Geograph - photograph every grid square

The building is primarily of significance as a rare example of a Catholic chapel incorporated into a private house during penal times. The interior of the chapel has eighteenth and nineteenth century fittings. Robert Stephenson was from a Catholic family of yeoman stock which had married well. He acquired the Manor House at Dodding Green in 1687, and used the house to shelter priests. The first chapel was in the attic, with its own hiding places for the priest and the sacred vessels and vestments. Before he died in 1723, Stephenson handed over the house for use by a resident priest. This arrangement continued for some time, and although there were intervals when the house was tenanted by others, even then it would be visited by ‘riding priests’. After the passing of the second Relief Act a new church was built at Kendal, but Dodding Green continued to be used as a clergy residence and to house a chapel. In 1840 the Revd C. Brigham built an extension to the house which bears the date and his initials: the date stone can be seen in the image.