CHRISTCHURCH PRIORY FROM WICK FERRY
This is one of the finest churches of non-Cathedral rank in the country, both with regard to size and its value to students of architecture. It is larger than many a Cathedral.
On 28th January, 1855, Sir Edmund Lyons, afterwards "Lord Lyons of Christchurch", received a public welcome in the town, on his return from his brilliant action before Sebastopol. At Mudeford, near by, lived William Steward Rose, to whom Sir Walter Scott paid occasional visits. Scott is said to have corrected the proofs of "Marmion" while at Mudeford, where, in 1816, Coleridge was staying.
The town once had a leper hospital in Barrack Street, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, but all traces of it have disappeared.
The views around the town, especially perhaps that from the top of the church tower, are very extensive, from the New Forest on the east to the hills of Purbeck and Swanage on the west, while the view seawards includes the sweeping curve of Christchurch Bay, the English Channel, and the Isle of Wight. The conspicuous eminence seen on the west of the river is St. Catherine's Hill, where the monks first began to build their Priory, and on it some traces of a small chapel have been found. Hengistbury Head is a wild and deserted spot, with remains of an ancient fosse cut between the Stour and the sea, possibly for defensive purposes, as there is a rampart on each side of the entrenchment, to which there are three entrances.
At the end of the long High Street stands the Priory church, with examples to show of each definite period of our national ecclesiastical architecture, from an early Norman crypt to Renaissance chantries. The extreme length of the church is 311 feet, it being in this respect of greater length than the cathedrals of Rochester, Oxford, Bristol, Exeter, Carlisle, Ripon, and Southwell.
So vast a building naturally costs a large sum of money every year to keep in repair, and in this respect the parishioners of the ancient borough owe much to Bournemouth, whose visitors, by their fees, provide more than sufficient funds for this purpose. The wonderful purity of the air has been a great factor in preserving the crispness of the masonry, and in keeping the mouldings and carvings almost as sharp in profile as when they were first cut by the mediæval masons.
The out-of-the-way position of the Priory no doubt accounts for the slight and fragmentary references to it in early chronicles, the only old writer of note to mention it being Knyghton (temp. Richard II), who speaks of it as "the Priory of Twynham, which is now called Christchurch". Even Camden, many years later, merely says that "Christchurch had a castle and church founded in the time of the Saxons". It is mentioned in the Domesday Survey, when its value was put at £8 yearly, an increase of two pounds since the days of Edward the Confessor. The Cartulary of the Priory is in the British Museum, but it contains no notes of architectural interest.