Chapter 6
VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES
No buildings have suffered more than our parish churches in the course of ages. Many have vanished entirely. A few stones or ruins mark the site of others, and iconoclasm has left such enduring marks on the fabric of many that remain that it is difficult to read their story and history. A volume, several volumes, would be needed to record all the vandalism that has been done to our ecclesiastical structures in the ages that have passed. We can only be thankful that some churches have survived to proclaim the glories of English architecture and the skill of our masons and artificers who wrought so well and worthily in olden days.
In the chapter that relates to the erosion of our coasts we have mentioned many of the towns and villages which have been devoured by the sea with their churches. These now lie beneath the waves, and the bells in their towers are still said to ring when storms rage. We need not record again the submerged Ravenspur, Dunwich, Kilnsea, and other unfortunate towns with their churches where now only mermaids can form the congregation.
And as the fisherman strays When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round tower of other days In the wave beneath him shining.
In the depths of the country, far from the sea, we can find many deserted shrines, many churches that once echoed with the songs of praise of faithful worshippers, wherein were celebrated the divine mysteries, and organs pealed forth celestial music, but now forsaken, desecrated, ruined, forgotten.
The altar has vanished, the rood screen flown, Foundation and buttress are ivy-grown; The arches are shattered, the roof has gone, The mullions are mouldering one by one; Foxglove and cow-grass and waving weed Grow over the scrolls where you once could read Benedicite.
Many of them have been used as quarries, and only a few stones remain to mark the spot where once stood a holy house of God. Before the Reformation the land must have teemed with churches. I know not the exact number of monastic houses once existing in England. There must have been at least a thousand, and each had its church. Each parish had a church. Besides these were the cathedrals, chantry chapels, chapels attached to the mansions, castles, and manor-houses of the lords and squires, to almshouses and hospitals, pilgrim churches by the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or stable.
It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing. Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more respectful distance. "Restoration" has doomed many to destruction. Not long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water necessitated the converting of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St. Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining; St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above were damaged and repaired. "Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren," is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship of the English National Church. And how have we treated the buildings which his genius devised for us? Eighteen of his beautiful buildings have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed. With the utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and no one can tell how long they will remain. Here is a very sad and deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural treasures. While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.
We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where formerly they stood. The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of Haughton and Rural Dean of Stafford, records three of these in his neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:--
"On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of Billington Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once stood a chapel. The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not a vestige of the building survives; no doubt the foundations were grubbed up for ploughing purposes. In a State paper, describing 'The State of the Church in Staffs, in 1586,' we find the following entry: 'Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman; pension 16 groats; no preacher.' This is under the heading of Bradeley, in which parish it stood. I have made a wide search for information as to the dates of the building and destruction of this chapel. Only one solitary note has come to my knowledge. In Mazzinghi's _History of Castle Church_ he writes: 'Mention is made of Thomas Salt the son of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his wife as Christened at Billington Chapel in 1600.' Local tradition says that within the memory of the last generation stones were carted from this site to build the churchyard wall of Bradley Church. I have noticed several re-used stones; but perhaps if that wall were to be more closely examined or pulled down, some further history might disclose itself. Knowing that some of the stones were said to be in a garden on the opposite side of the road, I asked permission to investigate. This was most kindly granted, and I was told that there was a stone 'with some writing on it' in a wall. No doubt we had the fragment of a gravestone! and such it proved to be. With some difficulty we got the stone out of the wall; and, being an expert in palæography, I was able to decipher the inscription. It ran as follows: 'FURy. Died Feb. 28, 1864.' A skilled antiquary would probably pronounce it to be the headstone of a favourite dog's grave; and I am inclined to think that we have here a not unformidable rival of the celebrated
+ BIL ST UM PS HI S.M. ARK
of the _Pickwick Papers_.
"Yet another vanished chapel, of which I have even less to tell you. On the right-hand side of the railway line running towards Stafford, a little beyond Stallbrook Crossing, there is a field known as Chapel Field. But there is nothing but the name left. From ancient documents I have learnt that a chapel once stood there, known as Derrington Chapel (I think in the thirteenth century), in Seighford parish, but served from Ranton Priory. In 1847 my father built a beautiful little church at Derrington, in the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would be to me if I could gather some further reliable information as to the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so many of our country parishes no records exist of things and events of surpassing interest in their histories.
