little church, disused for many years save for an occasional service,
of St. Martin, at Wareham. Some of it is probably of Saxon date; in
size and proportion it bears a remarkable likeness to St. Ealdhelm’s
recently re-discovered church of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on-Avon.
This is specially interesting, as it is said that St. Ealdhelm founded
a monastery or nunnery at Wareham, and the similarity of this church
to that which he built at Bradford gives some confirmation to the
belief that this church also was built by him during the time of his
episcopate at Sherborne (705-709). Some authorities, while recognising
the church as of Saxon foundation, would date it approximately 1050.
The chancel arch is low, like that at Bradford, but not so narrow; the
nave, though subsequently lengthened, is short, narrow, and high—long
and short work may be seen in the coigns of the walls; all these seem
to indicate its Saxon origin. The church, however, has been enlarged
from time to time; the north aisle is divided from the nave by
round-headed arches; the windows at the east of the chancel and aisle,
now walled up, are of the Perpendicular period; and a window in the
south wall of the nave is of Decorated date; but an early Norman one
may be seen on the north side of the chancel. The tower, with a gabled
roof, is an early addition to the building. When, in 1762, a great fire
destroyed about a third of the town of Wareham, many of those whom
this disaster rendered homeless found a refuge within the walls of
the little church, which even then had ceased to be used for service.
Beneath the church a vast number of burials took place; it would seem
that the limited space within the walls was used over and over again
for this purpose.
Among other examples of Saxon work to be found in Dorset may be
mentioned a walled-up doorway, with triangular head, on the south
wall of Worth Matravers church, in the Isle of Purbeck; a fragment of
herring-bone work in Corfe Castle, which may possibly be a portion
of a wall of the chapel founded here by St. Ealdhelm, though it may,
on the other hand, be of Norman date; and fonts at Toller Fratrum
and Martinstown; and the carved stone over the doorway of Tarrant
Rushton, the chancel arch of which church is also probably of
pre-Conquest date.
[Illustration: ST. MARTIN’S CHURCH, WAREHAM.]
Norman work is naturally more abundant. The church at Studland, in the
Isle of Purbeck, is no doubt the most complete example to be met with
in the county. It is also a fine example of restoration at its best.
The church was in great danger of falling, owing to the sinking of an
artificial bed of clay on which the foundations of some of the walls
were laid; wide cracks had opened in the walls, in the chancel arch,
and other places; the mortar of the core of the walls had perished;
but by underpinning the walls, grouting with cement, the insertion of
metal tie-beams, and stopping the cracks, the church has been made
safe. There is little work of post-Norman date, but it is by no means
certain that the Norman builders built the church from its foundations;
there is good reason to suppose that a previous church of rude rubble
masonry existed here, and that a great part of the original walls was
left standing, and that the Norman builders cut out portions of the old
walls to insert their own more perfect work in various places. It is
a long, narrow church, without aisles; a low central tower, probably
never completed, covered with a gable roof, stands between the nave and
chancel. The tower arches are low, and the roof is vaulted. The Norman
work probably dates from about 1130. The church bears some resemblance
to the well-known church at Iffley, but the decoration is not so
elaborate.
Next to Studland in interest comes the church of Worth Matravers,
also in the Isle of Purbeck. Here, however, the tower stands at the
west end. The chancel is Early English, the roof is of wood; but the
chancel arch is elaborately carved, as is also the door within the
south porch. In the parish of Worth stands a unique building—the chapel
of St. Ealdhelm, on St. Ealdhelm’s (or, as it is often incorrectly
called, St. Alban’s) Head. It shares with the later chapel of St.
