Harting, Dorchester-on-Thames, and English village church collections
by Crispin Paine
Figure 1. South Harting church, the Eric Gill War Memorial in the foreground (photo Crispin Paine).
From before 1953 until 1988, two (later three) wooden showcases stood in a corner of the village church in South Harting, West Sussex, and displayed the ‘Harting Parish Museum’. South Harting is a big and historic village, the centre of a large parish, and sits at the foot of the South Downs range of chalk hills. It has a strong tradition of local history studies; the church’s Rector published the standard local history in 1879.
The first case of the three ‘museum’ cases in the church was devoted to archaeology. From the local Iron Age hillfort of Torberry came a quern stone, a spindle whorl and a bead fragment. Other local finds included a Roman spearhead and a terret-ring. The second case (lent by Haslemere Museum in 1962) contained a variety of local finds and curios, including an iron key, a child’s boots found in a jumble sale about 1930, the remains of a wartime incendiary bomb, a shepherd’s crook found under downland turf, a sheet of copper from the church spire, and some pictures of the church. Similarly the third case (added in 1983) displayed a home-made powder horn found in a village attic, ‘a fragment of a Roman food storage jar’, cannon balls perhaps from a skirmish in the village during the Civil War, and five floortiles from the nearby Durford Abbey site.
Harting Parish Museum was thus a distinctly modest affair [1]. The few items which might have attracted attention outside the village were a Customs Officer’s pistol of 1835 (smuggling was big business in early-Victorian Sussex), and a pen, ivory ruler and letter-weighing scale which once belonged to author and local resident Anthony Trollope; these latter featured in a British Library exhibition in 1993.
Figure 2. South Harting church interior (photo Crispin Paine).
Mind, things seem to have come and gone. There was a series of thefts; a stolen snuff-box that had belonged to the village Surveyor was recovered from a local second-hand dealer, and other items remembered but not surviving included a bonnet, a working smock, some needlework and various hand tools [2]. In 1988 the museum’s space ‘was needed for purposes more related to the work of the church’[3], and 28 items were loaned to the District Museum in Chichester.
Eight items which ‘directly relate to the Parish Church’ were left in the care of the churchwardens. These comprised two pictures of the church, the sheet of copper from the spire, a wooden corner post, seven panels from the 1798 box pews and an iron support, a spoon and an iron key found in the Rectory garden, and the clarinet which R. Brightwell, later publican of the White Hart Inn, played in the church orchestra before the organ was installed in 1885 [4]. Sadly, none of these things survive today. The collection at Chichester museum was however returned (policy on loans had changed) to the village in 2015 and is now preserved, though not displayed, by the Parish Council.
Unlike many village church collections, Harting’s museum was Parish Council property, and distinct from the church’s own treasures. These latter are still rich, despite yet another 1980s theft, of a 14th century Spanish Madonna given by the wife of sculptor Jacob Epstein (Francombe 1983, 14). They include a crucifix looted from a ruined church in Ypres by a Harting soldier in the First World War, but most are monuments to or memorial gifts from wealthier – and often titled – local residents, from the 13th century onwards (Jones 2013, 191). Exceptional are three modern sculptures: a Madonna and Child by Karin Jonzen, a suspended Angel Gabriel by local artist Philip Jackson, and the Grade II* listed War Memorial in the churchyard by Eric Gill and his former apprentice Joseph Cribb.
Churchcrawling
The tradition of visiting churches for their antiquarian interest dates back at least two centuries in England, where most parish churches are open during daylight hours, and most have guide leaflets for sale. It is a tradition that has given rise to a library of studies of church furnishings and fittings, particularly strong in the Edwardian era; see for example Cox & Harvey 1907. It has also given rise to a tradition of guides to English churches, notably those of John Betjeman (1958), Simon Jenkins (1999), John Goodall (2015), and of course Nicolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series. John Goodall’s book title, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, well sums up how to many people the contents of parish churches seem and why they are so visited.
Very many of the ‘treasures’ that village churches offer were given by local people, perhaps from a mix of love of art, commitment to the local community, religious devotion and possibly boastfulness. The second was surely the motive behind a textile hanging in the nearest church to South Harting; the ‘Elsted Quilt’ was made by village ladies to celebrate that church’s 900th anniversary. Sometimes a single donation amounts itself to a collection. Will Croome, for example, in the 1920s gave a wonderful collection of (mostly) medieval church objects to his local parish church, North Cerney in Gloucestershire (Hamilton 2017, 123-148). He was moderately wealthy, a devoted churchman, and an equally devoted antiquarian and ecclesiologist.
