remains of the abbey except a series of mounds
covering a wide area, and the crumbling remains of East House Farm.
Maunby Methodist Church is a tiny building
on the eastern side of Pickeringmoor Lane, immediately north of Green
Lane in Maunby, near Hambleton, and about nine kilometres (six miles)
south of Hambleton and the River Swale. This pocket-sized red brick
Methodist Church was built in 1855, but in 1857 it became part of
the United Methodist Free Church. It continues in service today, lying
on a quiet lane with a border of neat iron railings around the front
yard.
