Wimborne Minster (church)

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Wimborne Minster is the parish church of Wimborne, Dorset, England. The minster has existed for over 1300 years and is recognised for its unusual chained library (one of only a few surviving chained libraries in the world). The minster is a former monastery and Benedictine nunnery, and King Æthelred of Wessex is buried there.

History

Wimborne Abbey

The minster is dedicated to Saint Cuthburga (sister to King Ine of Wessex and wife of King Aldfrith of Northumbria) who founded a Benedictine abbey of nuns at the present day minster c. 705. Saint Walpurga was educated in the monastery, where she spent 26 years before travelling to Germany, following the missionary call of her mother's brother Saint Boniface. Leoba was also educated in this place. A monastery for men was also built around this time, adjacent to the abbey. Over the next hundred years the abbey and monastery grew in size and importance. The Anglo-Saxon name of the abbey, monastery and town was Winburna.^[1]

In 871 King Æthelred I of Wessex, elder brother of Alfred the Great, was buried in the minster. Alfred was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder in 899, and Æthelred's son, Æthelwold, rebelled and attempted to claim the throne. He seized a nun, probably of Wimborne, and made a stand there, probably because of its symbolic importance as his father's burial place, but he was unable to gain enough support to fight Edward and fled to the Vikings of Northumbria.^[2]

Deans of Wimborne

• Martin de Pateshull 1223
• Randolf Brito 1229
• John Mansell 1247
• John Kirby 1265
• John de Berwick 1286
• Stephen de Malo Lacu or Mauley 1312
• Richard de Clare 1317
• Richard de Swynnerton 1335
• Richard de Murymouth 1338
• Robert de Kyngeston 1342
• Thomas de Clopton 1349
• Reginald Brian 1349
• Thomas de Brembre 1350
• Henry de Bukyngham 1361
• Richard de Beverley 1367
• John Carp 1387
• Roger Coryngham 1400
• Peter de Altobasso or Altobosco 1412
• Walter Medford c. 1415
• Gilbert Kymer 1423
• Walter Hurte c. 1467
• Hugh Oldham 1485
• Thomas Ruthall c. 1508
• Henry Hornby c. 1509
• Reginald Pole 1518
• Nicholas Wilson 1537

Collegiate church

The women's monastery was destroyed by the Danes in 1013 during one of their incursions into Wessex and never rebuilt, though the main abbey building survived. In 1043 Edward the Confessor founded a college of secular (non-monastic) canons, consisting of a dean, four prebends, four vicars, four deacons, and five singers at the minster. The minster was remodelled and rebuilt by the Normans between 1120 and 1180, to support that institution.

In 1318 Edward II issued a document that made the minster a royal peculiar which exempted it from all diocesan jurisdiction. The choir used to wear scarlet robes, a legacy of this peculiar. Similar robes of this type are worn in Westminster Abbey and St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. In 1496 Lady Margaret Beaufort, great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt and mother of Henry VII, founded a small chapel in the minster.

With the reign of Henry VIII the remaining parts of the monastery were adopted into part of the minster to avoid being destroyed. However much of the wealth of the minster was confiscated by Henry. The collegiate establishment survived the initial stages of the English Reformation, but the college was dissolved in 1547, during the first year of the reign of Edward VI.^[3] The suppression removed the community of secular canons which had formed an important part of the religious and institutional life of Wimborne during the Middle Ages.^[3] The church itself survived the dissolution and continued in use as the parish church. In 1562 Elizabeth I returned part of the former collegiate property and ecclesiastical rights to Wimborne, placing them under a corporation of twelve governors, who were also made responsible for the grammar school.^[4] This arrangement preserved an unusual degree of continuity between the medieval college and the post-Reformation government of the church and its associated educational foundation.^[4] The charter was surrendered to James I and a new charter was obtained from Charles I at a cost of £1,000 with the addition of an organist and singing men. During the Civil War, when Charles I was beheaded, his coat of arms was painted out from the wall of the minster, but on the restoration of Charles II the arms were speedily replaced and have now been restored.

