Chapel was built by Robert Dickinson in 1642, who left £200 'for a sufficient scholar, to read divine service there every Sunday and to teach school on weekdays'. Inscription over the church door states that the chapel was built and finished in 1642 at the proper cost and charge of Robert Dickinson, citizen of London, and born in Aldingham; Dickinson 'in his lyfe tyme hath given sufficient mayntenance for ever to a minister to have divine service read in the said chappell according to the Church of England & in the weeke day to have children brought upp in learning & taught therein to wch. God give his blessing' (VCH, 8, 327). According to Gastrell, by the early 1720s, 'This Chapel is now used only for a School'. By his will, Dickinson appointed that the schoolmaster should be a single man, chosen by the inhabitants of Dendron, Leece and Gleaston townships, with the consent of the Rector of Aldingham. ''Tis free to those towns'. VCH, Lancs., 8, 327-8; Gastrell, Notitia Cestrienses, II.iii, 496-7.