"I take you now to where there is something a little more tangible. There stand in the park of Creswell Hall, near Stafford, the ruins of a little thirteenth-century chapel. I will describe what is left. I may say that some twenty years ago I made certain excavations, which showed the ground plan to be still complete. So far as I remember, we found a chamfered plinth all round the nave, with a west doorway. The chancel and nave are of the same width, the chancel measuring about 21 ft. long and the nave _c._ 33 ft. The ground now again covers much of what we found. The remains above ground are those of the chancel only. Large portions of the east and north walls remain, and a small part of the south wall. The north wall is still _c._ 12 ft. high, and contains two narrow lancets, quite perfect. The east wall reaches _c._ 15 ft., and has a good base-mould. It contains the opening, without the head, of a three-light window, with simply moulded jambs, and the glass-line remaining. A string-course under the window runs round the angle buttresses, or rather did so run, for I think the north buttress has been rebuilt, and without the string. The south buttress is complete up to two weatherings, and has two strings round it. It is a picturesque and valuable ruin, and well worth a visit. It is amusing to notice that Creswell now calls itself a rectory, and an open-air service is held annually within its walls. It was a pre-bend of S. Mary's, Stafford, and previously a Free Chapel, the advowson belonging to the Lord of the Manor; and it was sometimes supplied with preachers from Ranton Priory. Of the story of its destruction I can discover nothing. It is now carefully preserved and, I have heard it suggested that it might some day be rebuilt to meet the spiritual needs of its neighbourhood.
"We pass now to the most stately and beautiful object in this neighbourhood. I mean the tower of Ranton Priory Church. It is always known here as Ranton Abbey. But it has no right to the title. It was an off-shoot of Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury, and was a Priory of Black Canons, founded _temp._ Henry II. The church has disappeared entirely, with the exception of a bit of the south-west walling of the nave and a Norman doorway in it. This may have connected the church with the domestic buildings. In Cough's Collection in the Bodleian, dated 1731, there is a sketch of the church. What is shown there is a simple parallelogram, with the usual high walls, in Transition-Norman style, with flat pilaster buttresses, two strings running round the walls, the upper one forming the dripstones of lancet windows, a corbel-table supporting the eaves-course, and a north-east priest's door. But whatever the church may have been (and the sketch represents it as being of severe simplicity), some one built on to it a west tower of great magnificence. It is of early Perpendicular date, practically uninjured, the pinnacles only being absent, though, happily, the stumps of these remain. Its proportion appears to me to be absolutely perfect, and its detail so good that I think you would have to travel far to find its rival. There is a very interesting point to notice in the beautiful west doorway. It will be seen that the masonry of the lower parts of its jambs is quite different from that of the upper parts, and there can, I think, be no doubt that these lower stones have been re-used from a thirteenth-century doorway of some other part of the buildings. There is a tradition that the bells of Gnosall Church were taken from this tower. I can find no confirmation of this, and I cannot believe it. For the church at Gnosall is of earlier date and greater magnificence than that of Ranton Priory, and was, I imagine, quite capable of having bells of its own."
It would be an advantage to archæology if every one were such a careful and accurate observer of local antiquarian remains as the Rural Dean of Stafford. Wherever we go we find similar deserted and abandoned shrines. In Derbyshire alone there are over a hundred destroyed or disused churches, of which Dr. Cox, the leading authority on the subject, has published a list. Nottinghamshire abounds in instances of the same kind. As late as 1892 the church at Colston Bassett was deliberately turned into a ruin. There are only mounds and a few stones to show the site of the parish church of Thorpe-in-the-fields, which in the seventeenth century was actually used as a beer-shop. In the fields between Elston and East Stoke is a disused church with a south Norman doorway. The old parochial chapel of Aslacton was long desecrated, and used in comparatively recent days as a beer-shop. The remains of it have, happily, been reclaimed, and now serve as a mission-room. East Anglia, famous for its grand churches, has to mourn over many which have been lost, many that are left roofless and ivy-clad, and some ruined indeed, though some fragment has been made secure enough for the holding of divine service. Whitling has a roofless church with a round Norman tower. The early Norman church of St. Mary at Kirby Bedon has been allowed to fall into decay, and for nearly two hundred years has been ruinous. St. Saviour's Church, Surlingham, was pulled down at the beginning of the eighteenth century on the ground that one church in the village was sufficient for its spiritual wants, and its materials served to mend roads.
