View allAll Photos Tagged HOLYTRINITY
Love the tiles...are the dark ones Blue Lias? I know it was used for flooring.
How many Slaters walked down this aisle I wonder!
Holy Trinity church is built in the Early English style of the late-13th century. The body of the church consists of a four-bay, clerestoried nave with lean-to aisles abutting it. The aisles have a series of three-light Geometrical windows. At the W end below the five-light W window is a gabled porch. The clerestory windows are quatrefoils punched through the wall of the nave. At the NW corner stands the steeple the tower of which is of two stages culminating in an openwork parapet. The lower stage has a N doorway set underneath a gable. The second stage, of similar height to the stage below, has tall two-light belfry windows. The tower is crowned by a recessed spire with ribs at the angles and a tier of tall spire lights. The chancel is lower than the nave and has a four-light E Geometrical window with a series of trefoils and quatrefoils in the tracery.
The interior is plastered, whitened and is quite plain with little decoration. The arcades have moulded arches and octagonal piers and moulded capitals. Between the nave and chancel is a moulded arch springing from colonettes which in turn stand on corbels: the capitals of these shafts have elaborate stiff-leaf foliage capitals. The nave and chancel roofs are also supported on colonettes with stiff-leaf foliage.
Many of the Victorian furnishings remain in place. The nave seats have the conventional square-headed ends to which are attached umbrella holders. The organ is a large, imposing instrument on the N side of the chancel with three semi-circular towers of pipes and traceried screening at the top. There is a good series of cast-iron radiators by Wright Bros of Sheffield, one with flowered panels. There is quite extensive stained glass: the E window, representing the Resurrection, is of 1913 and this and three chancel S windows of 1917 and 1921 are by H W Bryans. The S aisle E window is of 1875 and is by Hardman while another in the S aisle is by Hardman and Co. A further S aisle window is by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.
Holy Trinity church was built in 1870-1 by subscription but much of the money came from the Rev. Y G Lloyd-Graeme of Sewerby House who also presented the church with a peal of three bells. The total cost was £7,000 and the church could accommodate 900 people (all the sittings were free). It became the centre of a separate parish in 1874. The architects are not well known: Frederick Stead Brodrick (1847-1927) was the nephew of the famous architect, Cuthbert Brodrick, the designer of Leeds Town Hall. He went into partnership with the surveyor to Hull Council, R G Smith (fl 1870-82) who became FRIBA in 1871.
While waiting at an airport one day, I noticed that the three lights in front of me had slightly different hues and were making an interesting pattern on the wall. But they illuminated everyone in the room with a uniform effect. (Much like the Trinity!)
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
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QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The former Holy Trinity Church
Neo-classical style church with moulded eaves cornice and low parapet concealing the roof, each elevation of 3 bays. The main east front has a central bay brought forward under a pediment, which has a high rusticated plinth incorporating a lunette with radial glazing bars. The tripartite east window is recessed between 2 unfluted Ionic columns in antis, and the window itself has Ionic colonnettes. Above the main window is a lunette. Outer bays have rusticated quoins, and rusticated architraves to panel doors. Upper windows are in pedimented architraves and are flanked by pairs of Ionic pilasters. Above them are short plain windows. In the south front the tower occupies the central bay. It has a rusticated round-headed doorway, and margin-lit small-pane sash window above in an aedicule. Side walls have round-headed niches. Above is a sunk panel, then an oculus, and an octagonal upper stage with keyed round-headed windows in aedicules. Above them are lunettes and then a low leaded dome with ball finial and cross. In the south elevation the right-hand bay has a rusticated architrave to a small-pane sash window and on the left side a similar architrave has been re-set into a low projection. Panelled round-headed recesses above have lunettes with modern glazing bars. The west side is simpler than the east but has a corresponding central bay under a pediment. It has a rusticated architrave to a central window, above which is a recessed arched panel incorporating a lunette with modern glazing. Outer bays have plain windows with modern glazing. The north front has rusticated architraves to lower windows, and an upper tier of lunettes at the head of arched panels.
Town parish church of 1795-98 by Thomas Johnson (d1814), architect of Leeds. Johnson was responsible for several church and country-house commissions in Yorkshire, and built the Leeds Library in 1808. Holy Trinity church was declared redundant in 1980 and has been converted to offices.
britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101289802-former-holy-trinit...
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
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QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
-------------------------------------------
The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
-------------------------------------------
QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
Holy Trinity, Dartford, Kent
Beautiful church in the heart of a grim, desperate town. It is open every day, all day - a blessing indeed.
My grandfather was baptised here by the Rev. Percy Edward Smith on 22nd April 1908.
Detail of the architectural decoration on the facde of the church
Originally posted for GuessWhereUK
guessed by janetg48
Holy Trinity would have been the star attraction in any other town or city, it is a majestic cruciform 15th century Perpendicular church with a tapering central tower and spire, the second of Coventry's famous 'Three Spires'. However it has always been overshadowed by larger neighbours, having been encircled by no less than three separate cathedrals through it's history, a unique distinction! Holy Trinity was founded by the monks of the adjoining priory to act as a parish church for it's lay tenants, thus it is ironic that it has long outlived the parent building.