In 1846, the royal peculiar was abolished, and now all that remains of the old order is the control by 12 governors of some of the minster affairs. The church was substantially renovated towards the end of the 19th century and its last addition, a vestry was added at the same time. The north and south chapels were largely rebuilt during restoration work in the 1850s, while the nave clerestory and roof were reconstructed in 1857.^[5] The Victorian nave roof incorporates 24 carved wooden bosses which are thought to date from the seventeenth century and to have been reset during the rebuilding; most have foliate decoration, although some are heraldic.^[5]

Today the church is a place of visit and worship for the local community and visitors.

Architecture

The Minster is a large cruciform church comprising an aisled nave, north and south porches, a crossing with a central tower, transepts, an aisled chancel and a western tower. Although the site is of Anglo-Saxon origin, the surviving building is principally the product of successive medieval building campaigns from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, together with substantial nineteenth-century restoration.^[6] The walls are constructed from a mixture of Dorset and New Forest limestone and local ironstone, while most of the roofs are leaded and enclosed by parapets.^[6]

The main part of the nave, the crossing and central tower, and the western bay of the chancel date principally from the twelfth century and represent the major Norman phase of construction.^[6] The chancel and transepts were rebuilt during the thirteenth century, introducing Gothic work into the earlier structure. The nave was extended westwards during the fourteenth century, when the chancel aisles were also constructed, although the latter were substantially rebuilt during nineteenth-century restoration.^[6] The large west tower was added in the fifteenth century.^[6] Beneath the eastern part of the chancel is a crypt, originally constructed as a Lady chapel.^[6] The sequence of building gives the church a combination of Romanesque and later medieval Gothic features rather than the architectural uniformity of a church constructed in a single campaign.^[5] Considerable restoration took place during the nineteenth century, including the rebuilding of the nave roof and clerestory in 1857.^[5]

A surviving fragment of medieval Cosmatesque mosaic provides evidence for the richness of the Minster's medieval fittings. The fragment, composed in part of glass tesserae, has been dated by Lawrence Rees and Michael J. T. Lewis to the 1270s or 1280s and is a rare English example of Cosmatesque work comparable with that surviving at Westminster Abbey.^[7] Rees and Lewis suggest that it may originally have formed part of the shrine of St Cuthburga and propose Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, lord of the nearby manor of Kingston Lacy, as the most likely patron of the work.^[7] One of the more famous features is a working astronomical clock, which rings every hour and is represented in the form of a colourful quarterjack.

The central length of the minster is 198 feet (60 m). The width, except the transepts, varies from 23 feet (7.0 m) in the nave to 21 feet (6.4 m) in the choir. The western tower of the minster is 95 feet (29 m) high. The smaller tower of the minster, above the transepts, is 84 feet (26 m). The 13th-century spire which once topped this tower fell down in a storm around 1600. Wimborne Minster is a Grade I listed building.^[8]

The chained library and collection

The room now occupied by the chained library was formerly the Minster's treasury. The library was established in 1686 following a donation by the Revd William Stone.^[9] Stone's collection consisted principally of theological works, including writings of the Church Fathers and biblical commentaries. Many were written in Latin, Greek or Hebrew and were therefore primarily intended for use by the clergy.^[10] His books were not originally chained.^[10] The collection was substantially enlarged in 1695 by Roger Gillingham, a local gentleman, who bequeathed approximately ninety additional books covering both religious and secular subjects.^[9] Gillingham stipulated that the books should be chained and that the library should be made available without charge to specified inhabitants of Wimborne.^[9] His conditions therefore combined the physical security of the books with provision for wider consultation by members of the local community.^[11]

The Wimborne collection is an important surviving example of one of the first public/parish libraries established in England during the later seventeenth century. Modern study of the library has examined not only its foundation and contents but also the accessibility and readership of the collection and surviving evidence of the ways in which its books were used.^[9] The surviving collection has some 460 works on displays, with some 50 others stored in bookchests.^[11] This includes works concerned with subjects such as medicine, law, gardening, etiquette and building as well as theology and biblical scholarship.^[10] Purdy's catalogue of the library identifies separately the books originating in the Stone and Gillingham donations.^[12] Some of the collections of the library include a manuscript written on lambskin in 1343, a book bound for the Court of Henry VIII, an incunabulum printed in 1495 on the works of Saint Anselm, and a Paraphrase of Erasmus printed in 1522 with a title page designed by Holbein. The collection’s oldest book is a 1343 a priest’s handbook written in Latin and English on calfskin. The oldest printed book in the collection is the works of Anselm of Canterbury from 1495.^[11] The library is run by volunteers and remains open to the public on certain week days during April to October.^[11]

