Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory Part 4

But, if we disregard these legends, we do not at once find ourselves on sure and certain ground. The foundation has been attributed to aethelstan, but this is hardly likely, as, in a charter dated 939, he gives one of the weirs on the Avon at Twynham to the Abbey Church of Middleton, now Milton Abbey in North Dorset, which he would be hardly likely to do if he had founded, or were thinking of founding, a religious house at Twynham; and as he died in 940, not much time was left for any foundation after this grant. Again, we find King Eadred granting land and fishing near Twineham to Dunstan. However, in the time of the Confessor, mention is made of the canons of Holy Trinity possessing lands in Thuinam. It must be remembered that it had been intended, according to the legend, to dedicate the church to the Holy Trinity, and no doubt this was done, although it was afterwards identified especially with the second Person.

In Domesday it is stated that the canons of the Church of the Holy Trinity hold lands in the village, and also in the Isle of Wight opposite. Certain it is that in the days of Eadward the Confessor there was a church at Twynham dedicated to the Holy Trinity, held by a collegiate society of secular canons. This church was swept away by Ranulf Flambard, the notorious justiciar and chaplain of William II., whose evil deeds, contrary to the oft-quoted pa.s.sage from Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar, are now generally forgotten; while the good deeds that he wrought,--the nave of this church, and the still grander nave of Durham Cathedral Church, Durham Castle, "Norham's castled steep," and Kepier Hospital, built while he held the most important diocese in the North of England,--live after him, and have shed a glory on his name. Evil he was in moral character without doubt, but a glorious builder nevertheless. Though he oppressed the clergy, though it was through his instrumentality and by his advice that sees were kept vacant for years, and when filled, only given to those who were able and willing to pay large sums to the king, yet it is rather as a great architect than as an ecclesiastic that we, who gaze with delight and admiration on his work that has come down to us, will regard him. It is said that, as his end drew nigh, he realised the amount of evil he had done, and strove to make his peace with heaven and rest.i.tution to some, at least, of those whom he had wronged. He died in 1128, and his body rests in the great Cathedral Church of St Cuthbert that he had done so much to raise. But it was in the earlier part of his career, before he received the bishopric of Durham in 1099, that he probably began the work at Christchurch with which we are at present concerned.[4]

He was succeeded there by G.o.dric, who is called Senior and Patron and afterwards Dean; but Flambard seems still to have exercised some authority over him, illegal probably, but none the less real. We find him granting to G.o.dric, for the work of building, all the offerings made by strangers and pilgrims, and when a canon died his share of the revenues of the college was devoted to the same object, the vacancy not being filled up by the appointment of any new canon.

[4] Sir Gilbert Scott, however, thought that the Norman nave of the Cathedral Church at Durham was commenced before Flambard became bishop, and that the new church at Christchurch was begun after that date, so that the work at Christchurch was copied by him from what he found already commenced at Durham when he went there.

The length of G.o.dric's tenure of office is uncertain. On his death Henry I. appointed Gilbert de Dousgunels dean, having appropriated to himself the acc.u.mulated fabric fund. Henry I. granted the patronage of the church to Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, who appointed his chaplain, Peter, a Norman of Caen, dean. This dean seems to have diverted the funds from the work of completing the church, but his successor, Randulphus, carried on the work again, so that in his time the church and the conventual buildings were roofed in. In the time of Hilary, in the year 1150, the secular college of canons was converted into a Priory of Augustinian Canons. This change was made with the consent of Baldwin de Redvers, in accordance with the wishes of Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, and at that time Bishop of Winchester, who is well known from the fact of his founding the Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester.

Hilary, two years before this change was made, had been consecrated Bishop of Chichester, and subsequently became one of the episcopal opponents of Thomas Becket. Henceforth, until the dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII., the head of the religious community at Christchurch was a prior, who was, according to a charter granted by Richard de Redvers in 1160, elected by the canons. There were, in all, twenty-six priors, and their names have come down to us, but with only the most meagre notices of the architectural work which was carried on by each of them. Extensive, however, it must have been; and from what we see of the church itself, it would seem as if building operations must have been almost constantly in progress.

In all probability there was, according to the usual plan of Norman churches, a tower at the junction of the nave and transepts, and beyond this an apsidal choir. But there is no doc.u.mentary record of such a tower ever having been built or fallen, although its existence is rendered probable by a carving of a church with tower and spire on Draper's chantry, and by a similar representation on a seal, and in two other parts of the building. It is probable that the original choir extended westward beyond the transept, as at Westminster to the present day.

