St Peter's church

Town and Church

The small town of Bishop's Waltham was probably settled by the Saxons, not later than the seventh century. The name Waltham means settlement in the forest, whilst Bishop in its title reminds us that from 904 to 1869, with interruptions at the Reformation and during the Commonwealth, the manor belonged to the Bishop of
Winchester.

Around 700 AD there was a Saxon minster here, a centre from which priests went out to preach, baptise and celebrate mass in the surrounding countryside where as yet there were no parishes, and no church buildings. In 715 Boniface or Wynfrith as he was originally called, came to the church to be blessed before embarking on
his first missionary journey to Frisia. Shortly afterwards Willibald, a relation of Boniface, was receiving his education at the minster at Waltham before setting off for Rome with his father and brother.

The first Waltham together with its church was burnt by the Danes in 1001. By the time of Domesday in 1086 there was a second church, whose priest was named Radulph. Whether it collapsed, burnt down or failed
to reach the more exacting standards of the new bishop we do not know.

The present church was started in 1136 by Henry of Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror, brother of King Stephen, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to 1174. founded by him, as well as the Palace at Bishop's Waltham. In the middle ages, the palace was one of the favourite residences of bishops such as William of Wykeham and Henry Beaufort, and it was often visited by royalty. Scarcely anything remains of the
twelfth century church, apart from some fragments of the south arcade capitals found in 1897, and now placed below the pulpit.

Like all mediaeval churches it has been enlarged, rebuilt and restored in succeeding centuries, to counter the ravages of time and to meet the changing needs of the generations. St. Peter's is unusual in having extensive alterations dating from the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. It is more typical in having several nineteenth century restorations.

These begin in 1797 with the building of a gallery over the south aisle and the insertion of dormer windows to light it. By 1822 it was in danger of collapse and had to be supported with stone pillars.

In 1848 the west wall in turn was in danger of collapse and had to be rebuilt. Twenty years later the dormer windows in the south aisle roof were replaced with "windows of a more ecclesiastical character", the nave
and aisles were reseated, the floors paved, and the ceilings removed to reveal the beams.

The restoration of 1894-97, was even more thorough and substantially created the church we know today.

Sir Thomas Jackson, one of the most prolific of Victorian church architects and restorers, and a pupil of Gilbert Scott, was employed. His report of 1894 was forth- right - some might say opinionated.

The south aisle gallery was dismantled together with the windows which Jackson thought "of ambitious but dubious design". The north aisle arcade was renewed, and the south rebuilt. The organ which had stood
half way down the north aisle was moved to the east end of the south aisle. The choir which had occupied pews in the centre of the north side of the nave was moved to new oak pews in the chancel. The tester was
returned to its place over the pulpit, and the chancel arch was repaired and restored to its earlier shape.

The numbers to be found in the plan in the centre of this booklet, identify the main features of the church.

1 Door
The massive oak door inside the south porch has the date 1613 carved on it, though now it is scarcely legible. In 1681 the clerk and one of the churchwardens locked out the Rector, Robert Sharrock and the parishioners . The Bishop of Winchester gave permission to force the lock and fit the present one.

There is a note in the first Register, "The tower and steeple fell down, on 31 December 1582, began to be re-edified in 1584 and was finished in 1589." The rebuilt tower has a tall rounded turret decorated with quatrefoils and large crosses. According to Pevsner, though built in the seventeenth century, it must have been altered since. Jackson recommended "the lowering of the somewhat preposterous top of the turret which has been added in modern times." His advice was not taken.

There is a fine peel of eight bells. The earliest are the tenor and number 5 dated 1597 and 1598. Numbers 5 and 6 are dated 1651, but were recast in 1975 and 1901 respectively. Number 3 bears the name of
Richard Norton the donor and the date 1724; it too was recast in 1975. The treble and number 2 were cast in 1937 to commemorate the reign of King George V. The lightest bell, the treble weighs just over five hundredweights (1/4 ton), and the heaviest over ten hundredweights (1/2 ton). The original wooden frame was decayed so that the bells could only be chimed not rung. It was replaced by a cast iron frame in 1901.

On the wall of the ringing chamber is an eighteenth century verse of admonition to ringers. The tower was used for spotting enemy aircraft during the second world war; the aircraft recognition chart on the wall serves as a reminder of those days.

