The treasures of Meon Valley churches

I have only recently discovered the website of Hampshire History, which offers all sorts of fascinating snippets about the history and historical artefacts of our lovely county. It was where I learned about the Tournai font in the church of East Meon, which I wrote about in my last History Girls post. But finding that led me on to other discoveries about the treasures of the churches of the Meon Valley. Many of the church buildings are of course treasures in themselves, as I have already shown, but there are also some especially interesting artefacts, to some extent hidden within the churches, that I thought were worth sharing.

If you are interested in the treasures of other Hampshire churches, do have a look at http://www.hampshire-history.com/category/architecture-artefacts/churches/church-treasures/.

Today I am going to look at a few of the items in the churches of Soberton, Corhampton, Exton, Warnford and East Meon.

[All photographs are © David Hughes]

Soberton

St. Peter’s church in Soberton is originally Norman but was extended and rebuilt during the 13th century, then again in the 15th and 16th, with further additions in the 19th century. A small tower of an earlier date was replaced in 1525 by a larger structure and it is here that there is a carving – high up, so hard to see – that allegedly gave rise to a legend that the tower was built by servants!

The carving has a skull and two heads, together with a key and what might be a milking pail, though some think it is a purse. According to the mediaeval legend, the tower was built by a butler and a dairymaid, represented by the carvings of the two heads, and this idea is borne out by a plaque in the tower, which says:

This Tower Originally Built By Servants Was Restored By Servants 1881

Whatever the truth of the legend – and it does sound unlikely! – the Victorians evidently believed in it sufficiently to be able to persuade domestic servants across Hampshire to raise £70 to have the tower restored. How very bizarre!

St. Peter’s does also have another memorial with a potentially intriguing story behind it. In the 13th Lady (or Curle, named in honour of Walter Curle, Bishop of Winchester 1632-1647) Chapel, there are two fragments of a headstone, each with the outline of a tulip flower carved into the corner. 

The dedication is to a man called Robart, with a date of 1712 and, although nothing is known about him, there has been speculation that he might have been caught up in the “tulip mania” of the mid 17th century. At that time, tulip bulbs were much sought after and they were bought and sold like any other valuable commodity, especially in the Netherlands. 

Prices eventually reached silly heights before the market collapsed.

  

     

Corhampton

In Corhampton’s wonderful Saxon church (for more about it, see my History Girls post for October) is a fabulous and rare Saxon sundial, or rather tide dial.

The word ‘tide’ was used to denote a time period and survives today in terms such as ‘eventide’ or ‘yuletide’. In Saxon times, the day was divided into eight tides, each about three hours long. The Corhampton dial is set into the wall immediately to the right of the church’s porch. The dial is divided into the eight tides, rather than the usual twelve hours. In the middle of the dial is a hole where the gnomon would have been positioned. The gnomon is the piece that projects the sun’s shadow onto the dial and would probably have been made from metal. The dial seems to pre-date the building and may even date back to the 7th century, when Bishop Wilfrith was trying to convert the “heathens” in the Meon Valley. It could have been used right up until the Norman conquest, when the use of such dials seemed to fall away.

Exton

The village of Exton forms, with Meonstoke and Corhampton, a group of three small communities that straddle the River Meon a few miles south of the river’s source. In Exton’s 13th century church of St. Peter and St. Paul there is a memorial plaque to John Young, who was Dean of Winchester from 1616 to 1645. Why does he have a memorial here? A Scot, born in 1585, he lived at a time of great political upheaval and terror in the country during the English Civil War. He was apparently a great diplomat, and was dean for thirty years until he was removed by Cromwell and retired to his estates near Exton, where he died in 1654 and was buried in Exton’s church.

What is rather fascinating is that John wrote the epitaph for his memorial ten years before his death, and he included in it a cryptic message.

Towards the bottom of the plaque is the following line, with certain letters capitalised:

VenI VenI MI IesV IVDeX VenI CIto

The Latin here is: Veni, veni mi, Iesu, Iudex, veni cito, which translates as: Come, come my Jesu, Judge, come quickly.