As has been stated above, the Norman church was commenced by Flambard towards the end of the eleventh century; and of the work so begun, the earliest existing remains are the arcading of the nave, the triforium, and the transepts with the eastern apsidal chapel attached to the south transept. Next to this in order came the walls of the aisles of the nave, and the cloisters and chapter-house, which, however, have disappeared; cloisters would come to be considered a necessity as soon as the secular canons were superseded by regulars. The early English clerestory of the nave seems to have been built in the time of the third prior, Peter, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. To the end of same century may be approximately a.s.signed the vaulting of the nave aisles, the north porch, and a chapel attached to the north transept.

Alterations of an extensive nature seem to have been begun in the fourteenth century; for to this date belong the rood screen, placed farther to the east than the old division between the ritual choir of the canons and the western part of the nave, which was probably given up to the lay dwellers in the parish,--and the splendid reredos. The Lady Chapel also was completed certainly before 1406, probably eleven years earlier. The fifteenth century saw the western tower built and the choir commenced and a great part of it finished, though the vaulting seems not to have been completed until the early part of the sixteenth century, as W. E. the initials of William Eyre, who was prior from 1502 to 1520, are to be seen on the bosses and the arch of the south choir aisle. Somewhat later still is the chantry at the east end of the south choir aisle, built by the last prior and dated 1529, and the chantry built by the last of the Plantagenets, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of the Earl of Clarence and mother of Cardinal Pole, who at the age of seventy was executed by Henry VIII. in 1541.

Shortly before the dissolution in 1536 Prior Draper addressed a pet.i.tion to Henry VIII. which is still in existence in the Record Office, praying that he would spare the Priory church, basing his request upon the desolate character of the district, the poverty of the house, and the fact that the church was not only a place for poor religious men, but also a parish church to the town and hamlets round about, whose inhabitants numbered from fifteen to sixteen hundred, that there was no place where any honest man on horseback or on foot might have succour or repose for the s.p.a.ce of eight or nine miles, "but only this poor place of Christchurch, to which both rich and poor doth repair and repose." He goes on to say how it was of late years a place of secular canons, until the king's antecessors made it a place of canons regular, that "the poor, not only of the parish and town, but also of the country, were daily relieved and sustained with bread and ale, purposely baked and brewed for them weekly to no small quant.i.ties according to their foundation, and a house ordained purposely for them, and officers according duly given attendance to serve them to their great comfort and relief." But all the pleading was in vain.

Commissioners were appointed, who presented their report to Lord Cromwell December 2, 1539. They say that "we found the Prior a very honest and conformable person, and the house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meet for the king's majesty's use." Then follows a list of the treasures of the abbey, of the yearly value of the several endowments, and of the officers of the Priory, thirteen in number besides the Prior. Prior Draper retired on a pension, and the site of the domestic buildings was conveyed to Stephen and Margaret Kirton. The domestic buildings themselves gradually disappeared, but the whole of the church was handed over to the parish as a church, the grant to the churchwardens being made by letters patent 23 October 32 Henry VIII. It conveyed to them "the choir body, bell-tower with seven bells, stones, timber, lead of roofing and gutters of the church and the cemetery on the north side." Since then the church has been served by vicars, the patronage being in the hands of the dean and chapter of Winchester until the nineteenth century, when the advowson was purchased by Lord Malmesbury. The living is now in the gift of the Bishop of Winchester.

During the present century much restoration has been done. The nave was vaulted in stucco in 1819; the west window was taken in hand in 1828; the pinnacles of the tower and the upper part of the turret containing the stairs were renewed in 1871; and constant repairs have been going on up to the present time; and the principle that has guided the restorer has been, when any stonework has been removed to put in its place as exact a copy of the old as possible,--a principle that cannot be approved of, as it will lead, when the newness of the modern work has been toned down by time, to confusion between the genuine old work and the modern imitation of it. It is far better, when there is no question of stability but only of appearance, to leave the old stonework, even though much decayed, as it is, unsc.r.a.ped, untouched by the chisel, and where strength is needed to put in frankly nineteenth-century work, which could never by any possibility be mistaken for part of the original building.

