Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey / A Description of the Fabric and Notes on the History of the Convent of SS. Mary & Ethelfleda

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Anne Storer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

The architectural and descriptive part of this book is the result of careful personal examination of the fabric, made when the author has visited the abbey at various times during the last twenty years. The illustrations are reproduced from photographs taken by him on the occasions of these visits.
The historical information has been derived from many sources. Among these may especially be mentioned “An Essay descriptive of the Abbey Church of Romsey,” by C. Spence, the first edition of which was published in 1851; the small official guide sold in the church, and “Records of Romsey Abbey, compiled from manuscript and printed records,” by the Rev. Henry G. D. Liveing, M.A., Vicar of Hyde, Winchester, 1906. This last-named work contains all that is at present known, or that is likely to be known, of the history of the abbey from its foundation early in the ninth century up to the year 1558. To this book the reader who desires fuller information and minuter details than could be given in the following pages is referred.
The thanks of the writer are due to the late and present Vicars for kind permission to examine the building, and to take photographs of it from any point of view he desired.
Turnworth Rectory, Blandford, Dorset. March, 1907.



HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
The etymology of the name Romsey has been much disputed. There can be no doubt about the meaning of the termination “ey”—island—which we meet with under different spellings in many place-names, such as Athelney, Ely, Lundy, Mersea and others, for Romsey stands upon an island, or rather group of islands, formed by the division of the river Test into a number of streams, which again flow together to the south of the town, and at last, after a course of about seven miles, empty themselves into Southampton Water. But several derivations have been suggested for the first syllable of the name. Some writers derive it from Rome, and regard Romsey as a hybrid word taking the place of “Romana insula,” the first word having been shortened and the second translated into Old English, or Saxon as some prefer to call it. Now it is true that there were several important Roman stations in the neighbourhood: Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum), Brige (Broughton), Venta Belgarum (Winchester), and Clausentum (near Southampton), and in passing to and fro between these the Roman legions must frequently have marched either through or near to the site of Romsey. Roman coins found in the immediate neighbourhood clearly show that the place was inhabited during the Roman occupation. Another derivation is the Celtic word “Ruimne” (marshy); this would make the name mean “Marshy island,” and there can be no doubt that this would be an apt description of the place in olden times; against this may be alleged that again the word would be hybrid. Yet another derivation which avoids this objection is the Old English “Rûm” from whence we get “room” and if we adopt this derivation Romsey, or Rumsey as it is still sometimes written and more often pronounced, would mean the roomy or “Spacious Island.” The reader can form his own opinion as to which is the most probable of these three suggestions. The writer is inclined to favour the third. But the visitor who, arriving at the railway station either by the branch line via Redbridge or by that which runs from Eastleigh, or from Salisbury, or Andover, proceeds to the Abbey, would not realize when he arrived at his destination that he was in an island, for the minor streams are not spanned by bridges, but have been completely covered in and run through small tunnels beneath some of the streets.