Catherine, near Abbotsbury, the peculiarity of being built, within and
without, walls and roof alike, of stone. The chapel of St. Ealdhelm
stands four square, with a pyramidal roof, now surmounted by a cross,
which has taken the place of the cresset in which the beacon fire
blazed on nights of storm or national danger. No doubt it showed
one of the “twinkling points of fire” of Macaulay’s ballad when the
Armada had been sighted off Alderney. There is a legend that it was
built by St. Ealdhelm, who, finding that he could not by land get at
the heathen of what we now call Dorset, came in a boat and climbed
the cliff, and afterwards founded this chapel to mark the spot where
he landed. That he landed here is probable enough, but the style of
architecture—Norman—shows that it was built long after St. Ealdhelm’s
time. It is far more likely that his chapel was built on the hill at
“Corfes-geat,” now crowned with the ruins of Corfe Castle. Another
more romantic story tells us that this chapel on St. Ealdhelm’s Head
was founded by the Norman Lord of the Manor, who, when his daughter,
who had just been married, set out from Poole Haven to sail down
channel to her home, came to this high spot to watch the vessel that
bore her pass, and saw it wrecked on the rocks below. Hence it is said
that he built this chapel so that masses might be said there for her
soul’s rest. Be this as it may, it is certain that for many centuries
the chaplain received his yearly stipend of fifty shillings from the
Royal Treasury, and the chapel was a seamen’s chantry, where prayers
for their safety might be offered, and whose flaming beacon served
as a lighthouse. A narrow Norman window, or, rather, a slit, near
the north-west corner of the east wall, alone admits light. A Norman
doorway, in the opposite wall, is the only entrance. The stone vault is
supported by ribs springing from a central pier, an arrangement similar
to that common in polygonal chapter houses. The local name for the
building was at one time “The Devil’s Chapel,” and people sought to
gain their objects by some process of incantation, one part of the rite
being the dropping of a pin into a hole in the central pier, a custom
not altogether abandoned even now. On Worth “club walking day,” in
Whitsun week, the building was used as a dancing room; at other times
of the year as a coastguard store. It has, however, been refitted as a
chapel, and service for the coastguard station is held at stated times
by the rector of Worth.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL ON ST. EALDHELM’S HEAD.]
It is neither possible nor desirable to mention all the Norman work
which is to be found in Dorset, but attention must be called to that
at Bere Regis. In this church may especially be noticed some curious
carved heads on some of the capitals; on one, an arm comes down from
above, and the hand raises the eyelids—evidently the gift of sight
is here indicated; on another in like manner the fingers open the
mouth—probably the gift of speech is here represented, although the
carving might be intended to represent the gift of taste.
Work of the Early English period (thirteenth century) is not very
common in Dorset. We meet with it, however, in the east end of Wimborne
Minster, in the churches of Knighton, Cranborne, Corfe Mullen,
Portesham, and Worth, among others.
Nor is the Decorated style more fully represented. The best examples
are Milton Abbey Church, which is almost entirely in this style, and
the aisles of Wimborne Minster; but it may also be seen in Gussage St.
Michael, Tarrant Rushton, and Wooton Glanville, and at St. Peter’s,
Dorchester, a well-preserved arch for the Easter sepulchre of this
period may be seen. It was customary in such arches to set up at Easter
a movable wooden structure representing the grave in Joseph’s garden,
where certain rites commemorating the Burial and Resurrection were
performed. These sepulchres were very elaborate, and associated with
them were figures, of course of small size, representing Christ, the
Father, the Holy Ghost, the armed guard, and angels and devils.
The great majority of the Dorset churches are of Perpendicular date,
and in churches of earlier date there are few that do not contain
some addition or insertion made after the time when this peculiarly
English style had had its birth in the Abbey Church at Gloucester, and
had been adopted by William of Edington and William of Wykeham in the
transformation of the Norman Cathedral Church at Winchester during the
latter half of the fourteenth century.
Why was it that so many churches were built during the fifteenth
century? Probably because conditions had changed, and the building
was no longer the work chiefly of the bishops or of the religious
orders as it had been up to the thirteenth century, or of the nobles
as it had been in the fourteenth, but of the people. The French wars
of Edward III. emptied the purses of the nobles and the monasteries;
the Black Death also counted many monks among its victims, and had
entirely swept away many of the smaller religious houses, and decreased
the numbers of brethren in the larger;[17] and the middle class rose
after the Black Death to a position that it had never occupied before.
This class demanded parish churches, as well as trade halls and guild
chapels, and built them, too—that is, supplied money to pay masons.