One of the most glaring instances of injudicious restoration is to be met with in the apsidal chapel attached to the eastern side of the south transept. This work was carried out by the Hon. C. Harris, late Bishop of Gibraltar. The arcading is a nineteenth-century imitation of Norman work; the pavement is glaringly modern. Of what interest, it may well be asked, is such work? Who would care to visit Christchurch to see it? The nineteenth-century carver cannot possibly produce work similar to that of the carver who lived in the twelfth century,--the conditions of his life are altogether different, his training bears no resemblance to that of the old artist, his work is a forgery, and a most clumsy one too. In this chapel we see this reprehensible practice carried to its fullest extent, but there are many other parts of the building which have suffered. Most of the arcading on the exterior of the transept is modern imitation, and the tracery of the windows of the south choir aisle has been entirely renewed; no old stones, though many might have been used, have been reset in their original position. The arcading of the south aisle of the nave has been terribly tampered with. Possibly under the influence of time many of the shafts had partially crumbled, and the surface of the carved capitals had perished, so that the original design could not be made out; but that was no reason for cutting away the ornamental work to make way for modern decoration which may or may not bear some slight resemblance to what was there before. Some of the piers of the nave arcading have also been partially renewed. By an act of much-to-be-condemned vandalism the sub-arches of the two eastern bays of the south triforium of the nave were cut away to make room for faculty pews; recently a glaring white pillar has been introduced into the westernmost of these two bays, and two sub-arches built. If the same kind of work is carried out in the other, we shall see in all probability an attempt to copy the unique scale decoration which still exists on the tympanum under the corresponding princ.i.p.al arch on the north side, cut with modern tools with all the lifeless rigidity of modern work. Another mistake which has been made, is the sc.r.a.ping off of the plaster from the interior walls of the chamber known as St Michael's Loft, over the Lady Chapel, and the re-pointing of the stonework. Old builders invariably covered their rubble walls with plaster, but the modern restorer for some reason seems to hate plaster and prefers, to show the coa.r.s.e stonework which the builder never intended should be seen, and to emphasise the roughness by filling up the joints with conspicuous pointing. This, however, is not so destructive as much of the work which has been condemned above, because at any time the walls could be recovered with a thin coat of smooth plaster laid on with a trowel, but not "floated,"--that is, not brought to a smooth surface by a long straightedge.

A large and old building such as this Priory Church will need almost constant repairs to keep it sound and safe, and the income from visitors' fees is quite sufficient for this purpose. It is, however, much to be feared that restoration and reconstruction will form far too large a part of the work done in this building. Every new ornamental stone, to make room for which some original stone is displaced, detracts from the value of the building from an archaeological point of view; and though there may be some, or even many, who prefer the trim and smug appearance of modern work to that of the old, instinct with life, full of the thoughts of the builders and workers in wood and stone, whose bones have mouldered into dust in the garth of the vanished cloisters, and whose very names have in many cases been forgotten, yet we hope that those who have this priceless treasure in their keeping may recognise ere it is too late, that the result of a continuance of the process of restoration commenced about the middle of the nineteenth century will be the gradual conversion of a splendid memorial of bygone ages into a modern sham, and they themselves will be regarded, when true love of art becomes general, with the same indignation as that which they themselves feel with regard to those who pulled down the roof of the south transept and cut out the columns and sub-arches of the triforium in days before the Gothic revival set in. And the modern restorer has less excuse than the destroyer of a hundred years ago. If, like the vandals of the Georgian period, they had been blind to the beauties of architectural art, they would have had no sin, yet since they profess to see, therefore their sin will remain and their names will be held in perpetual reproach and everlasting contempt.

The foregoing historical sketch of the building has perforce been somewhat vague in dates, for, in the absence of doc.u.mentary evidence, it is not easy to fix from architectural considerations alone the date of any particular piece of work within a limit of some twenty years or so.

The out-of-the-way position of the Priory of Christchurch--for no great road ran through the town, and though it is near the sea there is no convenient harbour near it--has brought it to pa.s.s that it is scarcely mentioned in any mediaeval chronicles. Its own fabric rolls and annals have been lost. Here and there, however, the date of a will or the inscription on a monument has enabled a more definite date to be arrived at. The dates also of the dedications of some of the many altars are known--viz. that of the Holy Saviour, used by the canons as their high altar, and that of St Stephen, dedicated by the Bishop of Ross in 1199; that of the altar of the Holy Trinity, which stood in the nave, and was the high altar of the parish; and those of the altars of SS. Peter and Paul, SS. Augustine and Gregory and all the Prophets, dedicated by Walter, Bishop of Whitherne, on November 7, 1214; that of the altar of St John the Baptist and St Edmund, dedicated on December 7, 1214, by the same bishop; and that of the altar of SS. Michael and Martin, dedicated by the Bishop of the Isles in 1221.

