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Construction
Construction of St Mary's Church
church in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK
- 11th century – 11th century
- Europe
Construction
church in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
St Mary's Church is the main Church of England parish church for the areas of Portsea and Fratton, both located in the city of Portsmouth, Hampshire. Standing on the oldest church site on Portsea Island, the present building, amongst the largest parish churches in the country, has been described as the "finest Victorian building in Hampshire". It is at least the third church on the site and has been designated a Grade II* listed building by Historic England. Former regular worshippers here have included Charles Dickens, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Cosmo Lang.
Athough Portsmouth was generally seen to be founded in 1181 by Jean of Gisors, in 1164, the Norman lord of the manor, Baldwin de Portsea, informed Henry de Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, that he was giving the church of St. Mary, together with some land, cattle, sheep and hogs to the prior and canons of Southwick Priory. This means there was already a church on the site at the time, and Domesday Book records 31 families lived in what is now modern-day Buckland, Copnor, and Fratton. Not much is known about this early church, but it is recorded a tower was added to the church in Tudor times, and that the roof was low, featuring dormer windows.
Until the 19th century, St Mary's church would have been surrounded by farms and fields, and it was not until the 19th century, when the dockyard and population began to grow, that a new church was required. A gallery was built within the church to increase capacity, featuring box pews, but eventually, it was decided to rebuild the church.
The new church was built in 1843 at a cost of £5,000 (equivalent to £302,000 in 2017) and was designed in the Early English Gothic style by Thomas Ellis Owen. It incorporated the Tudor west tower of the old church. This church did not last until even the end of the century, for although it was lacking both in light and ventilation, it was smaller than the newly built Roman Catholic cathedral and so it was demolished in 1887.
Following the demolition of the 1843 church, a temporary iron church was erected on the north side of the churchyard. The vicar at the time, Canon Edgar Jacob, had originally planned on raising £15,000, treble the cost of the 1843 church, to build the new church, but an anonymous Portsmouth resident offered to double what the parish raised. Consequently, grander plans were presented to Sir Arthur Blomfield, the architect employed by the Diocese of Winchester, who subsequently designed the present building. Jacob wanted this church to be an inspiration for those in the city, and Blomfield intended it to be the "chief parish church of a great town".
The foundation stone was laid by Victoria, Princess Royal, on 9 August 1887, and a plaque near the entrance marks this event. In 1891, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, W. H. Smith, died. It was discovered shortly after that it was Smith who was the anonymous donor in 1887. By the time of his death, he had given £28,000 towards the cost of building the church. Construction of the church lasted until 1889, and it was consecrated by the Rt Revd Harold Browne, Bishop of Winchester, on 20 October 1889. The final cost of the church was £44,000 (equivalent to more than £3,600,000 in 2017). The new church was significantly larger than either of the previous two churches, being easily able to contain the entire area of the old church within its walls.
On 25 August 1894, the church was broken into and set alight by crumpling the altar cloth, pouring spirits nearby and turning on the gas. Though there was severe damage to the communion table, the fire burnt out before taking hold of the church.
In 1927, the Diocese of Portsmouth was created, being carved out of the Diocese of Winchester, and numerous discussions were held as to which church would become cathedral. St Mary's was put forward as a possible pro-cathedral, but it was felt that due to its commitment to the many mission churches in the area, it was unsuitable. The Church of St Thomas became cathedral, but it required doubling in size before it was as large as St Mary's.
The church remained essentially as completed until the Second World War, when during the Portsmouth Blitz, two bombs narrowly missed the church, falling on Woodland Street immediately behind the church, on 24 August 1940. Though the church itself was not hit during the bombing, the shockwave from these two bombs shattered most of the glass of the large east window.
When services resumed after the war, the east window was not repaired immediately, for wooden panels covered much of the window until 1952.
In 1989, roof repairs were necessary, for rainwater was leaking into the organ. The roof was repaired again in 2000, which also including retiling the entire nave roof.
Restoration of the tower commenced in early 2008, a project costing £700,000, of which £300,000 was given by English Heritage and £100,000 by the Landfill Communities Fund. The project involved erecting one of the largest suspended scaffolds in the world at the time, replacing windows and metalwork, renovating stonework, and repainting the clock face. The tower reopened in August 2009.
The church was designed in the Neo-Perpendicular Gothic style and features a west tower, an aisled nave of six bays, north and south porches, chancel, and lady chapel. There are vestries towards the east end of the church, as well as lean-to narthexes on the north and south faces of the tower. The church is 210 feet (64 metres) long.
The chief feature of the church is the landmark west tower, built of four stages, topped by tall corner pinnacles. Likely inspired by the tall church towers of East Anglia, the present tower rises to 167 feet (51 metres) high. There is a clock face on each side of the tower, except the eastern side where the nave roof meets the tower wall. The clock was installed by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon. The completion of the tower made the church the highest building in Portsmouth, surpassing St Thomas' Church, until the building of the Guildhall in 1890.
