The New Forest: its history and its scenery/Chapter 13

by John Richard de Capel Wise

 

CHAPTER XIII.

CHRISTCHURCH.

I have determined to give a chapter to Christchurch, not because it contains more than many another town, but because it is a fair representative of the generality of small English boroughs. There is not a town in England, dating from even the Middle Ages, which is not full of interest peculiarly its own, and which does not possess memorials of the past which no other place can show. It has been proposed, by a no mean authority, to teach history by paintings and cartoons. But history is already painted for us on our city walls, and written for us upon our gates and crumbling castles. Our towns are in themselves the best texts upon history. For what we have seen with our eyes, and touched with our hands, leaves a more vivid and more lasting impression than the closest study of libraries of histories.

Further, the picture of a mediaeval town, as given in its own archives, with its own legislation, its peculiar manufacture, or import, forms, to some extent, the true social picture of the times. Its history reflects—and not faintly—the history of the day. Christchurch was never a town of sufficient importance to show all this in its municipal records. Yet, too, we shall see that they in another way are, like the town itself, full of interest. From a modern point of view there is nothing to be seen beyond three or four straggling streets and its manufactory of fusee watch-chains—the only one in England. All its interest and associations lie with the past. The country round it, too, is equally bound up with that same past. To the north rises St. Catherine's Hill, which we saw from the valley of the Avon, with its oval and square camps, and rampart and double vallum, crested with the mounds of its Roman watch-towers. The river Stour winds along between rows of barrows. Hengistbury Head is still fortified by its vast earthworks, and entrenched by deep ditches from the Avon to the sea.^[1] Here the Britons saw the first swarm of fugitive Belgæ land and spread themselves along the rich valleys of Dorsetshire.^[2] Here, centuries afterwards, the West-Saxons watched the raven-standard of the Danes scouring down the Channel, and knew their course along the coast, at night, by the blaze of burning villages, and, in the day, by the black trail of smoke.^[3]

But to return to the town. Its Old-English names, Tweonea and Twinham-burn, were given to it from its situation between the rivers Avon and Stour. They were afterwards corrupted into the Norman Thuinam; which was lost in the name of its Priory, which overshadowed the town with its magnificence.

Here, in 901, came Æthelwald the Ætheling, son of Æthered, in his rebellion against his cousin Edward the Elder, and seized the place. From Christchurch he fell back upon Wimborne, which he fortified, exclaiming he would do one of two things, "Either there live, or there lie." That same night he fled to Northumberland.^[4]

From Domesday we find that in Edward the Confessor's time the manor belonged to the Crown, and that thirty-one tenements paid a yearly tax of 16d. and a mill 5s, whilst another, belonging to the Church, was worth but 30d. Its woods, only, were enclosed in the Forest.

The manor remained in the hands of the Crown till Henry I. bestowed it on his friend and kinsman Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, the ruins of whose castle still overlook the Avon. Here his son Baldwin de Redvers in vain fortified himself against Stephen. Here, too, lived his grandson William de Vernon, who helped to bear the canopy at Richard's second coronation at Winchester. Afterwards, the manor passed into the hands of Isabella de Fortibus, who, on her death-bed, sold it, with all her possessions, to Edward I., who well knew the value of such a stronghold. Though Edward II. bestowed the estate on Sir William Montacute, yet the castle still remained in the hands of the Crown.

It was standing, though no longer a fortification, in the Commonwealth period. Nothing, however, now remains but the mere shell of the keep, whose walls are in places four yards thick.^[5]

Below it stands what was, perhaps, the house of Baldwin de Redvers, also in ruins, and roofless, but still a capital specimen of what is so rarely seen, the true domestic architecture of the twelfth century. Like all the other remaining houses of this period, it is a simple oblong, seventy-one feet by twenty-four broad, and only two stories high, placed for defence on a branch of the Avon, which serves as a moat. On the south-east it is flanked by a small attached tower, now in ruins, under which the stream flows. The ground floor was divided in half by a wall, whilst the outer walls, thicker on the east and south sides, where more exposed to attacks than on the north and west, are pierced with deeply-splayed loopholes looking out on the stream. On this side was the hall, where lord, and guest, and serf, alike ate and drank, and slept on the floor. The other western half was divided into chambers and cellars, the kitchen probably standing in the courtyard.

