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Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. When we outgrow individual performance and learn team confidence, excellence becomes a reality. In any endeavor, your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you are working with and what they carry around in their heads, and the ability of all to work together.
I have a professional interest in survey design techniques. I found this one, which got posted through my door by my local Tory MP, fascinating in many ways. Hence the notes...
2011-10-13 & 285/365
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Copyright www.aerosoul.co.uk
St Peter, Wenhaston, Suffolk
One of the thrills of visiting Suffolk churches is the anticipation and shock of amazing medieval survivals. There is the font at Westhall, the retable at Thornham Parva, the wall paintings at Wissington and North Cove, and much else besides. Some churches, like Ufford, Bramfield and Westhall, seem to have more than their fair share. It is easy to blame the Victorians for destroying medieval features, but, in many cases, it was the Victorians who rescued and restored them. Many of the medieval objects in our churches today would not have survived if it were not for the Victorians. And yet, perhaps the most significant medieval art object in the county exists by a supreme irony, for if it had not been for an act of gross 19th Century carelessness, it might not have survived at all.
If they had been efficient, the decaying wooden tympanum taken down from above the chancel arch at Wenhaston in the summer of 1892 would have been stripped, repaired and painted. Instead, it lay out in the churchyard waiting for someone to do something with it, while the restoration continued inside. That night, it rained. The whitewash, applied centuries before, dissolved. When the workmen arrived on site the following day, they saw wonderful things.
What the rain revealed is essentially a doom painting, although there is a little more to it than that. A doom shows the final judgement of souls after death; each person comes equally before the throne of God, and is selected to go to Heaven or to Hell. Probably, all churches had them. The one at North Cove is on the north chancel wall, but ordinarily the doom was above the chancel arch, usually painted directly on to the plaster as survives at Earl Stonham and Cowlinge. Where there was no chancel arch, or the chancel was not sufficiently lower than the nave to allow a painting, the top of the arch would be infilled with a wooden tympanum.
Why is the Wenhaston Doom so significant? Although few dooms survive in Suffolk, there are quite a few elsewhere in the country. But the Wenhaston Doom is special for two reasons. Firstly, in front of the chancel arch stood the great rood, a feature of every medieval church, Christ crucified, flanked by his mother and St John. The rood was supported on a rood beam, or suspended from the ceiling, above the roof loft and rood screen. Every single rood in England was destroyed by Thomas Cromwell's cronies in the 1540s. Not a single one survives.
We can see at Earl Stonham the way that the centre of the doom painting has fewer details, since it would be obscured by the rood. However, at Wenhaston, the rood group was actually attached to the tympanum, and although it was ripped off in the 1540s, the outlines of the crucifix and flanking figures survive, like ghosts of lost Catholic England. The other reason that the Wenhaston Doom is significant is that its colours are so bright, and its details so vivid. There's nothing else like it in the country.
When was it built? Wills specialist Simon Cotton tells me that in 1480 there was a bequest towards a new screen. Since the tympanum would have followed the construction of the screen and rood, then a date in the 1500-1520 period for the Doom seems likely. So it was completed about 25 years before its destruction, that's all.
The last trump is sounded and the dead rise from their graves. Christ sits on a rainbow, overseeing everything that is going on. His mother and St John the Baptist bring forward intercessionary prayers for the souls of the dead. However, the real battle is between St Michael and the Devil, who have charge of the scales, and weigh each soul against its unreconciled sins. St Peter is seen receiving nobility - we can tell from their headgear that they include members of the Royal family, a Bishop and a Cardinal. However, they are otherwise naked, to signify that all are equal before God. So they'd better have a good excuse...
To the left, souls are received into Heaven, while those on the right are marched off to Hell.
What happened to this amazing art object in the middle of the 16th century? After the rood group was removed and burnt, it was whitewashed over. Why was it not removed? Simply, the order was that roods were to be replaced with coats of arms, to remind congregations that the State was in charge now. The tympanum provided the best way of displaying the coat of arms as it had the rood.
Fear God and Honour the King was the new watch-phrase; but at Wenhaston, more was felt necessary. Along the bottom of the tympanum (and thus below the coat of arms) was added from St Paul's Letter to the Romans: Let every soule submyt him selfe unto the authorytye of the hygher powers for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordeyned of God, but they that resest or are agaynste the ordinaunce of God shall receyve to them selves utter damnacion. For rulers are not fearefull to them that do good but to them that do evyll for he is the mynister of God.
