Great Doors: Ilkley’s Manor House

The Old Manor House at Ilkley is a fine building dating largely from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I did, however, notice that the main door through which visitors pass is a traditional pointed arch design, somewhat out of fashion when the rest of the house was constructed. Furthermore, two doorways within the internal corridor are what you call ‘shouldered arches’ for reasons which become clear.

Again, this was more fashionable in the 1300s-1400s. The information boards inside the house confirm that the Tudor construction was built upon an earlier, medieval manor house. The builders decided to keep the original doorway, old fashioned though it was, and simply build around it. The whole house looks very old and antiquated to our modern eyes, but there are two distinctive styles sitting together here: an old house built around an even older door frame and corridor.

Our own chapel was built in 1817 and our denomination developed in the late 1500s. I would propose, however, that our chapel is rather like this Old Manor House. The essential gospel message has been around since Eden- man has sinned but a gracious God is willing to restore when man repents, and atonement is made. Through the ages, various structures and apartments have been built around this doorway back to paradise, some admittedly better than others. In Genesis 4:26, we read “At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.” Even today, evangelistic endeavour seeks to persuade the lost to call out to God, claiming the forgiveness Christ offers. It’s the same message but expressed in different ways. The doorway to heaven remains open, despite all the distracting building work that goes on about it. Churches wax and wane, denominations rise and fall, but the gospel message stays the same, even when it looks unfashionable, or out of keeping with the latest styles and tastes:

Romans 10:13: For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.