Above, approached by two stone staircases from within, and not, as in most cases, from without, was the principal dwelling-room, the solar, lighted on each side by three double lights, carved on their outer arches with zig-zag and billet mouldings, and on the south by a circular, and on the north by a fine double window, once richly ornamented, but now nearly destroyed. The fire-place, the only one in the house, is set nearly in the centre of the east wall; and above it still stands, in the place of the old smoke-vent, the beautiful round chimney, one of the earliest in England, like the fire-place, hid in ivy.

There seems, however, as in the case of the still older Norman house at Southampton, to have been no wall-passage connecting the building, as we might have expected, with the castle; but like it, its entrances, of which there were three, one opening out upon the stream, were on the ground floor.^[6]

Coming down to later times, the great Lord Clarendon here possessed large property, and one of his favourite schemes was to make the Avon navigable to Salisbury. For this purpose it was surveyed by Yarranton, the hydrographer, who not only reported favourably of the idea, but proposed to make the harbour an anchorage for men-of-war, bringing forward the great natural advantages of Hengistbury Head, as also the facilities of procuring iron in the district, and wood from the New Forest.^[7] All, however, fell to the ground with Clarendon's exile, and the harbour is now silted up with sand and choked with weeds.

Nothing else is there to be mentioned, except the visit by Edward VI. to the town, from whence he wrote a letter to his friend Barnaby Fitz-Patrick, far superior to most royal letters. The lazar-house, which stood in the Bargates, has long since been destroyed. The old market-place has been lately taken down; but in the main street, not far from the castle keep, remains, lately restored, one of those timbered houses so common in the midland counties and the Weald of Kent, with their dormer windows and richly-carved bressumers and barge-boards, but rarer in the West of England.^[8] The glory, however, of the town, the Priory Church, still stands. Before describing it let us give some account of its history. Its earliest buildings were founded by some of the secular canons of the order of St. Augustine, probably on a spot used for worship by the Romans.^[9] Mention of it is made in Domesday as existing in Edward the Confessor's reign, and as possessing five hydes and one yardland in Thuinam, as also its tithes, and the third of those of Holdenhurst.^[10] The present building, however, dates only from the time of Flambard, who rebuilt the church, pulling down the earlier building with its nine cells.^[11] and introducing the regular instead of the secular canons. Not till Henry I.'s reign was the change completed, Baldwin de Redvers bringing in the former, and placing them under the first prior, Reginald.

With this change new privileges and grants were made. Riches flowed in on every side. Not only were the Redvers benefactors, but the Courtenays, and Wests, and Salisburys, into whose hands the manor of Christchurch came.^[12]

Like most other ecclesiastical buildings, we hear but little of it till its dissolution. From its state we may be able to judge of the general condition of the monasteries, and how imperative was the change.

Leland^[13] tells us that the Priory possessed but one volume—a small work on the Old-English laws. Their own accounts show us that the rules of St. Augustine had long been forgotten. Drunkenness had taken the place of fasting; and instead of giving they now owed.^[14] Tradition, too, adds that the brethren were known in the town as the "Priory Lubbers." To this had the Austin Canons sank. So it was throughout England. Abbot and poorest brother were alike steeped in sensuality, and benighted in ignorance.

