Another point worth mentioning concerning the past dignity of the town is this, that Sherborne, or at any rate, a part of it—Newland—was once actually a borough, as was also what we may call the suburb of Castleton.
This part of Sherborne is still called the Borough of Newland; it was given burghal privileges by Richard Poore, Bishop of Sarum, in 1228, and, according to Hutchins, it actually sent members to the House of Commons in 1343. But long after Newland got rid of this then burdensome privilege it still kept the name and other privileges of a borough, and both it and Castleton were for administrative purposes outside the Hundred of Sherborne; they kept their own tourns twice a year, and their own courts every three weeks; they had their own view of frank-pledge quite apart from the rest of the town and Hundred. It is not known to what bishop Castleton owed its title and dignity of burgus.
When Sherborne came into being, the surrounding country bore a very different look from that which we see to-day. It lay on the western edge of the great forest of Selwood, a fragment of which still remains to us here in Sherborne Castle Park. There were then no trim water-meadows, and the course of our river was marked by moor and marsh. Here, in the last fold of the Wessex hills, under which lies the great plain of Somerset, Ealdhelm’s seat was fixed, in a site central and convenient for the new district, which had barely a quarter of a century before been added to the West Saxon realm.
Sherborne was never a walled town; it lay under the protection of the fortified palace of its bishop, and in troublous times of Danish inroad its site was a safe one. The story that Swegen ravaged the town rests on nothing like contemporary evidence; on the other hand, the safety of its position, coupled with the fact that it was once the second city of Wessex, accounts for its being chosen by King Æthelbald for his capital, so to speak, when Winchester, in 860, was laid waste by the Danes; indeed, the change may have taken place soon after 856. Sherborne continued to be the capital of Wessex till about the year 878. During a considerable part of that time we may well believe that King Alfred spent his boyhood here, almost certainly during King Æthelberht’s reign; and here, in this centre of education which Ealdhelm had founded, he may well have received such education as he got during his boyhood. There is no other centre of education which has so good a claim to him; here were buried his two brothers, Æthelbald and Æthelberht, who successively reigned before Æthelred and himself. Æthelberht was his guardian after his father’s death. Alfred must have known Sherborne well; he was a benefactor of our church, and we claim his boyhood.
Sherborne
Sherborne Abbey
Sidney Heath
But besides Alfred and Ealdhelm, early Sherborne claims other heroes; Ealhstan, our bishop, the first West Saxon general to win a decisive victory over the Danes, was the right-hand man of Kings Ecgberht, Æthelwulf, Æthelbald, and Æthelberht; he was the most powerful man of his time. Here, in Sherborne, he lies buried beside Æthelbald and Æthelberht.
We claim, too, among our Sherborne bishops, St. Heahmund, who fell fighting against the Danes at Merton (probably Marden, Wilts.); Asser, the biographer of King Alfred, who is said to lie buried among us; Werstan, another warrior who fell in battle; St. Wulfsy and St. Alfwold, names rather forgotten now, but great and famous in their day. St. Osmund, who compiled the Use of Sarum, was one of our abbots; and St. Stephen Harding, the author of the Carta Caritatis, and the real founder of the Cistercian Order, is the earliest scholar of Sherborne School whom History records as such.
Nor can Sherborne forget what it owes to the great Roger Niger, that dark, stalwart Bishop of Sarum, who built the Norman Castle here and the Norman part of our Abbey Church, who organized the English Court of Exchequer, was the trusted adviser of the “Lion of Justice,” Henry I., and deserved a better end than to break his heart in a contest with such a poor creature as King Stephen.
Our Abbot, William Bradford, will not be forgotten by lovers of architecture, for under his rule in the fifteenth century the choir of our Abbey Church was rebuilt; while to another Abbot, Peter Ramsam, we owe, later in the same century, the restoration of our nave. To Abbot Mere we are indebted for a little building, which every visitor to Sherborne knows, the Conduit, which stands in our old market-place, now called by the somewhat affected name of the “Parade.” This conduit, though it was built, as we have said, by Abbot Mere (1504-1535), is described by one of those omniscient gentlemen who have lately been enlightening us about the beauties of Wessex, as “a structure of the fourteenth century.” It originally stood on the north side of the nave of the Abbey Church, inside the Cloister Court, which is now a part of Sherborne School; but it was removed to its present site, or nearly its present site, by the school governors in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It is to this day the property of the school.