When Edward VI died in 1553, and his half-sister Mary I ascended the throne, the English Church restored its connections with the European Church, and the coats of arms were removed. Officially, the roods were meant to be replaced, but this doesn't seem to have happened in many places. Most likely, there simply wasn't time, for Mary died in 1557, and the roods came tumbling down again under the orders of her half-sister Elizabeth. The break with Rome was made final, and the new Church of England was born.
There seems to be an orthodoxy of thought that our English churches were painted with pictures because the people were ignorant, and this was their only way of learning theology. There is no evidence for this. On the contrary, the ordinary people of England seem to have had a rich spiritual and liturgical life, to which the furnishings of their churches only contributed a small part.
No, the creation of these extraordinary folk art objects was an act of devotion, and we mustn't get sidetracked into thinking that they were lost because they were no longer necessary. They were destroyed, wilfully and purposefully. But some survived, and Wenhaston's Doom painting is simply one of the most beautiful.
Wenhaston, pronounced wenn-ers-t'n, is a fine village on the Blyth, and the churchwardens would be very disappointed if you only came here for the Doom, I'm sure. This is a lovely church in a lovely setting, with some fascinating graves to the south of the entrance, and you will struggle to resist envying the owners of the houses to the west of the tower. The 1892 restoration that revealed the doom also found traces of the Saxon foundations, but the tower we see today is late 14th century. The strange buttresses to the nave are an 18th century temporary measure - although, obviously enough, they're still in place.
The font is instantly recognisable as one of the Seven Sacraments series, but the reliefs are all completely vandalised. The surviving colour reminds one of Westhall, and this was probably in a group with the similar fonts at nearby Blythburgh and Southwold. You'll be appalled to learn that the carvings survived into the early 19th century, until some puritan fascist took it upon himself to cleanse the font of them. He's the one in the doom you can see being led away to Hell.
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.
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She was a Hindu, but now she is a Christian and I dont blame her Christianity is the only religion that believed through Christ in healing accepting faults as virtues faults of mind body and soul and dont blame North East India for becoming Christian ..
I hate conversions but I dont hold it as a sin I respect the womb that gave me the religion I belong fuck who cares whether as a Shia you call me a Kafir heretic or Kufr...I am happy that what you call heresy gave me the full overblown meaning of humanity and humility.
Both Christianity and modern Islam as promoted by the Wahabbis preempts evangelizing , based on a single premise their religion is supreme rest is full of shit..
I have distanced myself from all and every religion where God is made into a entity that is racist a bigot and human hating.. ..so if you consider my poetry of life a sham so be it it is my words my rhyme I live it without distorting or cursing your beliefs.
Cutting of my head my self infliction in memory of Hussain upsets a lot of people yet hypocrisy prevails when Muslims plunder destroy Muslims kill rape sodomize ,.. and all around there is a eunuch silence .. if you are rich powerful than you change history have it re written ..
I am an Indian and that is what adds color to my spirituality of peace hope and harmony..
I am a photographer but pictures are my personal poetry stolen from other peoples life .. customs traditions .. and come April I shall walk with the Hindu Tamils of Mumbai with a 21 feet rod pierced through my cheeks to experience their pain and add solidarity to their faith as an Indian..
And like every year I shall walk barefeet on Good Friday walking behind Jesus his flock shooting the 14 stations of the Cross , with tears on my soul I shall be cleansed when the fisher women of Vakola will wash my burnt dirty feet .. This is India .. this is the India I shoot and love ..
Behind the camera I become the religiosity I shoot I become Human..
Someone long time back on Facebook asked me if I was a Hijra ,, and this was a comment by a Shia on my Shia post.. and I said I was not the hijra at Karbala who prayed five times and turned the other way when Husain's head was being decapitated by Shimr..
And I shoot Maria her eyeballs or what remains of it and I wonder those who give 21 lacs to Lal Bagh Chya Raja or a diamond studded shawl to Saibaba or sacrifice a 5 lac goat on Bakra Eid dont try to rehabilitate one distressful person on this planet ///
I have nothing more to add .. and I am still searching for Appu the human stump without hands or legs .. he has disappeared but I know he will resurface one day..and all the rich folks will never buy him a Jaipur leg is not part of this digression..
And some money was deducted from my salary so I requested my boss if it was possible this money be given to the poor or any charity of his choice .. the few notes I give Maria are definitely not going to get back her eyes .. and lucky are the starlets of Bollywood who can enhance their pectorals and flat posteriors ..