Of the last prior, John Draper, we catch some faint glimpse in a letter from Robert Southwell and four other commissioners to Cromwell, dated from Christchurch, the 2nd of December. He appears to have been a man who trimmed his course with the breath of authority, utterly selfish, utterly despicable. Not one word does he appear to have raised on behalf of his priory. Not one sigh did he utter for the old, nor one aspiration after the new religion. Thus the commissioners write:—"Our humble dewties observyd unto y^r gudde Lordeschippe. It may lyke the same to be advertised that we have taken the surrender of the late priorye of Christ Churche twynhm, wher we founde the prior a very honest, conformable pson, And the howse well furnysshede w^t Jewellys and plate, whereof som be mete for the King^s majestie is use as A litill chalys of golde, a gudly lardge crosse doble gylt, w^t the foote garnyshyd w^t stone and perle, two gudly basuns doble gylt having the Kings armys well inamyld, a gudly great pyxe for the sacramet doble gylt, And ther be also other things of sylv, right honest and of gudde valewe as well for the churche use as for the table resyvyd, and kept to the Kings use."^[15] Before the Dissolution came, whilst matters still trembled in the balance—whilst still there was hope that Protection would, for a little time longer, be given to hypocrisy, and Authority to sloth, he pleaded with Henry.^[16] Now, when all hope was lost, when the end had arrived, the commissioners compliment him as the "very honest, conformable person." Had he previously been in earnest they must have written very differently. By his conformity he purchased his peace. And so, after giving up his priory, he was allowed to depart with a pension, to finish his life as he pleased, at the Prior's Lodgings at Sumerford Grange. There he died; and was buried in front of what had been his own choir; and his chantry still remains in the south choir aisle. Of the conventual buildings, which stood on the south side of the church, nothing remains except the fragments of the outer wall and the entrance lodge, built by Draper, with his initials still carved on the window label. A modern house stands on the site of the Refectory; and in digging its foundations, some tombs of the fourth century were found.^[17] Other traces remain only in the names of the places, as Paradise Walk, by the side of the mill stream, and the Convent meadows, where, in an adjoining field, are the sites of the fishponds of the brethren.

The church stands at the south-west of the town, on a rising ground between the two rivers, its tower alike a seamark to the ships and a landmark to the Valley. But the first thing which strikes the visitor is not so much the tower, as the deep, massive north porch, standing right out from the main building, reaching to its roof, with its high-recessed arch, and its rich doorways dimly seen, set between clusters of black Purbeck marble pillars, and ornamented above with a quatrefoiled niche.

Standing here, and looking along the north aisle, the eye rests on the Norman work of the transept, the low round arches interlacing one another, their spandrels rich with billet and fishscale mouldings; whilst beyond rises the Norman turret, banded with its three string-courses, and enriched with its arcades, the space between them netted over with coils of twisted cables.

This is true Norman work, such as you can see scarcely anywhere else in England. And imagine what the church once was—a massive lantern-tower springing up from the midst, the crown of all this beauty.

Beyond all this lovely Romanesque work, rises the north choir aisle, with its quatrefoiled parapet, whilst above gleam the traceried windows of the choir, with their flying buttresses; and beyond them again stands the Lady Chapel, surmounted by St. Michael's loft, ugly and vile.

Entering, and standing at the extreme south-west end, we shall see the massive Norman piers rise in long lines, lightened by their columns, and relieved by their capitals, the spaces above each arch moulded with the tooth ornament. Above springs the triforium with its double arches, some of their pillars wreathed with foliage, the central shafts chequered in places with network, and woven over with tracery. Above that again runs the clerestory, now spoilt, whilst an open oak roof, hid by a ceiling, but once rich with bosses and carved work, encloses all.

To go into details. The porch and north aisle are Early-English, whilst a Norman arcade runs the whole length of the south aisle. The tower, and choir, and Lady Chapel, are Perpendicular, and the nave, as far as the clerestory windows, Norman.

Passing through the rich but mutilated rood-screen, which, however, sadly blocks up the way, we reach the choir, with its four traceried windows on either side, and clustered columns, from which springs its groined roof with bosses of foliage and pendants bright with gold, whilst the capitals of the shafts and the quatrefoils of the archivolts are rich with colour. The stalls are carved with grotesque heads and figures, like those in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Before us now stands the lovely reredos, illustrating the words of Isaiah,—"There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." Jesse sleeps at the bottom, his hand supporting his head, whilst David, with his fingers on his harp-strings, and Solomon, sit on each side, the vine spreading upwards, bearing its leaf and full fruit in Mary, to whose Son the Wise Men are offering their presents. Such is the screen, and had the execution been equal to the design, it would have been the finest in England. The carving seems, however, never to have been finished, and certainly in parts only to have been roughly cut by some inferior hand, and never to have received the last touches of the master-artist. Even now, in its present condition, it stands before those of Winchester and St. Alban's, inferior only to that of St. Mary's Overie.^[18]

Passing on we come to the Lady Chapel, with its traceried roof. Under the east window are the remnants of another rich screen. The high altar, too, with its slab of Purbeck marble cut with five crosses, remains, whilst two recessed altar tombs to Sir Thomas West and his mother stand in the north and south walls.