A strange reason has been given for the destruction of several of these East Anglian churches. In Norfolk there were many recusants, members of old Roman Catholic families, who refused in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to obey the law requiring them to attend their parish church. But if their church were in ruins no service could be held, and therefore they could not be compelled to attend. Hence in many cases the churches were deliberately reduced to a ruinous state. Bowthorpe was one of these unfortunate churches which met its fate in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It stands in a farm-yard, and the nave made an excellent barn and the steeple a dovecote. The lord of the manor was ordered to restore it at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This he did, and for a time it was used for divine service. Now it is deserted and roofless, and sleeps placidly girt by a surrounding wall, a lonely shrine. The church of St. Peter, Hungate, at Norwich, is of great historical interest and contains good architectural features, including a very fine roof. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Paston and Margaret, his wife, whose letters form part of that extraordinary series of medieval correspondence which throws so much light upon the social life of the period. The church has a rudely carved record of their work outside the north door. This unhappy church has fallen into disuse, and it has been proposed to follow the example of the London citizens to unite the benefice with another and to destroy the building. Thanks to the energy and zeal of His Highness Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, delay in carrying out the work of destruction has been secured, and we trust that his efforts to save the building will be crowned with the success they deserve.
Not far from Norwich are the churches of Keswick and Intwood. Before 1600 A.D. the latter was deserted and desecrated, being used for a sheep-fold, and the people attended service at Keswick. Then Intwood was restored to its sacred uses, and poor Keswick church was compelled to furnish materials for its repair. Keswick remained ruinous until a few years ago, when part of it was restored and used as a cemetery chapel. Ringstead has two ruined churches, St. Andrew's and St. Peter's. Only the tower of the latter remains. Roudham church two hundred years ago was a grand building, as its remains plainly testify. It had a thatched roof, which was fired by a careless thatcher, and has remained roofless to this day. Few are acquainted with the ancient hamlet of Liscombe, situated in a beautiful Dorset valley. It now consists of only one or two houses, a little Norman church, and an old monastic barn. The little church is built of flint, stone, and large blocks of hard chalk, and consists of a chancel and nave divided by a Transition-Norman arch with massive rounded columns. There are Norman windows in the chancel, with some later work inserted. A fine niche, eight feet high, with a crocketed canopy, stood at the north-east corner of the chancel, but has disappeared. The windows of the nave and the west doorway have perished. It has been for a long time desecrated. The nave is used as a bakehouse. There is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre, and the chancel is a storehouse for logs. The upper part of the building has been converted into an upper storey and divided into bedrooms, which have broken-down ceilings. The roof is of thatch. Modern windows and a door have been inserted. It is a deplorable instance of terrible desecration.
The growth of ivy unchecked has caused many a ruin. The roof of the nave and south aisle of the venerable church of Chingford, Essex, fell a few years ago entirely owing to the destructive ivy which was allowed to work its relentless will on the beams, tiles, and rafters of this ancient structure.
Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof, and the Old Minster, South Elmham.
Attempts have been made by the National Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to save Kirkstead Chapel, near Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It is one of the very few surviving examples of the _capella extra portas_, which was a feature of every Cistercian abbey, where women and other persons who were not allowed within the gates could hear Mass. The abbey was founded in 1139, and the chapel, which is private property, is one of the finest examples of Early English architecture remaining in the country. It is in a very decaying condition. The owner has been approached, and the officials of the above societies have tried to persuade him to repair it himself or to allow them to do so. But these negotiations have hitherto failed. It is very deplorable when the owners of historic buildings should act in this "dog-in-the-manger" fashion, and surely the time has come when the Government should have power to compulsorily acquire such historic monuments when their natural protectors prove themselves to be incapable or unwilling to preserve and save them from destruction.