CHAPTER II

THE EXTERIOR

The exterior of the church of Christchurch Priory may be well seen from several points of view. The churchyard lies to the north of the building, extending beyond it both to the east and west. On the south side, where all the domestic buildings of the Priory once stood, there is a modern house and private grounds. All that belongs to the church is a path running under the walls as far as the east corner of the transept, where a garden door stops farther progress. Several glimpses of the building, however, may be obtained on the way down to the Stour, and seen from the south side of this river, the church rises above its surroundings, and forms a conspicuous object. A good general view on the north-east may also be obtained from a bridge over the Avon. From this point of view the great length of the church is apparent; on the right-hand side may be seen the ruins of the Norman keep of the castle on its artificial mound, and nearer to the bridge the remains of a twelfth-century Norman house. From the churchyard, also, the whole north side of the church may be seen at once, and many striking features will be noticed. Among these, the circular staircase attached to the transept, with its rich diaper work; Norman arcading of interlacing arches running round the transept; the large windows of the choir clerestory, so wide and closely set together that the whole wall seems as though composed of gla.s.s--through which, and the windows of the opposite wall, the light of the sky can be seen; and lastly, the upper storey of the Lady Chapel with its row of windows of a domestic type.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRISTCHURCH PRIORY, FROM THE NORTH-EAST.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER DOOR.]

A systematic examination of the exterior may best be begun with the #Western Tower#. This is of fifteenth-century date, and is set partially within the church--that is to say, its builder did not add it to the west of the church, making an archway through the previously existing west front, but pulled down the whole west wall of the nave, leaving, however, the west walls of the aisles, and carried the north and south walls of the new tower as far back into the church as the s.p.a.ce occupied by the western bay, thus leaving two s.p.a.ces at the west end of the aisles, one now used as a vestry, the other as a kind of lumber-room. In the west face of the tower is a doorway under a rectangular label; in the spandrels are two shields, bearing the arms of the Priory, and of the Montacutes and Monthermers, Earls of Salisbury.

The doors are modern. Immediately above the doorway is a large window with three tiers, each containing six lights. The head of the window above these is of an ordinary Perpendicular character. The tracery was restored in 1828. Above this window is a niche containing a figure of Christ. The upper stage, which contains the bells, has two two-light windows in each face, each light being divided by a transom. These windows are not glazed, but are furnished with louvre-boards. The tower is crowned with a pierced battlemented parapet having pinnacles at the corners and at the middles of each side; within this rises a low pyramidal roof. The stair turret runs up at the north-east angle of the tower; this is octagonal, and is crowned with a parapet and crocketed pinnacles; the upper part of this turret and the pinnacles were renewed in 1871. The tower is strengthened by two b.u.t.tresses at right angles to each other at each of the two western angles. On either side of the tower, as already explained, may be seen the west end of the nave aisles; these have windows with Perpendicular tracery, and on the north wall of the north aisle is a plain, round-headed doorway cut through the wall in modern time, with a Perpendicular window over it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH PORCH.]

Next comes the #North Porch#, with a chamber above it--here, as in many other churches, the chief entrance into the building. Its great dimensions, both in length and height, however, are remarkable; it projects 40 feet beyond the aisle wall, and its own side walls rise nearly to the height of the clerestory of the church. Its south end does not extend beyond the wall of the aisle, so that there is a s.p.a.ce between the upper part of the porch and the clerestory. The upper part above the porch proper contains, as mentioned above, a lofty chamber, probably originally the muniment-room. This is lighted by two pairs of narrow single-light windows on either side, and by a similar pair in the north face beneath the obtuse-angled gable. This room is, no doubt, a later addition. The entrance into the porch is a beautiful, deeply-recessed archway of thirteenth-century date, with numerous shafts of Purbeck marble on either side. Within the porch the side walls are divided into two compartments, each of which is composed of two pointed arches beneath another larger pointed arch, with a cinquefoil in the head. On the west side, near the outer archway, is a cinquefoiled recess, with shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. This is said originally to have contained a desk, at which the prior met the parishioners and signed deeds. A stone seat runs along each side of the porch walls. The double doorway which leads into the church is very beautiful and rich Early English work. From six Purbeck marble shafts on either side spring the orders of the enclosing archway; the heads of the double doorways themselves are cinquefoiled arches with foliated cusps.

At the jambs, and dividing the two doors, are cl.u.s.ters of Purbeck marble shafts, with moulded capitals. In the tympanum is a quatrefoil, the upper part of which projects so as to form a canopy. This was, no doubt, intended to contain some carved subject, possibly the Doom. Very extensive restoration was carried out in the groining and porch generally, in 1862.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORTH DOOR.]

The wall of the #North Aisle# between the porch and the transept is divided into six compartments by Early English b.u.t.tresses with gabled heads. This wall was built in Norman times, as may be seen from the small round-headed windows which light the clerestory, but was in Early English times faced with fresh ashlar, which conceals the Norman arcading of intersecting arches which ran along this wall. The triforium windows on this side are not, though they are on the south side, regularly arranged; there are none in the two western divisions, while between the easternmost b.u.t.tress and the transept there are two. Six late thirteenth-century windows were cut through this wall--these are all of similar design; they consist of two lights under a comprising arch, with a circle in the head. The clerestory windows are of plainer character. Each window consists of two simple lancets set under a recessed arch without any hood moulding; the tympana also above the lancet heads are not pierced or decorated in any way; in fact, the whole clerestory is remarkably plain. Between the windows are flat b.u.t.tresses.

