Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch

by Sidney Heath

According to tradition the first builders began to erect a church on St. Catherine's Hill, but by some miraculous agency the stones were removed every night, and deposited on the promontory between the two rivers, at a spot which became known by the Saxon name of Tweoxneham, or Twynham. The site for the church having been divinely revealed, the monks began to build on the sacred spot; but even then there was no cessation of supernatural intervention. Every day a strange workman came and toiled; but he never took any food to sustain him, and never demanded any wages. Once, when a rafter was too short for its allotted place, the stranger stretched it to the required length with his hands, and this miraculous beam is still to be seen within the church. When at last the building was finished, and the workmen were gathered together to see the fruits of their labour receive the episcopal consecration, the strange workman was nowhere to be found. The monks came to the conclusion that He was none other than Christ Himself, and the church which owed so much to His miraculous help became known as Christchurch, or Christchurch Twynham, although it had been officially dedicated to the Holy Trinity in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and the title of Christchurch does not appear to have been in general use until the twelfth century.

The early history of the foundation is very obscure. King Aethelstan is said to have founded the first monastery. More certain is it that, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, the church at Twynham was held by Secular Canons, who remained there until 1150, when they were displaced by Augustinians, or Austin Canons. The early church was pulled down by Ralf Flambard, afterwards Bishop of Durham. He was the builder of the fine Norman nave of Christchurch, and the still grander nave of Durham Cathedral. He was Chaplain to William Rufus, and his life was as evil and immoral as his skill in building was great. He died in 1128, and was buried in his great northern cathedral. Much of Flambard's Norman work at Christchurch remains in the triforium, the arcading of the nave, and the transepts. A little later we get the nave clerestory, Early English work, put up soon after the dawn of the thirteenth century, the approximate date also of the nave aisle vaulting, the north porch, and a chapel attached to the north transept. To the fourteenth century belong the massive stone rood-screen, and the reredos. The Perpendicular Lady Chapel was finished about the close of the thirteenth century, while the fourteenth century gave us the western tower, and most of the choir, although the vaulting was put up much later, as the bosses of the south choir aisle bear the initials W. E., indicating William Eyre, Prior from 1502 to 1520. Last of all in architectural chronology come the chantry of Prior Draper, built in 1529, and that of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, niece of Edward IV, and mother of the famous Cardinal Pole. She was not destined, however, to lie here, as she was beheaded at the Tower in 1541.

The church now consists of nave, aisles, choir, unaisled transepts, western tower, and Lady Chapel. The cloisters and the domestic buildings have disappeared. It is highly probable that there was once a central tower, an almost invariable accompaniment of a Norman conventual church. There is no documentary evidence relating to a central tower, but the massive piers and arches at the corners of the transepts seem to indicate that provision was made for one, and the representation of a tower of two stages on an old Priory seal, may be either the record of an actual structure, or an intelligent anticipation of a feature that never took an architectural form, although it was contemplated.

In the churchyard are tombstones to the memory of some of the passengers lost in the wreck of the Halsewell, off Durlston Head, on 6th January, 1786. The churchyard is large, and a walk round it allows a view of the whole of the north side of the church. On the south side a modern house and its grounds have displaced the cloisters and the domestic buildings attached to the foundation. Prominent features on the north side are a circular transept stairway, rich in diaper work, the arcading round the transept, the wide windows of the clerestory of the choir, and the upper portion of the Lady Chapel. The fifteenth-century tower is set so far within the nave as to leave two spaces at the ends of the aisles, one used as a vestry, the other as a store-room. In the spandrels of the tower doorway are two shields charged with the arms of the Priory and of the Earls of Salisbury. Above the doorway is a large window, and above this again a niche containing a figure of Christ. The octagonal stair turret is at the north-east angle. The north porch, much restored, is of great size, and its side walls are of nearly the same height as the clerestory of the nave. On the west side is a recess with shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. Around the wall is a low stone seat, used, it is said, by the parishioners and others who came to see the Prior on business. The roof has some very beautiful groining, much restored in 1862. Above the porch is a lofty room, probably used as the muniment room of the Priory. Entrance to the church from this porch is through a double doorway of rich Early English work.

PRIORY RUINS, CHRISTCHURCH

An extraordinary epitaph is that on a tombstone near the north porch, which reads as follows:—

"We were not slayne but raysed, raysed 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."

Several attempts have been made to explain the meaning of this epitaph, one to the effect that Oliver Cromwell, while at Christchurch, dug up some lead coffins to make into bullets, replacing the bodies from ten coffins in one grave. This solution is more ingenious than probable, as Cromwell does not appear to have ever been at Christchurch. Moreover, the Great Rebellion did not begin until over fifteen months later than the date on the tombstone. Another and more likely explanation is that the ten were shipwrecked sailors, who were at first buried near the spot where their bodies were washed ashore. The lord of the manor wished to remove the bodies to consecrated ground, and a quarrel ensued between him and Henry Rogers, then Mayor of Christchurch, who objected to their removal. Eventually the lord of the manor had his way, but the Mayor had the bodies placed in one grave, possibly to save the town the expense of ten separate interments.