We turn from this sorry page of wilful neglect to one that records the grand achievement of modern antiquaries, the rescue and restoration of the beautiful specimen of Saxon architecture, the little chapel of St. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon. Until 1856 its existence was entirely unknown, and the credit of its discovery was due to the Rev. Canon Jones, Vicar of Bradford. At the Reformation with the dissolution of the abbey at Shaftesbury it had passed into lay hands. The chancel was used as a cottage. Round its walls other cottages arose. Perhaps part of the building was at one time used as a charnel-house, as in an old deed it is called the Skull House. In 1715 the nave and porch were given to the vicar to be used as a school. But no one suspected the presence of this exquisite gem of Anglo-Saxon architecture, until Canon Jones when surveying the town from the height of a neighbouring hill recognized the peculiarity of the roof and thought that it might indicate the existence of a church. Thirty-seven years ago the Wiltshire antiquaries succeeded in purchasing the building. They cleared away the buildings, chimney-stacks, and outhouses that had grown up around it, and revealed the whole beauties of this lovely shrine. Archæologists have fought many battles over it as to its date. Some contend that it is the identical church which William of Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700 A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century. It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its most important features. It is cheering to find that amid so much that has vanished we have here at Bradford a complete Saxon church that differs very little from what it was when it was first erected.
Other Saxon remains are not wanting. Wilfrid's Crypt at Hexham, that at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl's Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon work. Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew's, Bywell, Monkwearmouth, Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks), Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh, Oxon, and St. Alban's Abbey. Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton, Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet's, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack. Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston Tirrold, Berks. We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts; Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon, Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants. Even Saxon sundials exist at Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and Kirkdale. There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire. Some hours of the Saxon's day in that village must have fled more swiftly than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle. Even some mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary's, Guildford; St. Martin's, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne, Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration crosses are believed to belong to this period.
Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches, the existence of which had before been unsuspected. Many circumstances have combined to obliterate it. The Danish wars had a disastrous effect on many churches reared in Saxon times. The Norman Conquest caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures. But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding strangers.
It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our churches. Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc done upon their fabric and furniture! At the Reformation iconoclasm raged with unpitying ferocity. Everybody from the King to the churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in pillaging churches and monasteries. The plunder of chantries and guilds followed. Fuller quaintly describes this as "the last dish of the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected." But the coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King's use. Even quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many generations had bestowed upon them.
There is a little village in Berkshire called Boxford, quite a small place. Here is the list of church goods which the commissioners found there, and which had escaped previous ravages:--
"One challice, a cross of copper & gilt, another cross of timber covered with brass, one cope of blue velvet embroidered with images of angles, one vestment of the same suit with an albe of Lockeram,[22] two vestments of Dornexe,[23] and three other very old, two old & coarse albes of Lockeram, two old copes of Dornexe, iiij altar cloths of linen cloth, two corporals with two cases whereof one is embroidered, two surplices, & one rochet, one bible & the paraphrases of Erasmus in English, seven banners of lockeram & one streamer all painted, three front cloths for altars whereof one of them is with panes of white damask & black satin, & the other two of old vestments, two towels of linen, iiij candlesticks of latten[24] & two standertes[25] before the high altar of latten, a lent vail[26] before the high altar with panes blue and white, two candlesticks of latten and five branches, a peace,[27] three great bells with one saunce bell xx, one canopy of cloth, a covering of Dornixe for the Sepulchre, two cruets of pewter, a holy-water pot of latten, a linen cloth to draw before the rood. And all the said parcels safely to be kept & preserved, & all the same & every parcel thereof to be forthcoming at all times when it shall be of them [the churchwardens] required."
[22] A fine linen cloth made in Brittany (cf. _Coriolanus_, Act ii. sc. 1).
[23] A rich sort of stuff interwoven with gold and silver, made at Tournay, which was formerly called Dorneck, in Flanders.
[24] An alloy of copper and zinc.
[25] Large standard candlesticks.
[26] The Lent cloth, hung before the altar during Lent.
[27] A Pax.
