Newlands Church

Newlands Church
Newlands Church with the former school building to the left
Location	Little Town, Cumbria
Country	England, United Kingdom
Denomination	Anglican
History
Founded	Unknown, but possibly 16th century
Architecture
Status	Church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II
Specifications
Materials	Roughcast

Newlands Church is a 16th-century church situated less than 500 metres west of the hamlet of Little Town, Cumbria, England in the Newlands Valley of the Lake District. Its exact date of origin is unknown, but a map of 1576 shows a "Newlande Chap." on the site.

The church exterior presents white-washed roughcast walls and a green slate roof; the interior displays two stained glass windows, a gallery, and a reading desk and a pulpit dated 1610. Tourists and hillwalkers visit on their way to the fells. The church is a Grade II listed building.

The whitewashed roughcast Church of Newlands lies in open countryside some 500 yards (460 m) to the west of the hamlet of Little Town, Cumbria, England near the confluence of Newlands Beck, Scope Beck, and Keskadale Beck in the Lake District National Park and 6 miles (9.7 km) by road from Keswick. It is situated in the Newlands Valley, separated from Derwent Water to the east by the summit of Catbells. It is surrounded by the high mountains which encircle the head of the valley.

The exact date of the origin of Newlands Church is unknown, but is believed to be some time in the middle 16th century. Christopher Saxton’s map of 1576 shows a church on the site marked "Newlande Chap.". The church was mentioned again in 1594 when John Mayson of the local farm Stoneycrofte left the sum of 3s 4d to Newlandes Chappell in his will. Due to the effects of the plague of 1558 the church did not have an Incumbent in its early years and it was not until 1610 that Anthony Bragg was installed as the church’s first Lay reader. A Lay reader was an unqualified member of the clergy (usually a local person) who could read the services but could not perform christenings, marriages, or Communion, these duties being the bailiwick of the primary priest on his rounds of the valley. Nine Lay readers served the church until 1731, the longest serving being Thomas Birkhead (1654–1690) and John Atkinson (1690–1728).