The aisles are covered with lean-to roofs of lead, the nave itself with a tiled roof of medium pitch. The gable at the east end of the nave, and indications on the east face of the tower, show that the pitch of the roof was once higher, and that it must have been lowered at some time after the tower was built in the fifteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORTH TRANSEPT IN 1810.

(From Britton's "Architectural Antiquities.")]

The #North Transept# is most interesting. Its west wall contains two round-headed windows with billet moulding, the northern one blocked up; and at the north-west corner is a cl.u.s.ter of cylindrical shafts running up to about the same height as the walls of the aisle. Why they terminated here it is hard to say; they may mark the termination of the original Norman wall. This wall may not have risen above this height, or the upper part may have been taken down and rebuilt when the large Perpendicular window was inserted in the north end of the transept. At the north-east corner of the transept stands a richly-ornamented turret of Norman date. Round the lower part of this the arcade of intersecting arches which runs round the whole transept is carried; above this, round the turret, runs an arcading of semicircular-headed arches springing from pairs of shafts; above this the wall is decorated with diaper work; and finally, another arcading, this time of round-headed arches rising from single shafts, encircles the turret. The turret is capped by a sloping roof of stone attached to the transept wall. This turret is worthy of close attention, because it shows how the Norman builders hated monotony; each stage has its own decoration unlike that of any other; and, moreover, there are variations in the shafts of the arcading--some are plain, some decorated in one way, some in another.

The same love of variety may be seen here that lends so great a charm on a larger scale to Flambard's glorious nave at Durham. No doubt this north transept had attached to its east wall an apsidal Norman chapel similar to that which still exists on the eastern side of the south transept, but this had to make way for an addition of two chapels, which we may a.s.sign, from the character of their architecture, to the latter end of the thirteenth century. The northern chapel is lighted by a three-light window with three foliated circles in the head, which is rather sharp pointed, and the southern one by a two-light window with one foliated arch. These are beautiful examples of plate tracery. Above these chapels is a small chamber lighted by a window of similar character. This is supposed to have been the tracing room, where the various architectural designs for the building were drawn.

To the east of the transept may be seen the #Choir# and #Presbytery#, with its four clerestory windows; the #Choir Aisle#, also with four windows; the #Lady Chapel#, with the octagonal turret-staircase leading into Saint Michael's Loft above it. It will be noticed that there is no window in the aisle under the western clerestory window of the choir, as the s.p.a.ce where this would have been found is occupied by the two chapels to the east of the transept, and also that the aisle extends beyond the choir and flanks the western part of the Lady Chapel. The whole of this part of the church is of Perpendicular character. The windows of the choir aisles are low, the arches are depressed, and the curvature of each side of the arch is so slight that they appear almost straight lines. The body of these windows contains four lights; in the head, each of these is subdivided into two. Between the aisle windows are b.u.t.tresses, which, with the exception of the one opposite the east wall of the choir, which terminates in a gable, have pinnacled cappings; and from each of these, save the gabled one, a flying b.u.t.tress is carried over the roof of the aisle and rests against the choir wall.

The aisle roof is flat, and at the top of the outer wall runs a plain parapet pierced with quatrefoil openings. The clerestory windows are of great size and are set close together. The choir roof is flat and is quite invisible from the exterior. There can be little doubt that a parapet at one time ran along the tops of the clerestory walls, but this has disappeared. The Lady Chapel has on either side three large Perpendicular windows; the arches of these as well as those of the clerestory have pointed heads. The western half of the central window of the Lady Chapel is blocked up by the later-built octagonal turret containing the staircase to Saint Michael's Loft. The staircase commences in an octagonal turret at the north-east corner of the choir aisle,--this rises above the aisle roof,--the stairs are then carried above the east wall of the choir aisle and then into the octagonal turret, which runs up the wall of the Lady Chapel and the loft above, and rises to some height above the parapet. There is a similar staircase on the south side, but the turret does not rise quite so high above the roof. There are five square-headed two-light windows on either side of St Michael's Loft, the lights being divided by transoms, the upper parts foliated. At the east end is a three-light window without any transom, with an obtuse arch under a dripstone. The loft has a parapet all round it pierced with quatrefoil openings. Some of this parapet, at any rate, is modern, as, in a photograph of the north side taken in 1884, the parapet is only shown to the east of the turret. As restoration work is constantly going on at the church, the money paid by visitors for viewing the interior (sixpence a head, which produces over 500 a year) being devoted to this object, the parapet will doubtless in course of time be extended along the walls of the choir, and will certainly add to the beauty of the church; and as nothing will be destroyed to make room for it, such an addition will not be open to the same objection as much of the work done by restoration committees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORTH TRANSEPT.]