The bells

Since 1911 the west tower at the minster has been home to a ring of ten bells.^[13] The original tenor bell was housed in the central tower and was cast in 1385. The central tower was considered too structurally weak to add much more additional weight, so in 1464 the west tower was constructed in order to house five bells.^[13] In 1629 the tenor bell was recast. Besides the tenor, the minster at this time was home to the 'Bell of St. Cuthburga', 'The Fyfer Bell', 'The Jesus Bell' and 'The Morrow Mass Bell'; presumably all housed in the west tower.^[13] In 2012, the bells were augmented to 12 by Whitechapel Bell Foundry, with an additional semitone bell cast to make a total of 13 bells.^[14]

The organ

The organ was originally built in 1664 by Robert Hayward, of Bath. There are a number of ranks of pipes, still functioning in the present instrument, which date from this time. Originally, the organ stood upon a screen which separated the nave from the choir. However, in 1856 the organist at that time (Mr. F. Blount) removed the instrument and resited it in the south choir aisle. J. W. Walker & Sons rebuilt and enlarged the organ in 1866 and carried out further work in 1899, when a new case to house the Choir Organ was provided. This was designed by Walter J. Fletcher. In 1965, a major rebuilding and re-designing of the instrument took place, the work again being undertaken by J. W. Walker & Sons. The organ started being rebuilt by Mander Organ Builders in 2021.^[15] The project saw the instrument reorganised, with two new cases, a revised winding system and a new 32' pedal Sub Bass, being completed in 2022.^[16]

The organists

• 1537 John Clifford
• 1590 Robert Durman
• 1596 Arthur Maynard
• 1600 Thomas Noble
• 1610 William Eames
• 1622 Thomas Noble
• 1627 Thomas Cottrell
• 1664 John Silver
• 1695 George Day
• 1713 John Fyler
• 1743 George Combes
• 1765 Richard Combes
• 1798 William Mitchell
• 1808 John Wright Blount
• 1835 Frederick Stanley Blount
• 1863 J. Whitehead Smith
• 1897 J. E. Tidnam
• 1902 Albert Edward Wilshire
• 1915 G.E.C. Eyers
• 1945 Norman Charlton-Burdon
• 1954 Graham Sudbury
• 1959 David S. Blott
• 1967 Michael Austin
• 1971 Barry Ferguson
• 1977 Christopher Dowie
• 2005 David Gostick (Director of Music)
• 2019 Colin Davey^[17]

Assistant organists

• 1943 Ronald Gomer
• 1965 John Slater
• Graham Davies
• 1974 Michael James
• 1981 Roger Overend and Michael Pain
• 1982 Simon Morley
• 1986 Alex Ditchmont
• 1987 Jonathan Melling
• 1988 Sean Tucker
• Ed Dowie
• 1997-2018 Sean Tucker (organist)

The clock

Wimborne Minster is the home of Wimborne Minster Astronomical Clock, one of a group of famous 14th to 16th century astronomical clocks to be found in the west of England. (See also Salisbury, Wells, Exeter, and Ottery St Mary.)

The clock's case was built in the Elizabethan era, but the face and dial are of a much greater age; the first documents relating to the clock concern repairs carried out in 1409.^[18] The face utilizes a pre-Copernican display, with a centrally placed earth orbited by the sun and stars.

Tombs

The most important tomb in the church is that of King Ethelred, the brother of Alfred the Great. Ethelred was mortally wounded in a battle at Martin, near Cranborne. The exact location of the tomb however is unknown, though sources and legend indicate that it resides somewhere near the altar. A 14th-century metal brass memorial next to the altar states that the former king is buried in the wall and is the only brass to mark the burial site of an English monarch. Two other important tombs, constructed out of alabaster and Purbeck Marble, are those of the legitimised great grandson of Edward III, John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset and his wife, Duchess Margaret Beauchamp. They were the parents of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII and are therefore his maternal grandparents.

Other burials

• Cuthburh
• Gertrude Courtenay, Marchioness of Exeter
• Montague Druitt

Gallery