The earliest part is the north porch, which dates from the 13th century, but the majority of the building dates from a more ambitious phase in 15th century Perpendicular style. The 15th century rebuilding has given us the present cruciform arrangement with small transepts and extra chapels on the north side giving an overall roughly rectangular footprint. These chapels were some of many in the church that served the city's separate guilds in medieval times.
The church has gone through much restoration, most notably the rebuilding of it's spire after it was blown down in a storm in 1665. The east end of the chancel was extended in 1786 (in sympathetic style) and much of the exterior was refaced in the early 19th century in then fashionable Bath stone (which clashes with the original red sandstone).
The church luckily escaped major damage during the Coventry Blitz in 1940, largely thanks to the vigilance of Canon Clitheroe and his team of firewatchers who spent a perilous night on the roof tackling incendaries. The main loss was the Victorian stained glass in the east and west windows, which were replaced with much more fetching glass in the postwar restoration.
The most recent restoration involved the uncovering of the 15th century Doom painting over the chancel arch in 2004. Hidden under blackened varnish since it's rediscovery in the early Victorian period, it has now been revealed to be one of the most complete and important medieval Last Judgement murals in the country. There is further painting contemporary with this on the exquisite nave ceiling, painted a beautiful dusty blue with large kneeling angels flanking coats of arms on every rafter.
There are only a handful of monuments and most of the furnishings date from G.G.Scott's 1850s restoration (as does the magnificent vaulted ceiling high above the crossing) but there are some notable medieval survivals in the rare stone pulpit and the brass eagle lectern, both 15th century, along with a fine set of misericords originating from the former Whitefriars monastery church. Just a few fragments of medieval glass survive in the north west chapel.
The church is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors every day.
For more detail on this church see it's entry in the new Warwickshire Churches website below:-
warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/coventry---holy-trinity.html
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.
My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.
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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
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QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
Forget Oxford's "Dreaming Spires". Coventry with its trio of St. Michael's Cathedral, Holy Trinity and Christ Church beats it hollow. Viewed from the blitzed ruin of the old St. Michael's Cathedral, Holy Trinity stands proud in its rich red sandstone.
When you think of the C of E in Ripon, you think of the cathedral, but there is also the substantial Holy Trinity Church on the other side of the city.
Holy Trinity Church is in Spring Street, Bury, Greater Manchester, England. It is a redundant Anglican parish church in the diocese of Manchester. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.
The church was built between 1863 and 1865 at a cost of about £5,500 (equivalent to £520,000 in 2018). It was designed by the Lancaster architect E. G. Paley. The original plan included a south aisle and a north tower with a spire, but these were never built. The site was given by the 14th Earl of Derby, who also donated £1,000. As built, the church provided seating for 627 people. The church was extended in about 1920. Edward Hordern, the father of the British actor Michael Hordern, was a rector at the church, likely around the turn of the 20th century. On 30 November 2010 the church was declared redundant, and its parish was merged with those of St Peter, Bury, and St Thomas, Bury, forming the new parish of Roch Valley. As of 2011, it was planned to sell it for use as a children's nursery and an early learning centre.
Holy Trinity Church is constructed in coursed rock-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings. It has Welsh slate roofs. The architectural style is Early English. Its plan consists of a nave, a north aisle with a porch, a chancel with a Lady chapel and a vestry to the north. As the arcade runs down the centre of the church, it is described in the Buildings of England series as a "double-naved church", with "the chancel attached to the south nave". The windows at the east and west ends contain "heavy plate tracery". The arcade has five bays and is carried on round piers. Between the aisle and the Lady chapel is a three-bay arcade. In the Lady chapel is a brightly painted reredos, added in 1987 as a First World War memorial.
Church of Holy Trinity - 15c nave, south aisle and south porch. The round tower, west and north walls are probably of saxon origin. The tower is topped with a 15c parapet with arms of Bigod, Montacute, Beauchamp, Brotheron and Despencer.
In the porch is a plaque stating 'Here was the fire stayed 1688' a reference to the terrible fire that destroyed much of Bungay. The fire got as far as the door leaving scorch marks but unlike St Marys nearby, it did not damage the interior .
The original chancel had become ruinous by 18c, the present chancel was built in 1926
The Collegiate Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon is a Grade I listed parish church of the Church of England in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. It is often known simply as Holy Trinity Church or as Shakespeare's Church, due to its fame as the place of baptism and burial of William Shakespeare. More than 200,000 tourists visit the church each year.
The past building dates from 1210 and is built on the site of a Saxon monastery. It is Stratford's oldest building, is situated on the banks of the River Avon, and is one of England's most visited churches.] In the fourteenth century, John de Stratford founded a chantry, which was rebuilt between 1465 and 1491 by Dean Thomas Balshall, who is buried at the Church. The building is believed to have originally had a wooden spire, which was replaced by William Hiorne in 1763.
Holy Trinity contains many interesting features, including:
A 14th-century sanctuary knocker in the church's porch (built c. 1500);
Twenty-six 15th-century misericord seats in the chancel, with religious, secular and mythical carvings;
Several large stained glass windows featuring major English and Biblical saints at the church's east and west ends.