The Church of England requires all churches to maintain an inventory, updated every year. In addition, since 1973 Church Recording Society volunteers have been documenting in great detail all the contents of target churches. So far this has been immensely valuable to individual parishes, but when the resulting records are digitised it will be possible to discover just how many churches contain anything like a ‘museum’, and what they contain.
This growth of ‘churchcrawling’, together with the collapse of church congregations, has perhaps contributed to the apparent decline in the number of modest showcases at the back of parish churches on the one hand, and on the other to the growth of cathedral-style ‘visitor centres’ or museums attached to larger churches, especially in tourist towns. The former were quite common fifty years ago, but now seem to be quite rare [5]: the latter are increasingly common. Examples of more ambitious church museums are in the Catholic Church at Chidock and the Dorchester Abbey Museum. The difference between the modest showcase and the ‘museum/visitor centre’ is perhaps their intended audience: the former were aimed at locals, the latter are aimed at tourists.
Dorchester Abbey Museum
Figure 3. Dorchester Abbey (photo Wikimedia).
Dorchester-on-Thames, 15 minutes by bus from Oxford and a very attractive former market town dominated by its splendid medieval Abbey church beside the river, has a museum that has not only survived but flourished. The Abbey Museum was founded in 1960 by a redoubtable American woman, Edith Stedman (1888-1978), with the object of bringing together artefacts (and later documents and photographs) relating to the archaeology and history of the village of Dorchester-on-Thames over some 6,000 years. She also opened an adjoining shop and café to raise money for the Abbey [6].
Dorchester is surprising. Those of us who live here have become accustomed to the looks of astonishment as visitors come to the Abbey for the first time… As they visit the charming little museum, housed in the old monastic guest house, astonishment grows. Neolithic crop marks; Roman remains; Saxon burial grounds – what next? The very building in which the story itself unfolds is discovered to be the schoolroom of 1652; the children’s pencil boxes still there and evidence of the sharp penknife of one of the first pupils clearly seen on the wall panelling (Nichols 1985, 71).
Dorchester lies at the centre of a prehistoric ritual landscape of huge significance, with Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments which have attracted much attention from Oxford University archaeologists. Dorchester itself was a small Roman town, then the seat of a Saxon bishopric, and at times almost the capital of the Kings of Wessex. The Medieval Abbey held the shrine of St Birinus and served as the parish church, which it still is today.
Figure 4. Dorchester Abbey’s former Guest House was later a school, and today houses the Museum and tea room (photo: Crispin Paine).
Figure 5. Dorchester Abbey Museum interior (photo: Crispin Paine).
The museum is very much a local history museum, though managed by a part-time volunteer curator and committee who report to the Parochial Church Council. It houses archaeological finds from recent excavations or borrowed from the Ashmolean Museum and County Museums Service, local history items, and documents donated by the Dorchester Historical Society. In 1985 the publication of Dorchester Through the Ages prompted a redisplay, and in 2005 the museum was supplemented by the Abbey’s building of a splendid modern Cloister Gallery, presenting the Abbey’s history through its collection of carved medieval stonework. In 2018 the museum attracted 4809 visitors; most are tourists, of whom about a third from overseas. Many are attracted by the village’s association with the television series Midsomer Murders; others are modern pilgrims.
Figure 6. The Cloister Gallery (photo: Crispin Paine).
Conclusion
English village churches build up collections in many similar ways to temples in other cultures and times. ‘Ritual kit’ ranges from furnishings to church plate and vestments. The latter are indeed often seen as collections of historic and artistic importance; exhibitions of historic vestments from local churches are by no means unusual, while (thanks to a campaign by the Goldsmiths Company) the most important items of plate are often on long loan to a Diocesan Treasury display in the local cathedral.
Almost everything in a parish church has been given by local landowners or other wealthier local residents, as indeed have most church buildings. Very often windows and furnishings bear inscriptions ‘in loving memory of…’ and while Church of England churches have seen no actual votive offerings except candles since the Reformation, such memorial donations have continued from the very beginnings of local churches in England to the present day. Donations and bequests to the local church are still seen by some country landowners as a duty, in the same way that donations to local charities can be, even if they are less crucial than before the days of the Welfare State. South Harting church has, like many churches, an 1863 Charities Board recording legacies to run a school, distribute food and clothing to the poor, put fatherless boys to apprenticeships, and maintain roads.