But what we should especially see, both for its beauty and its interest, is the Chantry Chapel, built for her last resting-place by Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, mother of Cardinal Pole. It stands in the north choir aisle, its roof rich with arabesque tracery and carved bosses, telling a curious story in our English history. Attainted of treason the Countess was confined two years in the Tower before she suffered. When the day of execution came, she walked out on the fatal Tower Green; and still firm—still to the last resolute—refused to lay her head on the block. "So should traitors do," she cried, "but I am none;" and the headsman was obliged to butcher her as best he could.^[19]

In the same letter before quoted from the Commissioners for the Suppression of Monasteries, dated from Christchurch, occurs this passage:—"In thys churche we founde a chaple and monumet curiosly made of cane [Caen] stone pparyd by the late mother of Raynolde pole for herre buriall, wiche we have causyd to be defacyd, and all the armys and badgis clerly to be delete."^[20] To this day the vengeance of Henry's commissioners is visible, her arms being broken, and the bosses defaced, though her motto, "Spes mea in Deo est," can still be read.

At the end of this aisle, under the east window, lie the alabaster effigies of Sir John Chydioke and his wife. The knight, who fell in the wars of York and Lancaster, wears his coat of mail, his head resting on his helmet, and his hands clasped together in prayer. At the western end, adjoining the north transept, stand two oratories with groined roofs, enriched with foliated bosses, whilst the capitals, from which the arches spring, are carved with heads.^[21]

In the south choir aisle stand more monuments, amongst them the mortuary chapel of Robert Harys, with his rebus sculptured on a shield; and the chapel of Draper, the last prior, noticeable for its rich canopied niche over the doorway.^[22]

And now that the reader has seen each part, let him go back to the west end, and sweep out of sight the whole thicket of pews, and break down the rood-screen blocking up the view, and looking through and beyond it, past the long line of Norman bays, with their sculptured tables, and past the chancel, imagine the stone reredos, as it once was, shining with gold and colour, all its niches filled with statues, and the windows above blazing with crimson and purple, through which the sunlight poured, staining the carved stalls and misereres,—and then he will have some faint idea of the former glory of the church.^[23]

Most interesting is it, too, from another point of view. Since the Austin canons were more especially concerned with man's struggle in daily life, their churches assumed a parochial character. Hence we here have the spacious nave, so different to that of the old Nunnery Church of Romsey, the west tower and doorway—absent at Romsey—and the lovely north porch looking out to the town.

The whole building, I am sorry to add, is sadly out of repair. Restoration has been going on for some time past; but here, as in all similar cases, money is sadly needed. Surely men might give something, if from no higher motive than of keeping up a memorial of the piety of a past age. We inveigh against Cromwell and the Puritans—against the sacrilege of horses stabled in the choir, and the stalls turned into mangers;—against the sword which struck down the sculptured images, and the fire which consumed the carved woodwork. But the harm which the Puritans wrought is little compared to ours, in allowing the loveliness of our churches to rot by our negligence, and their sacredness to perish by our apathy.

