Soon, St. Catherine.
After the Reformation the chapel was allowed to decay and to become desecrated. In the eighteenth century there is a record that it was being used as a pigeon-house. Then, when more houses were needed in the parish, the “Chapel Royal” was turned into a labourer’s cottage—the interior was whitewashed, and a ceiling added; the chancel became a bedroom, and the nave a living room, with a kitchen grate and chimney affixed. Afterwards the little church was used as a carpenter’s workshop, and then as a lumber store. But, in 1901, the neglected building was cleaned out, and a service was held there on St. Catherine’s night (November 25th). The parishioners assembled in the building, the roof of which was full of holes (admitting ivy, wind and wet), the windows had long been broken, and the south wall was dangerously bulging. Confession of wrong was made for the past desecrations, and prayers were offered that the Church of St. Catherine might for the future be reverently treated as a “holy place” (as the Indulgence-inscription calls it); and, happily, the building has since been most conservatively restored by Mr. Everard Hambro, the lord of the manor. Thus, the little church which commemorates a very critical event in the early history of England has been saved from further desecration and
The Sea-Side Hamlet of Milton.
Holworth, in 1827, showing the Burning Cliff.
decay; and King Athelstan’s Chapel is once again used for the service of God, while remaining a valuable historic relic of Saxon days.
Liscombe Chapel.
Another capella belonging to the Abbey, but now in private ownership, has been less fortunate. Liscombe Chapel,[35] in the parish of Milton, five miles from the Abbey Church and two miles from Chesilborne, is still desecrated. This little building, built principally of flint, stone, and large blocks of rock chalk, is entire, and consists of chancel and nave, divided by a handsome Transition-Norman arch, with massive rounded columns. The east window and the two other chancel windows are Norman, with some later work inserted. But the chapel of Liscombe has been desecrated for a long time. The nave thereof is now used as a bakehouse (there is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre), and the chancel is used as a log-house. A flight of stone stairs has been erected in the chancel, which leads to the bedrooms over the bakehouse and log-house. The bedrooms have been ceiled, and the whole interior of the little church has been whitewashed, including the handsome chancel arch; the roof of the building is of thatch. An old stone sundial is preserved in the west wall. Warne, in his Ancient Dorset, states that the chapel is credited with being “tenanted by a supernatural visitor”; and this is still believed by the country folk. The house adjoining this desecrated sanctuary is also ancient, and built chiefly of flint and stone. It possesses several interesting windows of various dates (including a loup in the east wall), and an old stone sundial on its south wall. The interior contains some oak-work, portions of which may be pre-Reformation. This house is now used as a labourer’s cottage; but there is a tradition that it was formerly inhabited by the monks, who ministered (“Divina celebrant:”) in the little church. And the building itself, from its position and evident antiquity, lends colour to the tradition; but there are marks that it became the manor farmhouse after the Dissolution. There is also a tradition that the stream which now runs through the hamlet of Liscombe was formerly larger than it is now, and that there were fish-ponds close by, and that the monks at Liscombe supplied their overlord, the Abbot of Milton, with fresh-water fish.
Milton Abbey also possessed three other Norman capellae—in Woolland, Whitcombe, and Holworth respectively; but Woolland is now a separate ecclesiastical parish; Whitcombe is a donative held by the Rector of Came (it was held for many years by William Barnes, the Dorset poet); and Holworth, alone of the three, still remains a part of the ecclesiastical parish of Milton.
Holworth is sixteen miles from the Abbey Church, and now possesses a modern chapel, on a hill near the “Burning Cliff,” known as the Chapel of St. Catherine-by-the-Sea. It is said that in days gone by the monks at Holworth supplied their Abbot, at Milton, with salt-water fish. The hamlet of Holworth, overlooking Weymouth Bay and Portland Roads, has been well described as resting in “a most lonely and most lovely valley by the sea, an earthly paradise, which those who have discovered cherish and dream about. It is far away from the haunts of men, and remote from the cares of life; where the newspaper is two days’ old before it invades the religious calm of a mind attuned by the most exquisite scenery to rise to thoughts above this world; where one may walk along the undulating downs that skirt the Channel, held in place by parapets of cliff that break down straight into the sea; where one may walk mile after mile on natural lawn and not meet a soul—just one’s self, the birds, the glorious scenery, and God.”[36]