This inventory of the goods of one small church enables us to judge of the wealth of our country churches before they were despoiled. Of private spoliators their name was legion. The arch-spoliator was Protector Somerset, the King's uncle, Edward Seymour, formerly Earl of Hertford and then created Duke of Somerset. He ruled England for three years after King Henry's death. He was a glaring and unblushing church-robber, setting an example which others were only too ready to follow. Canon Overton[28] tells how Somerset House remains as a standing memorial of his rapacity. In order to provide materials for building it he pulled down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and three bishops' houses, and was proceeding also to pull down the historical church of St. Margaret, Westminster; but public opinion was too strong against him, the parishioners rose and beat off his workmen, and he was forced to desist, and content himself with violating and plundering the precincts of St. Paul's. Moreover, the steeple and most of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, Smithfield, were mined and blown up with gunpowder that the materials might be utilized for the ducal mansion in the Strand. He turned Glastonbury, with all its associations dating from the earliest introduction of Christianity into our island, into a worsted manufactory, managed by French Protestants. Under his auspices the splendid college of St. Martin-le-Grand in London was converted into a tavern, and St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, served the scarcely less incongruous purpose of a Parliament House. All this he did, and when his well-earned fall came the Church fared no better under his successor, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland.
[28] _History of the Church in England_, p. 401.
Another wretch was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college. "Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good pavements, and carried them and laid them for his hall, kitchen, and larder-house." The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, has many monumental stones, the brasses of which were in 1551 sent to London to be cast into weights and measures for the use of the town. The shops of the artists in brass in London were full of broken brass memorials torn from tombs. Hence arose the making of palimpsest brasses, the carvers using an old brass and on the reverse side cutting a memorial of a more recently deceased person.
After all this iconoclasm, spoliation, and robbery it is surprising that anything of value should have been left in our churches. But happily some treasures escaped, and the gifts of two or three generations added others. Thus I find from the will of a good gentleman, Mr. Edward Ball, that after the spoliation of Barkham Church he left the sum of five shillings for the providing of a processional cross to be borne before the choir in that church, and I expect that he gave us our beautiful Elizabethan chalice of the date 1561. The Church had scarcely recovered from its spoliation before another era of devastation and robbery ensued. During the Cromwellian period much destruction was wrought by mad zealots of the Puritan faction. One of these men and his doings are mentioned by Dr. Berwick in his _Querela Cantabrigiensis_:--
"One who calls himself John [it should be William] Dowsing and by Virtue of a pretended Commission, goes about y^{e} country like a Bedlam, breaking glasse windows, having battered and beaten downe all our painted glasses, not only in our Chappels, but (contrary to order) in our Publique Schools, Colledge Halls, Libraries, and Chambers, mistaking, perhaps, y^{e} liberall Artes for Saints (which they intend in time to pull down too) and having (against an order) defaced and digged up y^{e} floors of our Chappels, many of which had lien so for two or three hundred years together, not regarding y^{e} dust of our founders and predecessors who likely were buried there; compelled us by armed Souldiers to pay forty shillings a Colledge for not mending what he had spoyled and defaced, or forth with to goe to prison."
We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their accounts:--
"1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and Brasses off Stones 6 0."
"1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave stones before the officer Dowson came 1 0."
The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With reference to the church of Toffe he says:--
"Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y^{e} Soules, and a Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima Sanctæ Catharinæ."
"_Trinity Parish, Cambridge_, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25, we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y^{e} Father above."
"At _Clare_ we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious."
"_Cochie_, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders."
"1643, Jan^{y} 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious inscriptions."
It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition _Orate pro anima_--his ignorance is palpably displayed by his _Orate pro animabus_--he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:--
"From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious sanctified rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward's Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the Church of its ornaments. W.C."
He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft in 1644:--
"In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of Manchester, to take away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found _Orate pro anima_--a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out that which his commission enjoyned him to remove--he took up in our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve generations of the Jettours."
The same scenes were being enacted in many parts of England. Everywhere ignorant commissioners were rampaging about the country imitating the ignorant ferocity of this Dowsing and Jessop. No wonder our churches were bare, pillaged, and ruinated. Moreover, the conception of art and the taste for architecture were dead or dying, and there was no one who could replace the beautiful objects which these wretches destroyed or repair the desolation they had caused.
