te close to Giggleswick, but their recorded
history begins with this generation. The father of James is nameless,
but his eldest brother Stephen was living at Stackhouse in the year
1483, when he leased a plot of land from the Prior and Convent of
Finchale. It was therefore not unnatural that James should found a
chantry in the neighbourhood of his family home.

The purpose of a chantry was the offering up of prayers for the souls
either of the founder or of such as he might direct. We do not know the
original cause of James Carr's Chantry or for whose soul he prayed. But
in 1509 he received a legacy from his brother Thomas, who was vicar of
Sancton. The gift consisted of "unam calicem argenteam" and with it
there was a request "ut oretur pro anima mea et parentum meorum diebus
Dominicis." Henceforth this was his duty. But a weekly service of prayer
on Sundays would be a poor occupation for a man, even though he had
clearly another Mass to say as well. And he endeavoured to dispel the
monotony of his chantry by teaching. He followed a common practice of
chantry priests, but he had some additional qualifications for the work.
He belonged to a local family of some importance, he had a certain
income of his own, and he was prepared to take boarders as well as to
teach the boys in the village.

The unique character of his enterprise declares itself very soon. He was
so successful a teacher that he could no longer find it possible to
carry on his work in his own house or possibly "like a pedant that keeps
a school in a church," he required a building larger and more
convenient. In other words he was prepared to take a risk and to invest
his own capital in buildings. It is the only instance that has been
recorded of what Mr. A. F. Leach calls a Private Adventure School. It
was not endowed from an outside source before 1553, but until the year
1518 was the private property of James Carr. He endowed the Rood Chantry
with lands producing six pounds one shilling a year, and the successive
chantry priests carried on the teaching that he had begun.

On November 12, 1507, a lease had been entered into between "the Right
Reverende ffader in Gode, Thomas, Prior of Duresme and Convent of the
same on the one partie and James Karr, preste, on the other partie" by
which the said James was given a seventy-nine year lease of "half one
acre of lande with the appertenance, laitlye in the haldyng of Richarde
lemyng, lyeng neir the church gar