Church Micro 1129 - St Mary The Virgin - Rowner Traditional Geocache
Graculus: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it.
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Chris
Graculus
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Church Micro 1129 - St Mary The Virgin - Rowner
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A church has stood on this site for well over 1300 years and, with Titchfield church, shared the pastoral care of the people of the Gosport peninsular until the 12th century, when Alverstoke church was built.
The original dedication was probably to ‘The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ or ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary’, either which would have been removed at the Reformation, when the Church of England was formed. Early documents are unspecific, as they simply refer to it as ‘Rowner church’. The hamlet (of 1245 acres) was mentioned in the Domesday Book, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (where we can read that King Henry held court at Rowner in 1114 before boarding his ship at Portsmouth for France). When preparation work for the 1968 Extension was being carried out, leather burial shrouds, dating back to Roman times, were found, indicating that worship had been occurring here for some time before the Christian period.
Accurate history is patchy, and it is not until the Manor of Rowner was granted by a grateful King Edward I to Sir William le Brun in 1277 that full records were kept; these survive in the Hampshire County Archives at Winchester with the family papers. Two Brune sons, Philip and Nicholas, were given the office of Rector between 1292 and 1306. Another, from a much later generation, became Rector in the nineteenth century. There is a list of Rectors on the slates in the old church. During many periods of office, it was customary, until the 19th century, for the Rectors to draw the income of the benefice, and employ curates (at a much reduced stipend!). The Brune family also had a ‘domestic chaplain’.
Folk lore surrounding the 12th century church and its construction is legion. One tale is that Cistercian monks from Quarr Abbey (founded in 1132) on the Isle of Wight had a priory house roughly where the 16th century Church Cottages now stand at the end of the lime avenue. They would have been responsible for the running of the church and the parish. This could account for a bricked-up tunnel leading from the vaults, and rediscovered during the 1870s under Rector Richard Foster Carter and again in the 1960s restorations under Rector Peter Hawes.
Another story is that stone sent from the Island, destined for Winchester Cathedral, was ‘hijacked’ for rebuilding the church, which had fallen into disrepair. A stone church would have replaced a wooden one. A fact is that the stone for the arches in the Lady Chapel is of Binstead stone, and the stone used in the arches between that and the north chapel is from Bembridge.
Quarr Abbey held the rights of river navigation, and a tributary of the River Alver flowed behind the church, so the monks could have diverted the stone! The stream was eventually laid in underground pipes in the 1960s as part of the creation of the Rowner Walk. This runs through Rowner Copse, across Rowner Road into Rectory Copse.
If anybody would like to expand this Church Micro series, please do, we would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nccebkvzngryl 6sg bss gur tebhaq.