The b.u.t.tresses at the east angles of the Lady Chapel are set diagonally, and rise in five stages; the upper stage of each is square, in section, with the faces parallel to the walls of the church, and reaches a higher level than the parapet, and is finished with a flat cap. The large east window is a Perpendicular one of five lights. From the base of the south-east b.u.t.tress runs a wall dividing the burying-ground from the gardens of the house, to the south of the church, which stands on the site of the domestic buildings of the priory. The portion of the wall of the Lady Chapel beneath the eastern-most window on the north side is modern. Here Mr Ferrey, the architect, by whom much of the restoration was carried out, discovered traces of an external chantry and the marks of an arcading corresponding to that still remaining on the inside.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE.]

The object of the chamber above the Lady Chapel is uncertain,--in 1617 it is described as "St Michael's Loft," in 1666 the parishioners described it as "heretofore a chapter-house," when pet.i.tioning the bishop to allow it to be used as a school. But if it was ever used as a chapter-house, it could only have been for a short time, as there is evidence that there was a chapter-house to the south side of the choir in the twelfth century, and that this remained as late as 1498. The south side of the Lady Chapel and choir correspond very closely with the north side, but there are several differences to be noticed between the south and north transepts. On the eastern side of the #South Transept# the Norman apsidal chapel still remains. This has a semi-conical roof with chevron table moulding under it, and two windows--one of original Norman work, the other a three-light Early English window. A sacristy of Early English date stands to the east of the apsidal chapel, and occupies the s.p.a.ce between the apse and the south choir wall. At the south-east corner of the transept there is a circular stair turret corresponding to some extent with the turret at the north-east angle of the north transept; this, in the second stage, becomes octagonal in section, and rises above the parapet of the transept. In the south face is a depressed segmental window, much smaller than the corresponding window on the north side, under a gabled parapet. The pitch of the roof of the south transept is much higher than that of the north transept, and the upper part of the transept does not abut against the walls of the church. Two tiers of corbel brackets on the south wall, and traces of two Norman windows seem to indicate that here, as elsewhere, a slype, with a room above it, intervened between the south end of the transept and the chapter-house. This slype was generally a pa.s.sage connecting the cloister garth with the smaller garth to the south of the choir which was often used as a burying-place for the abbots or priors, as the case may be, and was the place where the monks or canons interviewed visitors and chapmen. The room above was often used as the library. The south of the #Nave# is decidedly inferior in interest to the north. The cloisters have entirely disappeared, but a series of round-headed arches, formed of stucco, may conceal a stone arcading similar to that hidden by the Early English facing of the north wall. The small round-headed windows giving light to the triforium are more regularly arranged than on the north side; there is one, and only one, in each division between the b.u.t.tresses. There were, as usual, two doors in this wall: one for the canons, in the wall opposite to the west of the cloister, one close to the transept for the prior; both are now blocked up. The prior's door, in the injunction of Langton, 1498, is directed to be kept locked, save when on festivals a procession pa.s.sed through it. This doorway is of early thirteenth-century work; it is round-headed, and is French in character. There is a legend that a party of French monks, terrified by a dragon which rose out of the sea, possibly an ancestor of the sea-serpent of more modern days, put in to Christchurch haven, and were entertained by the canons, with whom they abode for many years; possibly this door may be of their workmanship or design. In the south wall a large aumbry or cupboard, in the thickness of the walls, may be seen; in this possibly the canons kept the books that they had brought from the library for study. What the windows in this aisle were we cannot say--originally, no doubt, Norman, for the westernmost window is still of this style; but the others, which were widened either in Early English or Decorated times, are now all filled with nineteenth-century tracery of Decorated type. The b.u.t.tresses between the windows, unlike those on the north side, are flat Norman ones. Towards the west end of the aisle a pa.s.sage has in modern times been cut through the wall, and when this was done remains of a staircase which, no doubt, led to the dormitory, were discovered. The clerestory, on this side, is of the same plain character as on the north side.

