Crusading spirit: Bunting War Memorial Chapel, Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire

A War Memorial Chapel in a remote, but magnificent spot stands as a monument to the sculptor who created it.

- John Goodall

A MILE south-east of Sutton Bank along the edge of the dramatic escarpment that drops from the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors to the Vales of Mowbray and of York, in the woods above the village of Oldstead, there is a small building modestly constructed of tile and local stone. It looks like an old barn —as, indeed, it once was—but what clearly marks it out as something of much greater interest is the entrance. This is ornamented with sculpture and hung with intricately carved doors. On the threshold is an inscription that reads simply: ‘John Joseph Bunting Sculptor and artist of Ryedale built this chapel 1957 Died 19 November 2002 aged 75.’

John Bunting recalled that he had first seen the abandoned barn that became his War Memorial Chapel on June 6, 1944, a day now familiar as D-Day. He was then a student at the nearby school attached to the Benedictine Abbey at Ampleforth. Both the school and abbey played an important part in Bunting’s life, but, to an extraordinary degree, it was this building that became the focus for his ideas and energy. It stands today as his monument and a physical expression of his art and ideals.

The story of the chapel and its setting has already been poignantly told from a personal perspective by the sculptor’s daughter, journalist and writer Madeleine Bunting, in her book The Plot (2009). Similarly, a monograph on Bunting’s life and artistic output has been published by Jonathan Black, Spirit of Faith (2011). If these accounts can be added to, it is perhaps by looking at the chapel by itself as an artistic creation.