Tuesday, 18 July 2017

The History of St Mary’s Parish Church

 
 

This church is of great simplicity and beauty, built in the 1120s of Isle of Wight stone by Normans. It was given by Henry 1 to a small community of Augustinian or Austin canons (monks.) Their seats in the chancel with arched recesses may still be seen. Their priory buildings that once stretched south to the Roman wall have completely disappeared. The canons moved some four miles away to Southwick for a more quiet life after some 20 years but sent a canon till the Reformation in the 1530s to serve this parish.
 
The oldest ceiling in the church is Elizabethan in the North Transept and gives access to the three bells. It was Sir Thomas Cornwallis, in charge of gambling at the courts of Elizabeth and James 1, who persuaded the queen to fund a wall, blanking off the ruined South Transept and rebuilding the east wall; into this the Perpendicular style East window was inserted. The memorial glass is modern.  Cornwallis was the last royal constable of the Castle and his effigy is to the right of the East window. On the South wall is an Elizabethan plaque, dated 1577, the oldest of this type in the county and a note of the royal grant.
 
 
 Built of Isle of Wight stone by Norman masons in the 1120s it was given by Henry 1 to Augustinian or Austin canons in 1133, Their head was a prior, their dress black, their vows traditional – of poverty, chastity and obedience – and their monastic buildings stretched from the south side of the church. No trace of  these remain except the nine exits from their toilet facilities in the Roman wall; the small company moved to Southwick, a quieter location, within a few years. Austin canons left their monastic buildings to work as local parish priests, unlike monks. There were seven Austin houses in England













 


 

 













 

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