Footnotes

1. In Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 337-40, is a description, illustrated with a plan of these entrenchments, together with the adjoining barrows, most of which have been opened, but the accounts are very scanty and unsatisfactory.
2. See Dr. Guest on the "Belgic Ditches," vol. viii. of the Archæological Journal, p. 145.
3. Gibson, in his edition of The Chronicle—in the "nominum locorum explicatio," p. 50, seems to think that Yttingaford, where peace was made between the Danes and Edward, was somewhere in the New Forest, deriving the word from Ytene, the old name of the district. Mr. Thorpe, however, in his translation of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 77, suggests that it may be Hitchen.
4. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 178. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. pp. 117, 118.
5. Grose, in his Antiquities (vol. ii., under Christchurch Castle), gives the following curious extract from a survey, dated Oct. 1656, concerning the duties of Sir Henry Wallop, the governor:—"Mem.: the constable of the castle or his deputy, upon the apprehension of any felon within the liberty of West Stowesing, to receive the said felon, and convey him to the justice, and to the said jail, at his own proper costs and charges; otherwise the tything-man to bring the said felon, and chain him to the castle-gate, and there to leave him. Cattle impounded in the castle, having hay and water, for twenty hours, to pay fourpence per foot." The fee of the Constable in the reign of Elizabeth was 8l 0s. 9d. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., part. 5, p. 71. In the Chamberlain's Books of Christchurch we are constantly meeting with some such entry as, "1564, ffor the castel rent for ij yeres—xiijs. vd." "1593, ffor the chiefe rent to the castel—vis. xid.
6. Descriptions of it will be found in Hudson Turner's Domestic Architecture of England, vol. i. pp. 38, 39. Parker's Glossary of Architecture, vol. i. p. 167. Grose's Antiquities, vol. ii. Hampshire; in whose time it appears to have been cased with dressed stones. In the Chamberlain's Books of the Borough, under the date of the sixth year of Edward VI., 1553, we meet with repairs "for the house next the castle," which entry probably refers to some buildings belonging to the house, which, according to Grose, stretched away in a north-westerly direction to the castle.
7. England's Improvements by Sea and Land. By Andrew Yarranton. Ed. 1677, pp. 67. 70.
8. As we have said, the muniment chest of the Christchurch Corporation, like that of all similar towns, is full of interest. It contains absolutions from Archbishops to all those who assist in the good work of making bridges;—letters from absolute patrons directing their clients which way to vote;—bonds from others that they will not require any payment from the burgesses, or put the borough to any expense;—old privileges of catching eels and lampreys with "lyer," and "hurdells de virgis," by all of which the past is brought before us. So, too, the Chamberlain's Books are most interesting. From them we can learn, year by year, the prices of wheat and cattle, the fluctuation of wages, the average condition of the day, and both the minutest outward events as also the innermost life of the town. The true social history of England is written for us in our Chamberlain's Books. They have unfortunately never been made use of as they deserve. Thus let me give a few general quotations from those of Christchurch. In 1578 lime was 6d. a bushel, from which price it fell within two years to 2d. Stone for building we find about 1s. a ton. Wages then averaged, for a skilled mechanic, from 7d. to 1s. a day, and for a labourer, 4d.; whilst night-watchmen, in 1597, were only paid 2d. Timber, contrary to what we should have expected, was comparatively dear. Thus in 1588 we find 9d. paid for two posts, and 20d. for a plank and two posts, whilst a few years afterwards a shilling is paid for making a new gate. Of course in all these calculations we must bear in mind that money was then three times its present value. Turning to other matters, we learn that in 1595, "a pottle of claret wine and sugar" cost 2s., whilst a quart of sack is only 12d. In 1582, a quart of "whyte wine" is 5d., and twenty years before this a barrel and a half of beer cost 4d. Again, in 1562, the fourth year of Elizabeth, large salmon, whose weights are not specified, appear to have averaged 7d. a piece. A load of straw for thatching came to 2s. 6d., and in some cases 3s., which in 1550 had been as low as 8d., and never above 20d. Drawing it, or passing it through a machine, cost 4d.; whilst a thatcher received 1s. 4d. for his labour of putting it on the roof.
   At the same time a load of clay, either for making mortar or for the actual material of the walls, the "cob," or "pug" of the provincial dialect, was 5d., a price at which it had stood with some slight variations for many years.