In a line with the south wall, but some little distance to the west, still stands a house which was once the porter's lodge, close to the site of the gatehouse. The porter's lodge was built by Prior Draper II. in the sixteenth century. The remains of the domestic buildings are very scanty--some old walls near the modern mill, occupying, no doubt, the site of the mill where the canons' corn was ground; some vestiges of the fish ponds; some few traces of walls and foundations, are all that have come down to modern days. From the similarity of arrangement in the buildings of religious houses, however, we can, with great certainty, a.s.sign the sites for the various parts--the dormitory over the cellarage, to the west of the cloister garth; the refectory to south of it; the calefactory, chapter-house, slype, to the east; and the prior's lodgings to the south of the choir, forming the lesser garth; the barns, bakery, and brew-house to the south-west of the church, near the porter's lodge and gatehouse. The prior had a country house at Heron Court, a grange at Somerford, and another at St Austin's, near Lymington. It must be understood that the choir was the church of the canons, and, as was common in churches served by Augustinian canons, the nave was used for the services which the laity of the district attended.

It is noteworthy that whether owing to the purity of the air, so different from that which exists in the large cities where so many of the cathedral churches stand, or from the goodness of the stone, most of the Priory Church is in most excellent preservation. Carving which, we are a.s.sured, has never been retouched with a chisel since it was first cut, remains as sharp and clearly cut as though it were the work of the nineteenth century; possibly some of its excellence is due to the preservative effect of the whitewash with which it was once covered, and which has been cleaned off with water and a stiff bristled brush.

The stone of which the north side of the nave is built came from Binstead; the limestone columns from Henden Hill; the Norman round turret and the choir is built of Portland stone; while Purbeck marble shafts are used in the north porch, and of the fine white stone from Caen in Normandy, the Salisbury and Draper chantries in the interior are constructed. These, though now about four hundred years old, are absolutely sharp in all the carving. There is a tombstone to the north of the porch which bears a curious inscription as follows:--"We were not slayne but raysd, raysd not to life but to be byried twice by men of strife. What rest could the living have when dead had none agree amongst you heere we ten are one. Hen. Rogers died Aprill 17 1641."

This inscription has been variously explained. It is said by some that Cromwell, afterwards Protector, was at Christchurch, and dug up some lead coffins to make bullets for his soldiers, and flung the bodies out of ten such coffins into one grave; but this is manifestly incorrect.

Oliver Cromwell was never at Christchurch, though Thomas Cromwell probably was, and here, as elsewhere, the two have been confounded.

In many cases poor Oliver has had to bear the blame for destruction caused to churches by his less well-known namesake, the great destroyer of religious houses in the days of the eighth Henry. But neither of them had anything to do with this tomb, nor were the Parliamentary forces guilty of tampering with the coffins of the dead in the parish burying-ground at Christchurch. The very date precludes the idea, for the civil war did not begin till more than fifteen months after the date carved on this stone; and we may give the Roundheads credit for more sense than to be digging up coffins to make their bullets with, when there was abundance of lead to be had for the stripping on the roof of the Priory Church. A far more probable explanation is that which states that the ten bodies here interred were those of ten shipwrecked sailors, who were first buried on the cliffs near the spot where they were washed ash.o.r.e; but the lord of the manor, when he heard thereof, waxed exceeding wroth, and a strife ensued between him and one Henry Rogers, Mayor of Christchurch, the former insisting on their removal to consecrated ground, the latter objecting to the removal, probably on the ground of expense; but in the end the lord of the manor had his way. But the mayor, to save the cost of ten separate graves, had them all buried in one, and placed this inscription over their remains as a protest against the conduct of the lord of the manor in moving their remains from their first resting-place.

The graveyard at the present time is neatly kept and well cared for. The headstones have not, as they have been in many other places, tampered with; and though many of the alterations made in the restoration will not gain the approval of archaeologists, yet some have been judiciously done, and some that are in contemplation will certainly have the result of rendering once more visible beautiful mediaeval work, long concealed by ugly modern additions.

CHAPTER III

THE INTERIOR

A rapid walk round the interior of the Priory Church shows that it practically consists of three main portions, almost entirely divided from each other--the #Nave#, the #Choir#, and the #Lady Chapel#. The solid rood screen, pierced by one narrow doorway, forms an effectual division between the nave and choir, while the stone reredos and the wall above it, running right up to the vaulting, entirely separates the latter from the Lady Chapel. In mediaeval times the choir was reserved for the use of the canons; the nave was the parish church with its own high altar; the rood loft was an excellent point of vantage from which a preacher could address a large congregation. In those times pews had not been introduced; open benches may have existed. At present the nave is occupied by pews; these with their cast-iron poppies were erected in 1840, and were then higher than at present. Still, even in their present form, they hide the bases of the pillars, and might with much advantage be swept away, and their places taken by open benches or movable chairs.