Another era of spoliation set in in more recent times, when the restorers came with vitiated taste and the worst ideals to reconstruct and renovate our churches which time, spoliation, and carelessness had left somewhat the worse for wear. The Oxford Movement taught men to bestow more care upon the houses of God in the land, to promote His honour by more reverent worship, and to restore the beauty of His sanctuary. A rector found his church in a dilapidated state and talked over the matter with the squire. Although the building was in a sorry condition, with a cracked ceiling, hideous galleries, and high pews like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity destroyed. The old Norman font was turned out of the church, and either used as a cattle-trough or to hold a flower-pot in the rectory garden. Some of the beautifully carved stones made an excellent rockery in the squire's garden, and old woodwork, perchance a fourteenth-century rood-screen, encaustic tiles bearing the arms of the abbey with which in former days the church was connected, monuments and stained glass, are all carted away and destroyed, and the triumph of vandalism is complete.
That is an oft-told tale which finds its counterpart in many towns and villages, the entire and absolute destruction of the old church by ignorant vandals who work endless mischief and know not what they do. There is the village of Little Wittenham, in our county of Berks, not far from Sinodun Hill, an ancient earthwork covered with trees, that forms so conspicuous an object to the travellers by the Great Western Railway from Didcot to Oxford. About forty years ago terrible things were done in the church of that village. The vicar was a Goth. There was a very beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the choir, full of magnificent marble monuments to the memory of various members of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great house stood hard by on the north of the church--only the terraces of which remain--is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down, one disused; before 1890 one hundred were restored, some of them most drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with greater respect to old work.
A favourite method of "restoration" was adopted in many instances. A church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, "This is a Norman church; all its details should be Norman too." So they proceeded to take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in the windows and putting in large round-headed windows--their conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the "restoration" of many a parish church.
An amusing book, entitled _Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish Churches_, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire, depicts the "very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as planners and architects." He apologises for not giving the names of these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have achieved, but is sure that such works as theirs must immortalize them, not only in their parishes, but in their counties, and, he trusts, in the kingdom at large. The following are some of the "hints":--
"_How to affix a porch to an old church._
"If the church is of stone, let the porch be of brick, the roof slated, and the entrance to it of the improved Gothic called modern, being an arch formed by an acute angle. The porch should be placed so as to stop up what might be called a useless window; and as it sometimes happens that there is an ancient Saxon[29] entrance, let it be carefully bricked up, and perhaps plastered, so as to conceal as much as possible of the zigzag ornament used in buildings of this kind. Such improvements cannot fail to ensure celebrity to churchwardens of future ages.
"_How to add a vestry to an old church._
"The building here proposed is to be of bright brick, with a slated roof and sash windows, with a small door on one side; and it is, moreover, to be adorned with a most tasty and ornamental brick chimney, which terminates at the chancel end. The position of the building should be against two old Gothic windows; which, having the advantage of hiding them nearly altogether, when contrasted with the dull and uniform surface of an old stone church, has a lively and most imposing effect.
"_How to ornament the top or battlements of a tower belonging to an ancient church_.
"Place on each battlement, vases, candlesticks, and pineapples alternately, and the effect will be striking. Vases have many votaries amongst those worthy members of society, the churchwardens. Candlesticks are of ancient origin, and represent, from the highest authority, the light of the churches: but as in most churches weathercocks are used, I would here recommend the admirers of novelty and improvement to adopt a pair of snuffers, which might also be considered as a useful emblem for reinvigorating the lights from the candlesticks. The pineapple ornament having in so many churches been judiciously substituted for Gothic, cannot fail to please. Some such ornament should also be placed at the top of the church, and at the chancel end. But as this publication does not restrict any churchwarden of real taste, and as the ornaments here recommended are in a common way made of stone, if any would wish to distinguish his year of office, perhaps he would do it brilliantly by painting them all bright red...."
[29] Doubtless our author means Norman.
Other valuable suggestions are made in this curious and amusing work, such as "how to repair Quartre-feuille windows" by cutting out all the partitions and making them quite round; "how to adapt a new church to an old tower with most taste and effect," the most attractive features being light iron partitions instead of stone mullions for the windows, with shutters painted yellow, bright brick walls and slate roof, and a door painted sky-blue. You can best ornament a chancel by placing colossal figures of Moses and Aaron supporting the altar, huge tables of the commandments, and clusters of grapes and pomegranates in festoons and clusters of monuments. Vases upon pillars, the commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels, are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,[30] with the pedestal and legs of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace, with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the chancel, and the stove-pipe can be carried through the upper part of the east window, and then by an elbow conveyed to the crest of the roof over the window, the cross being taken down to make room for the chimney. Such are some of the recommendations of this ingenious writer, which are ably illustrated by effective drawings. They are not all imaginative. Many old churches tell the tragic story of their mutilation at the hands of a rector who has discovered Parker's _Glossary_, knows nothing about art, but "does know what he likes," advised by his wife who has visited some of the cathedrals, and by an architect who has been elaborately educated in the principles of Roman Renaissance, but who knows no more of Lombard, Byzantine, or Gothic art than he does of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. When a church has fallen into the hands of such renovators and been heavily "restored," if the ghost of one of its medieval builders came to view his work he would scarcely recognize it. Well says Mr. Thomas Hardy: "To restore the great carcases of mediævalism in the remote nooks of western England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a first-rate London man--in the newest style of Gothic art and full of Christian feeling."