Architecture became more of a trade and less of an art. Norfolk and
Somerset were especially rich districts at a time when England exported
the raw material, wool, and not, as now, manufactured goods; and hence
in these two counties some of the largest and grandest parish churches
were built. And Dorset, lying as it does on the Somerset border,
showed, though in less degree, the results of the new conditions. It
has no churches of this period to match in size St. Mary Redcliffe at
Bristol, or St. Mary Magdalene’s at Taunton; it has no Perpendicular
towers to rival those of Shepton Mallet, St. Cuthbert’s at Wells, or
Huish Episcopi; but it has some fine examples, nevertheless, distinctly
traceable to Somerset influence. The parent design in Dorset may
perhaps be seen in Piddletrenthide, 1487; Fordington St. George,
the top of which tower has not been very wisely altered of late, is
a little more in advance; St. Peter’s, Dorchester, and Charminster
are still further developed; the two last probably are the finest
individual towers in the county. Bradford Abbas may be thought by some
more beautiful, but the builder borrowed details from the Quantock
group of churches. The tower at Cerne is probably by the same builder
as Bradford, judging from the similarity of the buttresses and
pinnacles in the two churches. Beaminster also has a fine tower, and
so has Marnhull, though the general effect of the latter is ruined by
the clumsy modern parapet. Milton Abbey tower has good details. In all
these cases, excepting Cerne, there are double windows in the belfry
stage; but this arrangement is not so common in Dorset as in Somerset,
and the writer knows no instance of triple windows. A Somerset feature
that is very commonly met with in Dorset is an external stair-turret,
an arrangement not found in the East of England. The Somerset builders
often placed pinnacles on the offsets of their buttresses; these are
rarely seen in Dorset. Generally, the Dorset towers are not so richly
ornamented as those of Somerset.
It has been said before that there are only two Dorset churches with
spires built before the Reformation. A few words may not be out of
place descriptive of the two. Steepleton is a long, narrow church,
with nave and chancel, but no aisle. A blocked-up Norman arch, and a
pointed one, similarly blocked, in the north wall of the nave, indicate
that originally a chapel, or chapels, stood here. A curious stone,
carved with the figure of a floating angel, probably taken from the
interior, was at some time built into the exterior of the south wall
of the nave. It has by this means escaped destruction, but the damp
has caused lichen to grow on it. It bears a strong resemblance to the
angel to be seen over the chancel arch of St. Lawrence’s Church at
Bradford-on-Avon. It is not unlikely that the corresponding angel is
on a stone that has been used in blocking one of the arches mentioned
before. They possibly date from pre-Conquest days, or, at any rate,
from a time before the pre-Conquest style had died out in this
remote village, and may have formed part of a representation of the
Ascension. The western stone may possibly date from the fourteenth
century, as a window in its east face, now covered by the raised roof,
shows geometrical tracery; the windows in the other faces are much
later—probably they have been altered. The main octagonal spire that
rises from the tower does not seem to have been part of the original
design. On the four spaces between the corners of the tower and the
spire are four spirelets; these do not stand as pinnacles of the tower,
nor are they used, as sometimes spirelets were used, to hide the
awkward junction of a broad spire with a square tower, for this is not
a broad, but rises, as fourteenth century spires generally do, from the
tower roof, though here a parapet hardly exists.
Trent Steeple, standing midway on the south side of the church,
is a very beautiful one; the tower has double-light windows, with
geometrical tracery, and a pierced parapet, with pinnacles, from
which rises a very graceful spire, the edges of which have a circular
moulding. The spire is slightly twisted from some subsidence, and
cracks have occurred in the tower. The church has no aisles, but the
projecting tower, the lower part of which serves as an entrance porch,
on the south, and the chapel and organ chamber on the north, give
it a very picturesque appearance. A modern addition is a distinctly
pleasant feature, namely, an octagonal baptistery, which stands
beyond the church at the west end of the nave. The interior is also
pleasing. There are bench ends of oak, black with age, a reading desk
on the north side, of like material, and a fine oak chancel screen.
The carved wooden pulpit, if not entirely modern, is very largely so.
In the churchyard are the steps and base of a churchyard cross. It is
an exceedingly beautiful church, and the few houses in its immediate
neighbourhood, with stone mullioned windows, are all in keeping with
the church. The straggling cottages, the winding lanes, render it one
of the most picturesque villages in the county. It was a distinct loss
to Somerset and gain to Dorset when this parish was transferred from
the former to the latter county.