But this line is a chronogram, which is derived from the Greek χρονος meaning “time” and γραμμα meaning “letter”, and is an inscription in which a date is hidden. The idea is that, taking the highlighted capital letters, you interpret them as Roman numerals to work out the encrypted date. So, V is 5, C is 100, M is 1000 and so on. From what I have read, the letters don’t have to be in the correct order! As I understand it, the date here is supposed to be when John wrote his epitaph. So if he died in 1654, in theory, the hidden date should be 1644. However, try as I might, I have so far failed to make the Roman letters spell out 1644! Please, if anyone else can solve the puzzle, do let me know…

There is another, almost charming, memorial in Exton’s church: a headstone with an inscription to Richard Pratt of Preshaw (a few miles from Exton), who died in 1780. We must deduce that Richard was a bookish sort of chap, for the carving on his headstone shows a man with an elegant bookcase behind him, but a figure who we must presume is Death is summoning him away from his reading.

Warnford

There is yet another interesting headstone, in the church of Our Lady in Warnford, a mile and a half north of Exton, along the River Meon, a church that is set, alone and alongside the ruins of the old manor house, in the middle of a mediaeval park. (I referred to the reason for this is my History Girls blog for June.) This headstone is a great deal older than Richard Pratt’s: it is 13th century and has no inscription. But the simple cross on the stone apparently marks out the grave as that of a crusader.

East Meon

I introduced the wonderful All Saints Church, in East Meon, in my last History Girls post, but promised to say a little more about the astonishing Tournai font. But, first, an interesting, if not mediaeval, story about a small stone plaque that sits on the church’s east wall. It was originally on the floor of the church and, when it was removed, underneath were found the remains of four men were found. All were buried standing up…

The men were apparently parliamentary soldiers, billeted in East Meon in 1644 before fighting in the battle of Cheriton.  It is said, but can hardly be verified, that they were the ones who stole the lead from the Tournai font to make shot for their weapons. (The existing lead lining is a later replacement.)

On the plaque are simply the words ‘Amens Plenty’. I wonder why?

And so to the Tournai font.

The font was carved in the 12th century by the sculptors of Tournai from the hard blue-black limestone from the banks of the River Scheldt in what is present-day Belgium. It arrived in East Meon in around 1150, just as the original church was being completed, and was probably a gift from the then bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, who was a grandson of William the Conqueror. Henry was King Stephen’s brother, the Chancellor of England and the richest and most powerful man in the country after the king.

Two sides of the font have images of birds and dragons, floating above a row of pillars.

The other two sides show the story of Adam and Eve.

As I understand it, this side shows, from the right, God creating Adam, and then Eve from Adam’s rib. Then Eve is tempted by the snake, which looks more like a dragon with its fangs! And finally Eve tempts Adam with the apple.

On this side, Adam and Eve are being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Is the angel with the sword barring the miscreants’ way back into Paradise? On the left, an angel is teaching Adam to dig and Eve is busy spinning (what a giant distaff she has!).

There are in fact four Tournai fonts in Hampshire, the other three being in Winchester Cathedral, St Peter’s church in St. Mary Bourne (near Andover) and St. Michael’s church in Southampton, with only another three in the whole of the rest of the country, so Hampshire is privileged to have so many!

The Domesday Village – East Meon

In my series of posts on some of the communities of the valley of the River Meon, I have arrived close to the source of the river, at East Meon (Mene or Menes 11th c; Meonis 12th c; East Menes 13th c; Estmune, Estmunes, Moene and Estmeone 14th c; Estmene 15th c; and Estmeane 16th c).

The River Meon rises just south of the village and at first flows north, winding through the village itself before heading off into the countryside towards West Meon, where it turns and flows south, making its short, twenty-one miles, journey through the Meon Valley, to Titchfield and the sea.

For 1,000 years, East Meon was a hundred, a parish and a manor. It was the largest of the estates of the bishops of Winchester, with the magnificent All Saints Church and the bishops’ Court House to reflect its importance. For centuries it knew only one industry, farming, and only one owner, the Diocese of Winchester.

It seems that, initially, no distinction was drawn between East Meon and West Meon (about 4 miles north-west as the crow flies and following the course of the River Meon). East Meon is first mentioned specifically in the mid 11th century, when the then bishop of Winchester, Alwin, granted both Meons to the monks of Winchester, retaining, however, the management of the lands. When Alwin died, in 1047, the manor was held by the new bishop, Stigand, and he continued to hold it after he also became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1052. He was apparently excommunicated for holding both Winchester and Canterbury, though that doesn’t seem to have affected his continuing to be bishop and archbishop. Stigand attended the deathbed of King Edward and the coronation of Harold Godwinson as king of England in 1066, but after Harold’s death, Stigand submitted to William the Conqueror. However, when William was crowned King on Christmas Day 1066, it was the Archbishop of York who carried out the coronation because Stigand’s excommunication meant that he could only assist!

