Memorials of Old Dorset

by Unknown

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.