This sketch of the Dorset churches would be incomplete without
reference to some of the noteworthy features to be met with in the
fittings of some of them. The cast-lead font of St. Mary’s, Wareham,
on which figures of the Apostles are still distinguishable from each
other, despite the rough usage to which they have been subjected, may
possibly date from Saxon days, and from the resemblance it bears to
the font in Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire, they may well have been
contemporaneous. If so, it gives countenance to the belief that this
font dates from the time when, as yet, the whole Wessex kingdom was one
diocese with its Bishop-stool at the Oxfordshire Dorchester—that is,
sometime between the conversion of Cynegils by St. Birinus in 635 and
the division of the diocese into the two separate sees of Winchester
and Sherborne in 705; as after this event the Oxfordshire Dorchester
would have little to do with Dorset.
The church at Piddletown has escaped the drastic restoration that has
destroyed the interest of so many of our Dorset churches. Archæologists
may well rejoice that the gallery and pews have not been swept away
with ruthless zeal, and will pray that they may, for many years to
come, stand as witnesses of what was being done in Dorset at a time
when the storm was gathering that was destined for a while to overthrow
the power of king and priest.
In Bloxworth Church there still remains in its stand the hour-glass by
which the preacher regulated the length of his sermon. This probably
was placed in its position about the middle of the seventeenth century.
The people in those days liked sermons, and expected to be able to
listen to one for at least an hour, though sometimes the preacher, when
all the sand had run into the lower half of the hour-glass, would give
his congregation another hour, turning the glass; and sometimes yet
once again the glass was turned. As we look on this relic of sermon
loving days, we cannot help thinking of the eyes of the weary children,
doomed to sit under these long-winded preachers, turned on the slowly
trickling sand, and the sense of relief they must have felt when the
last grain had run down, and the hour of their enforced listening was
at an end.
To this same seventeenth century may be ascribed many of the
elaborately carved oaken pulpits which are to be found in Dorset, as,
for instance, those at Beaminster, Netherbury, Charminster, Iwerne
Minster, and Abbotsbury. In the last may still be seen two holes caused
by bullets fired by Cromwell’s soldiers when the church was garrisoned
by Royalists under General Strangways.
At Frampton a stone pulpit, of fifteenth century date, much restored,
still exists. At Corton Chapel a fine pre-Reformation stone altar
stands, which escaped destruction when the order for the removal of
stone altars was issued in 1550, because Corton was one of those free
chapels which had been suppressed and deprived of its revenue three
years before by the Chantry Act of 1 Edward VI.
In the neighbouring church at Portesham a window on the north side
of the nave shews signs of the influence which on the Continent led
to the Flamboyant style. A fine Jacobean screen may be seen at West
Stafford Church, which was removed from its original position and put
further to the east when the church was lengthened a few years ago.
In Hilton Church there are twelve noteworthy mediæval panel paintings,
each more than six feet high, representing the Apostles. These once
belonged to Milton Abbey.
When Tarrant Rushton Church was restored, on the eastern face of the
chancel arch were found two earthenware vases. Their use is a matter of
doubt, but an idea formerly prevailed that such vessels gave richness
to the voice, and from this idea they were sometimes let into the
walls, and were known as acoustic vases.
Dorset is fairly rich in monumental effigies in stone and alabaster.
One of the most beautiful and best preserved of the latter is that
erected in Wimborne Minster by the Lady Margaret, in memory of her
father and mother, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his wife.
Cross-legged effigies are to be seen in Wareham, Bridport, Piddletown,
Wimborne Minster, Dorchester, Trent, Horton, Wimborne St. Giles, and
Stock Gaylard. The first four bear a close resemblance to one another.
The knight wears a sleeved tunic or hauberk of mail, a hooded coif, and
over this a helmet. This costume indicates a date before the middle
of the twelfth century. The feet rest upon an animal. At one time the
fact that the legs were crossed was held to indicate that the person
represented was a Crusader; if the legs were crossed at the ankles it
was supposed that he had made one pilgrimage to the East; if at the
knees, two; if higher up, three. But all this is probably erroneous,
for on the one hand some known Crusaders are not represented with their
legs crossed, while others who are known not to have gone to the Holy
Land are so represented. And even a stronger proof may be adduced,
namely, that some of the crossed-legged effigies represent knights
who lived after the Crusades were over; for example, that found on
the tomb of Sir Peter Carew at Exeter, who died in 1571. In Mappowder
Church there is a miniature cross-legged effigy, about two feet long.