HIC RESIDET HAROLD REX ANGLORUM. STIGANT ARCHIEP(I)S(COPUS).
“Here sits Harold King of the English. Archbishop Stigand”.
Scene immediately after crowning of King Harold.
By Norman or English embroiderers
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Stigand was eventually deposed in 1070, but held East Meon until his death probably two years later. At this point, it was seized by William I, and it was he who was holding East Meon in 1086, although, as Domesday tells us, Walkelin (Walchelin), the first Norman (as opposed to Saxon) bishop of Winchester, appointed in 1070, was also holding considerable property in East Meon (6 hides and 1 virgate, with a church). It was Walkelin who, in 1079, began work on a new cathedral church in Winchester, the current Winchester Cathedral, though little other than his transepts and crypt are still extant.

In the Domesday Book the hundred is represented by a single entry under Mene:

The entry shows that, in 1086, the “Mene” Hundred had 138 households, which was a large community of perhaps 500, and six mills, which also seems a lot, but perhaps their number reflects the extent of the Hundred’s lands.

In 1986, to celebrate the 9th centenary of the Domesday Book, the Hampshire Museums Service and the Sunday Times selected East Meon as the “Domesday Village”. In an exhibition at the Great Hall in Winchester, a model of the village was displayed, depicting it as it might have been in 1086. The simulation was created by Edward Roberts, then lecturer in Mediaeval Architecture at King Alfred’s College, Winchester, and Liz Lewis, curator at the Hampshire Museums Service. The model was later transported to Bayeux, where it is on display in La Musée de La Tapisserie, under the same roof as the Bayeux Tapestry. 

This part of the model shows the church and the Court house.Image courtesy of La Musée de la Tapisserie

East Meon continued to be crown property until some time between 1154 and 1161, when Henry II granted it, along with all churches belonging to it, to the diocese of Winchester. From this date, apart from a short period during the Commonwealth, when it was sold with his other lands in 1648 and 1649 as a result of the Root and Branch Bill, East Meon remained with the bishops of Winchester right up to the mid-19th century.

I imagine that it was not untypical that relations between tenants and their lords in English manors were not of the most cordial and, indeed, it is recorded that, in the reign of Edward III, there was a dispute between the then bishop, Adam Orlton, and his East Meon tenants. It seems that, in 1342 and 1343, the tenants wanted “clarification” of entries in the Domesday Book relating to “Menes” (one assumes they felt they were being short-changed in some regard). A century later, in August 1461, when Edward IV went on progress to Hampshire, the tenants of East Meon and elsewhere “in grete multitude and nombre” petitioned the king for relief from certain services, customs, and dues which the bishop, William Waynflete, and his agents were attempting to exact (presumably unjustly). According to one account the tenants seized the bishop, but the king rescued him from his murderous tenants and then arrested and tried the ringleaders, giving judgement in favour of his noble bishop.

East Meon is full of old buildings, including some delightful thatched cottages, strung out along the narrow streets, many of which follow the line of the River. But two of the buildings are of particular note. One is the church, All Saints, described by Nicholas Pevsner as “one of the most thrilling village churches in Hampshire” (The Buildings of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight). The other is the old Court House, the manor house of East Meon, built at the end of the 14th century, which stands opposite the church and is the best preserved of the residences of the bishops of Winchester.

All Saints church

Pevsner doesn’t explain exactly wherein lies the “thrill” of All Saints, but it is certainly a wonderful church. It was built in stages between the 11th and the 14th centuries, the original Norman church with its tower being completed in about 1150. The size and beauty of the church probably reflected East Meon’s importance in mediaeval times, both as a very large manor and as a centre for the bishops of Winchester.

The original church was cruciform in shape, consisting of nave, chancel, and transepts, and the original work is clearly identifiable in the round-topped arches typical of Norman or Romanesque style, and in the West and South doorways. The only major addition to the church was made in about 1230, when the South Aisle and Lady Chapel were added, in the new Early English style, with its pointed arches and larger windows. The spire was probably added at this time too.