3 Clock
The fourteenth century iron clock came from the Palace after it was sacked by the Parliamentary army during the Civil War. It was converted in 1873 by James Padbury, a local clockmaker from half dead to double
three-legged gravity escapement. The pendulum now weighs 6cwt 281b 4oz (almost a third of a ton), and is thought to be the third heaviest in the world. The clock has to be wound by hand every third day. The
face was re-painted and re-gilded in 1979.

4 Font
The Saxon font was found in the garden of a house in Houchin Street in 1933 where it formed part of a rockery. In 1965 it was mounted on a plinth of Portland stone and re-dedicated. The base of the bowl is
square, the upper part rounded, and not surprisingly, the surface is rough and weathered. The Norman font was destroyed in 1798.

5 Faculty Gallery
The gallery at the west end of the church was built in 1733 at the expense of five parishioners who "are desirous to have Seat Room in the Church there to sitt (sic) together to sing psalms, also for the Singers to Stand, Sit and kneel therein." The seats are still the property of the owners of Northbrook House, Vernon Hill House, St George's House in High Street, Mill House, and a house in Basingwell Street.

In October 1848 pew holders in the west gallery drew attention to the dangerous state of the west wall which was 18" out of upright and bulging. The entire wall had to be rebuilt.

Under the gallery are the box pews replaced in the rest of the church in 1847.

7 Upper Vestry
High on the west wall are the arms of Charles II, required to be displayed in all churches as a reminder that the monarch is temporal head of the Church of England.

The Upper Vestry was used as a school until the National School was built at the east end of the churchyard in 1832. Entry from the outside was via a staircase in the projecting west buttress.

8 Admiral's Corner
The western end of the north aisle is known as the Admiral's Corner after Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope whose memorial it contains. He was one of the greatest naval commanders since Nelson and lived at Palace House from 1934 until his death in 1963.

On the west wall are the arms and rebus of Tnomas Langton, bishop of Winchester 1493- 1501, surmounted by three cannon balls found in the Palace Grounds.

9 North Aisle
The north aisle was built or rebuilt in 1637. Jackson thought that it was rebuilt, but that the arcade was original. "The north nave arcade," he wrote, "Is very simple and rude work and so devoid of detail that it is not easy to say whether its inartificial (sic) character bespeaks the primitive workmanship of the transitional period of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, or the clumsy hand of rustic masons in the seventeenth century, when the aisle to which it opens was rebuilt."

Which ever it was, material was brought from the Ash ton chapel which once stood near Chapel Farm in Ashton Lane, was used. Its architectural style is described by Pevsner as "Gothic survival". The north
windows are square headed and cusped; the east windows Perpendicular with upper tracery. At the west end there are uncusped three-light windows in two storeys, the upper to light the school room. The piers
supporting the arcade were renewed in 1897.

The memorial to Thomas Ashton (d 1629) is set high on the north wall. His bust, wearing a ruff is in a surround with Tuscan columns. Further east is a memorial to Jane Wright (d 1753), . a descendant of the Boswell family of Ayrshire. It was carved by James Stubbington who was parish clerk for 34 years, and a local mason of
some distinction. He may also have carved some of the tombstones in the churchyard.

10 North Aisle Altar
Until the end of the nineteenth century there was no altar in the north aisle, but instead at the east end there were four pews facing the pulpit.

The altar is late Tudor. The pewter candle- sticks were made in 1967 to a sixteenth century Welsh design.

11 Pulpit
The splendid Jacobean pulpit was presented to the Rector, Dr Robert Ward, by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes in 1626. Ward had been Andrewes' tutor at Cambridge as well as serving with him as one of the translators
of the Authorised Version of the Bible. He is buried in a vault on the south side of the altar. The sounding board or tester above the pulpit, which Pevsner attributes to the nineteenth century, but which Jackson thought was contemporary wi th the pulpit, was relegated to the tower in 1867.

Jackson recommended its repair and replacement. "It would go far", he wrote, "To restore something of that picturesque and furnished appearance of which the church has been in great measure robbed by too
sweeping 'restoration'".

On the left of the pulpit is the mounting for the hour glass stolen in 1972.

12 Nave
The trussed rafter roof dates from 1669 when, according to the Register, it was "made new and ceiled". It was covered on the outside with stone tiles (one of which is to be found beneath the pulpit) and on the inside with a ceiling which was removed in 1868 to reveal the beams. The roof was renovated and floodlit in 1992.

Until the restoration of 1897, heating pipes ran round the church above floor level obstructing entrance to the pews. They were then replaced with flues under the floor.