Most church walls and floors bear memorial plaques and slabs, while some contain magnificent 16th-18th century tombs. Save for the Rolls of Honour listing the dead of the two World Wars, these too almost always commemorate wealthier parishioners. An exception are the modern kneelers embroidered by local ladies found in South Harting as in many village churches.
Church walls and ledges may also bear old paintings of the church, curious old prayer books, carved work from long-gone fitments, and other antiquities. As we have seen from the South Harting example, these are occasionally drawn together in showcases at the back. Sometimes, as we have also seen, the Parish Council or the local history society is involved in their development, and – very occasionally – they receive the dignified term of ‘museum’! The occasional use of the church as an appropriate communal building in which to display local history may perhaps distinguish village churches in England from temples in other cultures [7].
Notes
[1] It was already described as ‘a bit of a muddle’ in 1964. Letter from Kenneth Bawtree of Church Farm, South Harting, to the Rector, 29.11.64. In the archives of Harting Parish Council, ‘Correspondence Relating to Harting Museum Pieces’.
[2] Letter from Humphrey Sladden to Diana Symes, 22.8.2009; photocopy in the records of the Novium Museum, Chichester, EX0870.
[3] Photocopy of a letter to Jack Masefield of Down Lodge, East Harting, with accompanying Report and list of items, from Michael Powys Maurice of West Harting Cottage, West Harting, dated 20th March [1988]. In the archives of Harting Parish Council, ‘Correspondence Relating to Harting Museum Pieces’.
[4] Letter from the Clerk to the Parish Council to the Churchwardens, 26 May 1988. In the archives of Harting Parish Council, ‘Correspondence Relating to Harting Museum Pieces’.
[5] David Medcalf of the Church Recorders Society kindly consulted experienced Church Recorders, who could think of only one example – in Norfolk – of the former.
[6] Edith Stedman’s 1971 memoir is enormously enjoyable, but focusses on people rather than on collections. She didn’t just raise funds, promote the museum and inspire others; she admits (p67) to spending some 30 hours a week on duty in the museum – welcoming visitors, but defending it from the local tearaways.
[7] Though temples in Thailand sometimes serve this purpose (Gabaude 2003). Redundant churches have been used as museums, for example from 1933 to 2001 the St Peter Hungate Museum of Ecclesiastical Art in Norwich (Haynes 2021).
Acknowledgements
I am greatly indebted to Andrew Shaxson of Harting and Margot Metcalfe of Dorchester-on-Thames for their generous welcome, information and advice.
References
Betjeman, John. (1958). Collins Guide to English Parish Churches London: Collins.
Cook, Jean and Rowley, Trevor (eds.) (1985). Dorchester Through the Ages. Oxford: OU Dept for External Studies.
Cox, J. Charles and Harvey, Alfred. (1907). English Church Furniture. London: Methuen.
Francombe, D. C. R. (1983). The Parish Church of St. Mary & St. Gabriel, Harting: A Guide & History. Harting Parochial Church Council.
Gabaude, Louis. (2003). 'Where Ascetics Get Comfort and Recluses Go Public: Museums for Buddhist Saints in Thailand' in Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions edited by Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Goodall, John (2015). Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection. London: Bloomsbury.
Gordon, Rev. H. D. (1877). The History of Harting.
Hamilton, Alec. 2017. Re-constructing the pre-Reformation church: Will Croome and F.C. Eden’s Antiquarian Ecclesiology at North Cerney, Gloucestershire. Ecclesiology Today 55 & 56, 123-148.
Haynes, Clare (2021). Still a House of God? The Redundant Church as Museum. https://religioncollections.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/still-a-house-of-god-the-redundant-church-as-museum.
Jenkins, Simon (1999). England’s Thousand Best Churches. London: Allen Lane.
Jones, Judith Frances (2013). Dances of Life and Death: Interpretations of Early Modern Religious Identity from Rural Parish Churches and their Landscapes along the Hampshire/Sussex Border 1500-1800. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Doctorate of Philosophy, University of Southampton. Available at https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/366338/1/Binder1.pdf.
Nichols, Raymond (1985). ‘Dorchester Today’ in Cook and Rowley 1985.
Stedman, Edith G. (1971). A Yankee in an English Village. Dorchester-on-Thames: Dorchester Abbey Museum. [this edition out of print, reprinted, with additional material and photographs, November 2021]