All Saints’ greatest treasure is the Tournai font, one of only seven such fonts in the country (another, of the same period, is in Winchester Cathedral). The font was carved in the 12th century by the sculptors of Tournai from the hard blue-black limestone from the banks of the river Scheldt in what is present-day Belgium. The carvings on the four sides are illustrations from the opening chapters of Genesis, together with birds and animals, in a Romanesque style. It arrived in East Meon in around 1150, just as the original church was being completed, and was probably a gift from the then bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, who was a grandson of William the Conqueror. Henry was King Stephen’s brother, the Chancellor of England and the richest and most powerful man in the country after the king.

I will talk a little more about this font in a future post on some of Hampshire churches’ finest treasures.

The Court House

East Meon was the largest of the bishops of Winchester’s manors in Hampshire, and this manor house reflects that. It perhaps acted as the diocese’s administrative centre as well as being home to a number of monks who played host to the bishop whenever he visited East Meon.

About 20 years ago, an architectural historian called Edward Roberts identified pipe rolls for Court House (those for 1395-6 and 1396-7), which recorded the building of the house. It is thought that the works were carried out almost wholly in 1396, at a total cost of £109 15s 11d, at a time when a labourer’s daily wage was 4d.

The building, consisting of a great hall and a two-storey wing, was a replacement for a similar building, almost certainly Norman, which had stood on the same site. It was commissioned by someone I have mentioned before in previous posts, William of Wykeham, the then bishop of Winchester. His master mason for this building project was William Wynford. It is thought that Wynford might have first met Wykeham when the latter was a provost of Wells Cathedral, where Wynford had gone as master mason. He was made master of works at Windsor Castle in 1364, also under Wykeham. During the 1370s, Wynford worked at Abingdon Abbey, Corfe Castle and Southampton Castle.

When Wykeham founded New College, Oxford (1379) and then Winchester College (1382), it was to Wynford he turned for their design. There is a portrait of William Wynford in the stained glass in the east window of Winchester College. This shows an old man with thinning hair, with the words “Willms Wynfort lathomus” below. His last major work, in the 1390s, was the remodelling of the Norman nave of Winchester Cathedral in the latest Perpendicular Gothic style.

But it was also to Wynford that Wykeham turned for the design of his new manor house in East Meon. The Court House is apparently Wynford’s only surviving domestic (as opposed to royal or ecclesiastical) building.

Broadly, the structure of the original house was of a vast hall at the south end, built onto a wing of the earlier Norman building that contained the chapel and, upstairs, the bishop’s chamber. The hall itself is 48 feet long and 26 feet wide and is over 40 feet up to the peak of the roof. There would have been an open fire in the middle of the floor. The walls are 4 feet thick and 20 feet high and are constructed mainly of white malmstone (greensand) from Langrish (2.5 miles to the north-east) and flints from the downs above the village. The roof was constructed during the same months as the great roof of Westminster Hall. There are corbels set into the eaves of the roof that were carved in Winchester and represent heads of bishops and kings. It is thought that the one of a bishop might be William of Wykeham himself, by then in his seventies.

At the north end of the hall there is a service wing with a chamber above. Two doors lead from the hall into the buttery (where drink was stored and prepared for serving) and the pantry (where food was stored). The kitchen itself, as usual in these times when it would represent a considerable fire hazard, would have been a freestanding building to the east.

Above the buttery and pantry is the great chamber, 30 feet by 15, with a timber roof and a large fireplace. It is accessed by an external staircase. Off the great chamber was the garderobe with a drop down to a latrine below.

The new building survived virtually unaltered through six centuries. Under Wykeham’s successor, Cardinal Beaufort, the earlier wing to the south of the Great Hall, containing the bishop’s chamber and chapel, was rebuilt, but later demolished, probably in the early 17th century, when the timber framed farmhouse wing on the east of the hall was built. The farmhouse, for the 750 acre Court Farm, survives today. 

We must be very grateful to the mediaeval bishops of Winchester for what they brought to East Meon: a glorious manor house, much of which survives unaltered, a “thrilling” church which certainly survives, and of course that magnificent Tournai font. 

And isn’t it extraordinary to ponder upon how very many babies (and adults too) must have been baptised in that font, standing there in All Saints church for over 850 years – not much less than half a century since the writing of the Domesday Book!