[30] A china punch-bowl was actually presented by Sir T. Drake to be used as a font at Woodbury, Devon.
The novelist's remarks on "restoration" are most valuable:--
"Entire destruction under the saving name has been effected on so gigantic a scale that the protection of structures, their being kept wind and weather-proof, counts as nothing in the balance. Its enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone personally from parish to parish through a considerable district, and compared existing churches there with records, traditions, and memories of what they formerly were. The shifting of old windows and other details irregularly spaced, and spacing them at exact distances, has been one process. The deportation of the original chancel arch to an obscure nook and the insertion of a wider new one, to throw open the view of the choir, is a practice by no means extinct. Next in turn to the re-designing of old buildings and parts of them comes the devastation caused by letting restorations by contract, with a clause in the specification requesting the builder to give a price for 'old materials,' such as the lead of the roofs, to be replaced by tiles or slates, and the oak of the pews, pulpit, altar-rails, etc., to be replaced by deal. Apart from these irregularities it has been a principle that anything later than Henry VIII is anathema and to be cast out. At Wimborne Minster fine Jacobean canopies have been removed from Tudor stalls for the offence only of being Jacobean. At a hotel in Cornwall a tea-garden was, and probably is still, ornamented with seats constructed of the carved oak from a neighbouring church--no doubt the restorer's perquisite.
"Poor places which cannot afford to pay a clerk of the works suffer much in these ecclesiastical convulsions. In one case I visited, as a youth, the careful repair of an interesting Early English window had been specified, but it was gone. The contractor, who had met me on the spot, replied genially to my gaze of concern: 'Well, now, I said to myself when I looked at the old thing, I won't stand upon a pound or two. I'll give 'em a new winder now I am about it, and make a good job of it, howsomever.' A caricature in new stone of the old window had taken its place. In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in the Perpendicular style with some gilding and colouring still remaining. Some repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its place a new screen of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the builder, more genial than ever, 'please God, now I am about it, I'll do the thing well, cost what it will.' The old screen had been used up to boil the work-men's kettles, though 'a were not much at that.'"
Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.
Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:--
1. That a new church should be built.
2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the construction of the new.
3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new one be built.
How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history recordeth not.
Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building. Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings, pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own hands she painted the whole of the interior--pulpit, pews, doors, etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration, scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed, and he preached from a bright green pulpit.
The contents of our parish churches, furniture and plate, are rapidly vanishing. England has ever been remarkable for the number and beauty of its rood-screens. At the Reformation the roods were destroyed and many screens with them, but many of the latter were retained, and although through neglect or wanton destruction they have ever since been disappearing, yet hundreds still exist.[31] Their number is, however, sadly decreased. In Cheshire "restoration" has removed nearly all examples, except Ashbury, Mobberley, Malpas, and a few others. The churches of Bunbury and Danbury have lost some good screen-work since 1860. In Derbyshire screens suffered severely in the nineteenth century, and the records of each county show the disappearance of many notable examples, though happily Devonshire, Somerset, and several other shires still possess some beautiful specimens of medieval woodwork. A large number of Jacobean pulpits with their curious carvings have vanished. A pious donor wishes to give a new pulpit to a church in memory of a relative, and the old pulpit is carted away to make room for its modern and often inferior substitute. Old stalls and misericordes, seats and benches with poppy-head terminations have often been made to vanish, and the pillaging of our churches at the Reformation and during the Commonwealth period and at the hands of the "restorers" has done much to deprive our churches of their ancient furniture.