This is often spoken of as a “boy crusader”—a child who is supposed to
have gone with his father to the Holy Land, and to have died there.
But this is probably a mistake. Similar diminutive effigies are found
in divers places; for instance, that at Salisbury which goes by the
name of the “Boy Bishop,” and Bishop Ethelmer’s (1260) at Winchester.
Many authorities think that, as it was customary in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries to bury different parts of the body in different
places, these effigies mark the spot where the heart was buried. The
figure at Mappowder holds a heart in its hands, and this certainly
lends countenance to this theory. A similar monument formerly existed
at Frampton, but it has disappeared. At Trent is a crossed-legged
effigy of a “franklin”—a civilian who was allowed to wear a sword.
There are two figures in St. Peter’s, Dorchester, laid on the sills of
windows; it is said they were removed from the old Priory Church. These
are of later date, namely, the end of the fourteenth century. They wear
plate armour, and on their heads pointed bassinets, while the great
helms that were worn over these serve as pillows for their heads to
rest on.
At West Chelborough there is a curious monument without date or name:
a lady lies asleep on a bed with a child enveloped in the folds of
her drapery; probably this indicates that she died in giving birth to
the infant. Another curious monument is met with in Sandford Orcas
Church, whereon may be seen William Knoyle kneeling with one of his
wives in front, and one behind him, and behind the latter, four corpses
of children; the knight and first wife have skulls in their hands, to
indicate that they were dead when the monument (1607) was erected;
the second wife is dressed in black to show her widowhood; her seven
children are also represented, the four girls by her, and the three
boys behind the father. It will be noticed that the recumbent figures
of earlier time gave place to kneeling figures in the sixteenth
century, when the husband and wife were often represented opposite to
each other, with their children behind them in graduated sizes. These
are far less pleasing than the monuments of earlier date; but worse
was to come, an example of which may be seen at St. Peter’s Church,
Dorchester, in the monument of Denzil, Lord Holles, so well known in
the history of the reign of Charles I.
A bare mention must suffice for other monuments. In Marnhull, Thomas
Howard (1582), a man of huge stature, lies between his two wives, small
delicate women, who are absolutely alike in person and dress. It would
seem as if their effigies were mere conventional representations. In
the neighbouring church of Stalbridge lies an emaciated corpse in a
shroud without date or name.
In Netherbury is a mutilated alabaster figure with “S.S.” on the
collar; at Melbury Sampford the alabaster effigy of William Brounyng,
who died 1467, wears plate armour and the Yorkist collar. At
Charminster are several canopied tombs of the Trenchards, in Purbeck
marble, of a form found in many Wessex churches, and the figure of a
daughter of Sir Thomas Trenchard, wife of Sir William Pole, who died
in 1636. She kneels before a book lying open on a desk, and wears a
fur tippet. In Chideock Chapel may be seen a knight in plate armour,
possibly Sir John Chideock, who died in 1450. In Came Church are the
recumbent figures of Sir John Miller and his wife Anna (1610).
In Farnham, over the altar, is a plain stone in memory of one Alexander
Bower, a preacher of God’s Word, who is said to have died “in the year
of _Christes_ incarnation (1616).” This is interesting as showing the
unabridged form of the possessive case.
Built in the wall over the door of Durweston Church is a piece of
carving, which originally was above the altar and beneath the east
window, representing a blacksmith shoeing a horse; and over the west
door of Hinton Parva is a carving of an angel, a cross, and a butterfly.
The finest timber roof in the county is undoubtedly that of Bere Regis
nave. It is said that Cardinal Morton placed this roof upon the church
when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born near, or in, this
village, and after the battle of Towton was attainted. In the central
shield on the roof the arms of Morton are impaled with the arms of
the See of Canterbury; this gives the date of the erection somewhere
between 1486 and 1500, but a Cardinal’s hat on one of the figures
limits the date still further, as it was not until 1493 that Morton
became a Cardinal. The figures, which project from the hammer beams
and look downwards, are popularly known as the Apostles, but the dress
precludes this idea, as one is habited as a Deacon, and one, as said
above, wears a Cardinal’s hat. The painting of the roof is modern, done
when the roof was restored.