Chantry Chapel of St Mary, Wakefield: The 'small but beautifully formed' Yorkshire church which inspired The Grand Old Duke of York

And for the past 35 years it’s been looked after by the Friends of Chantry Chapel, a support group established in 1990, which works to ensure the chapel's upkeep, repair and maintenance, host events and raise awareness and funds for the historic building.

"The purpose of the Friends is firstly to raise money for the upkeep and maintenance of the chapel,” says chairman David Royston.

“Whilst it is now under the care of Wakefield Cathedral, it can’t afford to look after it. The Cathedral costs something like £3,500 a day to run and it took over the chapel reluctantly when it was restored as a church in the 1840s.”

The chapel, which has a spiral staircase down to a crypt and up to a tower, was built in the mid-14th century as part of then new stone bridge.

If you were heading south to Doncaster, you could go in and ask one of the priests who were on hand 24 hours a day to pray for your safe passage.

One of its claims to fame – legend has it that it inspired the popular nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York - is that in the Wars of the Roses, Richard, 3rd Duke of York, was killed in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460.

It happened not far from Sandal Castle, after his forces marched out of the castle and down what is now Manygates Lane. His son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, was also killed and their bodies were taken into the chantry and a Requiem Mass was held – as it still is every year on December 30.

"We have the same words, the same chants, the same music, and the priest wears the same sort of vestments”, says David, who says “it’s his mother’s fault” that he is involved with the Friends.

Their family traditionally used the Cathedral for births, marriages and funerals, but his mother told him one day, out of the blue, she didn’t want her funeral there as it was “too big” and she’d “feel embarrassed”.

When the time came David carried out his mother’s wishes - although the undertaker had to do a dummy run with a coffin in the dead of night to make sure it got through the narrow entrance.

There was only an old piano, so David hired in an organ and organist, and later donated an organ to the chapel in memory of his parents. He eventually gave in to persuasive invitations to join the Friends.

The chapel holds a Service of Holy Communion on the first Sunday of the month and Chantry Prayers on the third Sunday, both at 4.30pm. It’s also the focus of the annual Palm Sunday procession when several local churches – along with a donkey - meet on the bridge. David says people often come in on Open Days and remark that they’ve gone past the chapel hundreds of times but have never gone in. “If everyone who came in gave me £1 we wouldn’t have to be raising money so frantically,” he said.