[31] _English Church Furniture_, by Dr. Cox and A. Harvey.
Most churches had two or three chests or coffers for the storing of valuable ornaments and vestments. Each chantry had its chest or ark, as it was sometimes called, e.g. the collegiate church of St. Mary, Warwick, had in 1464, "ij old irebound coofres," "j gret olde arke to put in vestments," "j olde arke at the autere ende, j old coofre irebonde having a long lok of the olde facion, and j lasse new coofre having iij loks called the tresory cofre and certain almaries." "In the inner house j new hie almarie with ij dores to kepe in the evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve it bye."
"It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box. It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands, not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care the register books for which they have always been responsible, but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish without a thought of their value.
"As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse, and their contents have been used to light the church stove, except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]
[32] _The Parish Councillor_, an article by Dr. Jessop, September 20, 1895.
When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton, Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade. The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can refer.
Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate--perhaps a pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman, ignorant of its value, takes it to a jeweller to be repaired. He is told that it is old and thin and cannot easily be repaired, and is offered very kindly by the jeweller in return for this old chalice a brand-new one with a paten added. He is delighted, and the old chalice finds its way to Christie's, realizes a large sum, and goes into the collection of some millionaire. Not long ago the Council of the Society of Antiquaries issued a memorandum to the bishops and archdeacons of the Anglican Church calling attention to the increasing frequency of the sale of old or obsolete church plate. This is of two kinds: (1) pieces of plate or other articles of a domestic character not especially made, nor perhaps well fitted for the service of the Church; (2) chalices, patens, flagons, or plate generally, made especially for ecclesiastical use, but now, for reasons of change of fashion or from the articles themselves being worn out, no longer desired to be used. A church possibly is in need of funds for restoration, and an effort is naturally made to turn such articles into money. The officials decide to sell any objects the church may have of the first kind. Thus the property of the Church of England finds its way abroad, and is thus lost to the nation. With regard to the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.[33] It would be far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by Archbishop Laud. Some addition was required for the new church, and it was proposed to sell the chalice to help in defraying the cost of this addition. A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr. Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of ecclesiastical treasure.
[33] Canon F.E. Warren recently reported to the Suffolk Institute of Archæology that while he was dining at a friend's house he saw two chalices on the table.
Another cause of mutilation and the vanishing of objects of interest and beauty is the iconoclasm of visitors, especially of American visitors, who love our English shrines so much that they like to chip off bits of statuary or wood-carving to preserve as mementoes of their visit. The fine monuments in our churches and cathedrals are especially convenient to them for prey. Not long ago the best portions of some fine carving were ruthlessly cut and hacked away by a party of American visitors. The verger explained that six of the party held him in conversation at one end of the building while the rest did their deadly and nefarious work at the other. One of the most beautiful monuments in the country, that of the tomb of Lady Maud FitzAlan at Chichester, has recently been cut and chipped by these unscrupulous visitors. It may be difficult to prevent them from damaging such works of art, but it is hoped that feelings of greater reverence may grow which would render such vandalism impossible. All civilized persons would be ashamed to mutilate the statues of Greece and Rome in our museums. Let them realize that these monuments in our cathedrals and churches are just as valuable, as they are the best of English art, and then no sacrilegious hand would dare to injure them or deface them by scratching names upon them or by carrying away broken chips as souvenirs. Playful boys in churchyards sometimes do much mischief. In Shrivenham churchyard there is an ancient full-sized effigy, and two village urchins were recently seen amusing themselves by sliding the whole length of the figure. This must be a common practice of the boys of the village, as the effigy is worn almost to an inclined plane. A tradition exists that the figure represents a man who was building the tower and fell and was killed. Both tower and effigy are of the same period--Early English--and it is quite possible that the figure may be that of the founder of the tower, but its head-dress seems to show that it represents a lady. Whipping-posts and stocks are too light a punishment for such vandalism.
The story of our vanished and vanishing churches, and of their vanished and vanishing contents, is indeed a sorry one. Many efforts are made in these days to educate the public taste, to instil into the minds of their custodians a due appreciation of their beauties and of the principles of English art and architecture, and to save and protect the treasures that remain. That these may be crowned with success is the earnest hope and endeavour of every right-minded Englishman.