The south-facing nave aisle has a low projecting porch where it meets the tower, featuring stepped offset buttresses each terminating with stone pinnacle, facing stone gable with traceried stone panels, and an embattled parapet. To the left of the porch are three Perpendicular style 3-light windows, featuring flanking stepped buttresses.
The nave has 6 paired 2-light Perpendicular style clerestory windows, flanking stepped pilasters each rising to a crocketed pinnacle. At the junction of the nave with chancel is an octagonal stairs access turret with at top a Tudor type flat arch and traceried window to each face. To the right of the aisle is the projecting 2-bay Lady Chapel with two 5-light wide Perpendicular style windows. Flanking stepped buttresses with diagonal buttress to each corner and again, an embattled parapet.
The chancel is lower and narrower than the nave, with stepped offset buttresses each rising into a crocketed pinnacle. The chancel is lit by a large 7-light Perpendicular style window. To the right of the chancel is the north transept, containing the 2-storey vestry, sacristy and organ loft There is an octagonal stair turret on the south side of the chancel, giving access to the roof. The stair turret, like most of the church, has an embattled parapet.
The north side has aisle, nave and chancel windows all similar to the south side. To the right of north aisle within the 5th bay is a projecting porch, with flanking panelled pilasters, and a stone parapet.
The interior is light, open, and airy. The main entrance is located under the tower, and there is a decorative lierne vault between the west window and the tower arch. The west window itself is of 4-light stained glass, dedicated to the memory of W. H. Smith. The tower is notably thinner than the nave and, as such, the tower arch does not span the entirety of the nave's west wall. Above the tower arch is a three-light stone window frame, the middle panel of which provides views of the church from the ringing chamber behind it.
The nave is tall and wide, featuring a large arcade spanning the height of both aisles; each pointed arch in the arcade separated from the clerestory above it by a thin triforium. The nave is separated from the tower by an iron rood screen. The north nave aisle windows depict scenes from the Old Testament, that of the south nave aisle from the New Testament. There is also a royal coat of arms in the south aisle, dating from 1822, and which was originally placed in the medieval church.
The nave has a spectacular hammerbeam roof, the supports for which start midway up the clerestory buttresses. The roof is made out of oak and features gilded bosses.
The chancel starts with a wooden barrel vault, but past the chancel arch becomes a stone lierne vault. Behind the altar is a large 7-light window, the glass for which was made in 1952, after the previous glass was mostly destroyed by a bomb in 1940.
The building is primarily built externally from flint, with Bath stone as dressing. The roof of the nave and aisles is tiled, that of the tower and chancel covered in lead. The font, which stands in the centre of the nave, is built from alabaster, taken from Staffordshire. The pulpit, which is of "exceptional size", is made of Hamstone from Somerset.
With 2,622 pipes, the present organ is amongst the largest and finest in any parish church on the South Coast. It was built by J. W. Walker & Sons, beginning in 1888, during the construction of the new church. The new organ was designed from the outset to be of "Cathedral-size" proportions, with four manuals. The cost of the new instrument was £1,784, and by early 1889, £873 of the total had been raised.
For the first two years following installation in 1889, the organ only contained two manuals and pedals, though the organ console was prepared as a four-manual instrument. The organ was later completed in late 1892 thanks to a gift by W. H. Smith's widow. The proposed solo organ, which would have been used via the fourth manual, was never installed, and the extra manual was thus redundant until it was removed in 1965.
The organ was consecrated on 31 October 1892, where the choir sang the anthem “Sing, O heaven, and be Joyful, O Earth!”, and the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev'd Anthony Thorold.
Though Blomfield had designed an ornate organ case, it was not installed until 1901. The organ case and screen is made out of solid oak and is dedicated in memory to the victims of the Boer War. The case and screen have a complex and intricate design, depicting the church building and fabric in various carvings. A Service of Music and Dedication of the Organ Screen was held on 12 October 1901. During the service, Chopin's "Marche Funebre" was played as an act of remembrance to those whose names are inscribed on the organ screen.
Though plans were made several times to further enlarge the organ, it was not until the late 1920s that proposals were seriously considered. However, these also came to nothing, due to the Great Depression and then the Second World War, the latter of which caused considerable damage to Portsmouth. It was therefore not until the late 1950s that long-overdue maintenance work could be considered again. In 1961, the new vicar, Freddy Temple, began a vigorous fundraising campaign to raise funds for the organ, which by this time was approaching its 70th anniversary. Temple enlisted the help of several famous architectural historians and musicians including Douglas Fox and John Betjeman.
Text from the Wikipedia article “St Mary's Church, Portsea”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.