13 Chancel
The western part of the chancel was probably built in the thirteenth century, but remodelled in the late fourteenth
century by William of Wykeham (Bishop 1367 - 1404), whose badge, the Hampshire rose, appears above the east window.

The eastern end of the chancel is probably a later extension since evidence of alterations was found
in the 1860s. The marble pavement and choir stalls date from the restoration of 1897. The chancel arch was
also reconstructed and the squint inserted.

The windows are all late fourteenth century though the painted glass here and elsewhere in the church is Victorian.

14 Chancel North Wall
Monuments on the north wall include a black marble tablet in an alabaster frame, to Anne Cruys (d 1634), and a memorial to Joseph Gulston, rector 1642-68, who was dispossessed during the Commonwealth, and
restored in 1660. There are plaques to the memory of two rectors whose incumbencies cover almost the whole of the nineteenth century. James Ogle, 1802-33 built the Rectory in 1804. It stood on the north side
of the church until it was replaced by the present one in 1962. William Brock, commemorated in a small brass plaque, was rector for fifty-nine years from 1833-92.

15 Altar
The altar table and rails are Elizabethan. The table was probably the original post- Reformation altar, when wooden altars were replaced by stone ones. It was used in the early nineteenth century as a school table
in the upper vestry. The wooden aumbry is dated 1915.

To the right of the altar are the tombs of the wife of Robert Home, the first married bishop of Winchester (1561-80), Dr Robert Ward (d 1629) and Thomas Eustace (d 1697), the first known assistant priest in the parish.

16 South Chancel Wall
On the south wall of the chancel are memorials to members of the Colpoys family. Edward Griffiths Colpoys (d 1832) who lived in Northbrook House, commanded HMS London during the mutiny at Spithead in 1797, and
was held prisoner by his crew for five days.

17 Organ
The first organ, which came from the chapel of Southwick House was presented in 1734 by Richard Norton, whose heraldic shield is on the case of the present organ.

It was placed in the newly erected south gallery close to the singers. It was removed to Gosport in 1842. It seems likely that the new organ was positioned in the north aisle, close to the choir who
then sat in pews in the middle of the north side of the nave. The organ was moved again
in 1897, this time to the west end of the south aisle where the pipes are still located. At the same time the choir was moved into the chancel.

18 South Aisle
The south aisle was rebuilt in 1652, an unusual event to have occurred during the Commonwealth. Material from the Palace recently devastated by bombardment, was used. In 1797 a gallery was built over the south aisle supported by timber columns which replaced the twelfth century stone columns and arches, and three dormer windows were inserted to light the new gallery. In 1822 it was deemed "not safe for the congregation to atend divine service" and the timber supports were replaced by Tuscan columns in Portland stone. The effect was not however pleasing, In 1867 the pillars were described as "the great blot of the church" and the gallery as "that unsightly erection". Its removal was not at that time thought practicable. It was not until 1897 that both pillars and gallery were dismantled and the present arcade built to match the north arcade.

Over the east window of the south aisle is a stone dated 1652 with the initials of the four churchwardens. The parish is unusual in having four churchwardens, originally one for each of the four tithings in the parish: Hoe, Curdridge, Ashton and Bishop's Waltham.

The east end of the south aisle was partitioned in 1952 to form a clergy vestry. A children's corner was first established in the north aisle in 1933.

Plate
Plate includes an Elizabethan cup, a flagon of 1629, a sterling alms dish of 1669 and a chalice and a flagon of 1747, all deposited for safe keeping.

Records
The records of the parish, once kept in the Parish Chest, are now deposited at the Hampshire County Record Office in Winchester where they are available for study, all began in 1612 and break. Rate books, and Service Registers marriages and burials continue without a Churchwarden Accounts are all deposited.

Kneelers
The church has a a strong tradition of needlework and the kneelers were all made by parishioners. The
ones in the choir, the sanctuary and the north aisle were worked by the Mothers' Union in 1967-71. Almost 200 kneelers for pews in the centre aisle were worked by over 100 members of the congregation in 1980 and 70 more for the south aisle and the box pews in 1983. The designs are taken from the stained glass windows, choir stall carvings, coats of arms of bishops of Winchester, badges of church organisations relating to St Peter and original designs by Mrs M Saxby.

Outside
Most of the old walling is flint. Seventeenth century work is ashlar, except the east end of the south aisle, where there is chequered stone and flintwork. On the right hand external buttress of the porch is an incised dial or mass clock.

PARISH PRIESTS OF ST PETER'S
BISHOPS WALTHAM