The carved scenes of the life of Jesus around Balsall's tomb were mutilated during the Reformation, as were most images of Christ. Notable 'survivors' include a remarkable face of Christ or possibly God the Father within a sedilia canopy, and some beautiful medieval stained glass depicting the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost. The pre-Reformation stone altar slab or mensa was found hidden beneath the floor in Victorian times and has now been re-instated as the High Altar.
The church is open to visitors for much of the year. A small contribution is requested to access the chancel and sanctuary in which Shakespeare is buried. Holy Trinity is a member of the Greater Churches Group. The Royal Shakespeare Company performed Henry VIII in the church in 2006 as part of the Complete Works Festival. It is an active parish church serving a parish of some 17,000 people.
William Shakespeare, poet and playwright, was baptised in Holy Trinity on 26 April 1564 and was buried there on 25 April 1616. The church still possesses the original Elizabethan register giving details of his baptism and burial, though it is kept by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for safekeeping. He is buried in the beautiful 15th-century chancel built by Thomas Balsall, Dean of the Collegiate Church, who was buried within it in 1491. Shakespeare was eligible to be buried in the chancel owing to his position as a 'lay rector' of the church, as Peter Ackroyd explains, this was due to his leasing of tithes from the church. This entitlement was taken either at his behest or on his behalf. Shakespeare's funerary monument is fixed on a wall alongside his burial place. The funerary monument was renovated in 1746 through proceeds from a production of Othello, the first recorded performance of a Shakespeare play in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Shakespeare would have come to Holy Trinity every week when he was in town, i.e. all through his childhood and on his return to live at New Place. His wife Anne Hathaway is buried next to him along with his eldest daughter Susanna. The day after Shakespeare signed his Last Will and Testament on 25 March 1616 in a 'shaky hand', William's son-in-law, Thomas Quiney was found guilty in the church court of fathering an illegitimate son, who had recently died in childbirth, by a Margaret Wheler. Quiney was ordered to do public penance within the church. Within a month Shakespeare was dead, his funeral and burial being held at Holy Trinity on 25 April 1616.
The grave of Shakespeare's wife Anne is next to her husband's. The inscription states, "Here lyeth the body of Anne wife of William Shakespeare who departed this life the 6th day of August 1623 being of the age of 67 years." A Latin inscription followed which translates as "Breasts, O mother, milk and life thou didst give. Woe is me - for how great a boon shall I give stones? How much rather would I pray that the good angel should move the stone so that, like Christ's body, thine image might come forth! But my prayers are unavailing. Come quickly, Christ, that my mother, though shut within this tomb may rise again and reach the stars." The inscription may have been written by John Hall on behalf of his wife, Anne's daughter, Susanna.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Trinity,_Stratfo...
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
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QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.
Just so you know.
I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.
Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.
Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.
It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.
I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.
First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.
Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.
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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough
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QUEENBOROUGH,
THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.
THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.
This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.
This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.
King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:
Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis
Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:
Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;
Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:
Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,
Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.
Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones
Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.
Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,
Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.
Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;
And in the mind the Deity we view:
May she who God in life and empire shews,
To me th' eternal Deity disclose!
May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign
Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.
¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.
The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.
The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.
THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:
In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)
ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.
Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.
The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)
The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.
The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.
There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.
¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.
The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.
Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.
Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.
QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.
¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.
It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.
Cope, detail
Dutch
Production: (convent of) Zusters van het Arme Kindje Jezus, Simpelveld
Date: 1901 (design 1869)
Holy Trinity-St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
Many of the original families of this parish are said to have arrived between 1880 and 1900 during the initial wave of Greek immigration to the United States. Cincinnati, during this period of time, was identified as the nation's sixth largest city and growing industrial center because of its ideal location on the Ohio River.
Efforts to organize a church began in 1907. It was during this year that the original Holy Trinity Church was founded. In 1938 a second Greek orthodox church, St. Nicholas, was formed in Cincinnati. In 1945 the union of the two churches occurred. The new church took on the name, Holy Trinity-St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and was located near Cincinnati's inner city. In 1965 the community purchased a 10 acre lot in order to build a larger church which would accommodate the growing membership.
On December 16, 1972, the new church located in Finneytown, a suburb of Cincinnati, celebrated its opening and first Divine Liturgy. The congregation has grown to about 2000 faithful Orthodox Christians. The Lord has blessed this church with a diverse selection of faithful from various talents and ethnic backgrounds. The parish membership is no longer exclusively Greek. The majority of the parishioners are second and third generation American born, several families of Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrian and Slavic backgrounds, and a growing number of converts.
Kendal Parish Church, also known as the Holy Trinity Church due to its dedication to the Holy Trinity, is the Anglican parish church of Kendal, Cumbria, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
Visitors to the church are struck by its size and the lightness of the interior. This lightness is due to the unusual construction of five aisles, separated by columns and allowing generous window area.
The nave is 800 years old and the other aisles have been added over the centuries so that, in its heyday, a congregation of 1100 was regularly accommodated.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendal_Parish_Church
Photo: Dave Rowbotham