   To conclude, the smallest things are noted. Thus a thousand "peats," perhaps brought from the Forest, cost, in 1562, 15d., whilst a load of "fursen," still the local plural of furse, perhaps also from the same place, was 8d. Nothing in these accounts escapes notice. In 1586 a "coking stole," the well-known cathedra stercoris, the Old-English "scealfing-stol," is charged 10d.; whilst a collar, or, as it is elsewhere in the same book called, "an iron choker for vagabonds," cost 14d.
9. In Archæologia, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, is a letter from Brander, the geologist and antiquary, describing a quantity of spurs and bones of herons, bitterns and cocks, found on a part of the monastic buildings, showing that the site had been previously occupied.
10. Holdenhurst had ten hydes and a half taken into the Forest (Domesday, as before, iv. a). It then possessed a small church, and, as we find one mentioned in the charter of Richard de Redvers in Henry I.'s reign, we may fairly conclude that this, too, was not destroyed by the Conqueror.
11. Cartularium Monasterii de Christchurch Twinham. Brit. Mus., Cott. MSS., Tib. D. vi., pars ii., f. 194 a. This chartulary was much injured in the fire of 1731, but has been restored by Sir F. Madden. Quoted in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi. p. 303, Ed. 1830.
12. For further information, especially on the fortunes of the De Redvers family, and minor details, which I hardly think would interest the general reader, see Brayley's and Ferrey's work on the Priory of Christchurch, London, 1834, pp. 6. 11. 22: and Warner's South-west Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii. pp. 55-65, which, notwithstanding some errors, is a most painstaking history.
13. Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis, Ed. Hearne, vol. iv. p. 149.
14. The possessions of the house were large, and brought in above 600l. a year. Yet we find that the brethren were in debt in every direction. At Poole, Salisbury, and Christchurch, they owed 41l. 19s. 6d. for mere necessaries. There was due 24l. 2s. 8d. to the Recorder of Southampton for wine; and a bill of 8l. 13s. 2d. to a merchant of Poole, for "wine, fish, and bere." Certificate of Monasteries, No. 494, p. 48. Record Office. Quoted by Brayley and Ferrey, Appendix No. vi., pp. 9, 10.
15. Brit. Mus., Bibl. Cott., Cleopatra, E. iv., f. 324 b.
16. "Petition of John Draper." Amongst the Miscellaneous MSS. of the Treasury of the Exchequer, Record Office.
17. Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 224-29.
18. I know nothing equal to this last screen in the delicacy of its carving, seen in bracket, and canopy, and the flights of angels: in the deep feeling especially manifest in the central bracket, with the Saviour's head crowned with thorns, but surrounded with fruit and flowers, typical of His sufferings and the world's benefits; and in the grave humour, not out of place, as allegorical of the world's pursuits, which peeps forth in the figures over the two doorways.
19. Lord Herbert's Life and Reyne of King Henry VIII., Ed. 1649, p. 468. See, however, Froude's History of England, vol. iv. p. 119, foot-note.
20. The year, as was generally the case, is not given to this letter, but simply December 2nd. From internal evidence, however, it was certainly written in 1539; for we know that the Priory was surrendered Nov. 28th of that year. Why, then, two years before her death, the commissioners should speak of the "late mother of Raynolde pole" I know not.
21. Below the north transept, part, perhaps, of Edward the Confessor's church, is a vault, which, when opened, was stacked with bones, like the carnary crypts at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and of the beautiful church at Rothwell, in Northamptonshire—the "skull houses," to which we so often find reference in the old churchwardens' books.
22. In the south choir aisle the broken sculptures represent the Epiphany, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin. Little can be said in praise of any of the modern monuments. The best are Flaxman's "Viscountess Fitzharris and her three Children," and Weekes's "Death of Shelley." Some of the others should never have been permitted to be erected, especially those which disfigure the Salisbury chapel. The new stained window at the west end adds very much to the beauty of the church.
23. For further details the student of architecture should consult Mr. Brayley and Mr. Ferrey's work, before referred to, of which a new edition is much needed, as also Mr. Ferrey's paper in the Gentleman's Magazine for Dec., 1861, p. 607, on the naves of Christchurch and Durham Cathedral, both built by Flambard, and a paper on the rood screen in the Archæological Journal, vol. v. p. 142; and also a paper read at Winchester, September, 1845, before the Archæological Institute, on Christchurch Priory Church, by Mr. Beresford Hope, and published in the Proceedings of the Society, 1846. An excellent little handbook, by the Secretary of the Christchurch Archæological Association, may be obtained in the town.