Charleston in the Antebellum Era.
Also in the central square is a statue of Senator John Calhoun high on a stone column. It is said the statue is so high to prevent the former slaves from defacing it! But who could blame them as Calhoun was a rabid racist. He was one of many racist slave owners who dominated the Sth Carolina legislature. It enacted new slave codes in 1800 and 1820 to make manumission (freeing so slaves) almost impossible. Calhoun in Washington was the one who led the crisis about secession in 1832. Sth Carolina threaded to secede from the Union over a tariff bill. Sth Carolina and its politicians were always champions of slavery and states’ rights. Then in 1822 Denmark Vesey, a slave who had purchased his freedom before the new laws of 1820, planned a major bloodbath in Charleston. Thousands of slaves in Charleston knew about the planned uprising but eventually two ratted on Vesey and he was arrested before the uprising began. 131 slaves were charged with conspiracy and 35 hung, including Vesey. His little house in Charleston (probably not the actual one) is now a National Landmark. It was also a Sth Carolinian Congressman in 1835 who got the “gag rule” passed in Congress to stop Abolitionist pamphlets and mail going to the South. It passed in 1836 and was known as the Pinckney Resolution. It was finally rescinded in 1844 when the Northern Democrats got control of Congress. Later in 1856 it was Congressman Preston Brooks of Sth Carolina who led the attack on the pro-slavery Northerner Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate. Sumner (a Republican like Lincoln) was bashed with a cane whilst pro-slavery Southern friends of Brooks protected him from irate Northern Senators who could do nothing to help Charles Sumner. Sumner took over three years to recover from this attack. This was one of the finale events that polarised anti-Southern and pro-slavery abolition support in the North. Sth Carolina always led the vanguard of propaganda against the Abolitionists and against the North. But they also had much to fear. In coastal Sth Carolina slaves outnumbered whites and when the white planters retreated to Charleston for the summer season, many rural counties became 98% black slave. In the 1850s Sth Carolinians became more and more militant and not surprisingly they were the first state to vote for secession upon the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. They wanted to protect their privileged and gracious life style of which we can see remnants today in Charleston –the beautiful mansions and public buildings. In this antebellum period Charleston was extremely wealthy as the major importing and exporting port of the South. It handled the cotton from upstate and a large part of the slave market. The international slave trade was banned from 1808 but many shiploads of black slaves still entered American illegally after that date. The wealthy planting class imported their chandeliers from France, their fine furniture and porcelain from England and their silk fabrics for the ladies ball gowns from Paris. In your free afternoon you can enter some of these mansions and see theirs and their slaves’ living conditions especially at the Aiken-Rhett house.
Charleston during the Civil War.
The first shots of the Civil War were fired in Charleston Harbour by the Confederates but few shots were fired at Charleston by the Union forces. A small battle outside the city in 1862 saw the Confederates being victorious and the Unions forces retreating. That ended any immediate threat of land invasion of Charleston. Charleston Harbour had always been well protected with forts in addition to Fort Sumter in case of Spanish or British attack. The Confederates used these forts to protect the city. But the Anaconda Plan meant that from the start of the Civil War the Union naval blockade was reasonably successful. Gun runners still managed to bring supplies into Charleston from France but goods were limited. In the latter stages of the Civil War, Charleston like other areas of the South was basically without food for whites or slaves. People were starving. Yet despite this in the final year of the Civil War the Charlestonians still had their grand balls for the season with French ball gowns smuggled into the city when some were starving. At the same time General Vance with his North Carolina Army was enduring the freezing winter of northern Virginia with his troops in thread bare uniforms and worn boots. But resources from Sth Carolina were not advanced to help the troops from North Carolina. They were kept aside for Sth Carolina. This was one of the many great weaknesses of the Confederacy- blind obsession with states’ rights. The continuing extravagances of the Charlestonian elite also angered starving Southerners and added to the decline in morale in the South. In February 1865 when General Sherman advanced towards Charleston from Savannah the Confederate General Beauregard, ordered the evacuation of Confederate troops from Charleston. The Mayor of Charleston was then able to surrender to Sherman and avoid the city being bombarded or destroyed. We must be thankful for that and the decision of the ladies of Charleston to preserve as many historic houses as they could. They began this around 1955.
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www.flickr.com/photos/33714681@N06/show/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfvQS0B5lYo
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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.