The pews in the transepts are of older date; these, together with the galleries above them--that in the south transept supporting the organ--are a sad disfigurement to the church, and it is to be hoped that they will be soon removed; they hide some splendid Norman work. The case of the north gallery is worse than the south, as a staircase leading to it disfigures the beautiful Early English chapel attached to the east side of the transept. This gallery, however, contains some faculty pews.

All the owners of these, save one, consented to its removal; but one stood out against it, and, having the legal right to prevent any alteration, has up to the present time kept the gallery intact. But as he has recently died there can be little doubt that no long time will now elapse before this disfigurement to the church will be a thing of the past. There seems little need for the gallery, as there is ample accommodation on the floor of the church for any congregation that is likely to a.s.semble within the walls. Many alterations, some of which are certainly improvements, have already been made. In an engraving, dated 1834, the organ is represented standing on the rood screen, probably the best place for it; and the four eastern bays of the nave are seen to be part.i.tioned off by a wooden screen with a rod for curtains. On a level with the capitals of the pillars, to the west of this part.i.tion, stands the font. At this time also the triforium was boarded off in order to shut out draughts and cold; but this boarding has happily been swept away, the part.i.tion across the nave has been removed, and an oaken screen with glazed panels runs across the church, cutting off the western bay from the remainder of the nave. The font, a modern one, now stands under the tower; a modern pulpit on the south side, under the crossing, where also desks for the clergy and choir have been placed. It is now the custom on Sunday mornings to read the whole of the service up to the end of the Nicene Creed, in the nave; after the sermon is over, the communicants alone enter the choir to receive the sacrament. The choir is also used for week-day services. The Lady Chapel is not used.

The nave is Early Norman work, and was chiefly built during the reign of William II.; the clerestory, however, was added at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Peter, who was prior from 1195 to 1225. The original nave was probably covered by a flat wooden ceiling, the Early Norman builders rarely venturing to span any wide s.p.a.ce by a stone vaulting. The present vaulting is of stucco, and was added by Garbett in 1819. The roof was altered in Perpendicular times more than once, as indications of a higher pitched roof than the present one exists on the east face of the fifteenth-century tower. As springing stones for a vaulted roof exist, it is probable that a stone roof was at one time contemplated; but possibly the idea was abandoned on account of the fear that the walls, unsupported by any exterior flying b.u.t.tress to resist the thrust, would not have borne the weight. It will be remembered that such b.u.t.tresses are to be met with along the walls of the choir, which is covered with a stone vaulting. The nave consists of seven bays. The pillars of this arcading, unlike those of Flambard's nave at Durham, are not cylindrical, but consist of half columns set against piers rectangular in section. The capitals are of the early cushion shape; some of them seem to have been subsequently carved with ornamentation which bears some resemblance to cla.s.sical forms. The wall s.p.a.ces above the semicircular arches, and below the chevron string-course which runs beneath the triforium, are decorated with hatchet-work carving, as will be seen from the ill.u.s.trations. The triforium on either side consists, in each bay, of two coupled arches supported by a central pillar, enclosed by a comprising arch with bold mouldings and double columns, separated by square members. The most beautiful bay is the easternmost, on the north side, where the wall surface above the smaller arches, and beneath the enclosing arch, is carved with a kind of scale-work.

Possibly the opposite bay, on the south side, was as richly ornamented, but the lower arches and the central column no longer exist, as they were cut away to make room for a faculty pew in 1820. These two bays were included within the original Norman choir. The central shaft, on the north side, is twisted. Two of the central shafts, on the south side, are richly ornamented--one with twisted decoration, the other with a projecting reticulated pattern. The shaft and sub-arches of the second bay from the east on this side is a modern renewal, as here also the old work was destroyed in 1820 to make room for a pew. The north triforium can be reached by a staircase continued up into the tower, entered from the western part of the aisle; access to the south triforium can only be gained by the use of a ladder. The north triforium deserves examination.

It will be found that pointed arches have been added at the back, and b.u.t.tresses have been built against the back of the wall behind the arches; the floor is rendered uneven by humps necessitated by the Early English vaulting of the aisle below--probably the aisles were originally covered with a barrel roof. At the east end of the north triforium an arch may be seen, which once opened out into the transept; this is now walled up, and traces of painting may still be seen on it. There is a pa.s.sage under the clerestory, to which access may be obtained by a pa.s.sage across the transept; this was, no doubt, made in order that the shutters of the windows might be opened or closed, according to the state of the weather. From the staircase which leads up to the north triforium a pa.s.sage leads into the chamber over the north porch. This is a large room, about 40 feet in length from north to south, and is now used as a practising room for the choir; it is fitted with benches and a grand piano, and has a modern wooden gallery running along its south end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE IN 1834.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE.]