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than in divinity, in the knowledge of training up soldiers than of leading his proper flock in the paths of peace.” From the same source we learn that two centuries later the manor and church were part of the possessions of the Benedictine nunnery at Wherwell in Hants, founded by Queen Elfreda in 956, and that it so remained until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, when it passed to the Crown. Queen Mary granted it “with its appurtenances and advowson of the church” to Edward Nevile, Knight. Soon after it became the property of Capel, Earl of Essex, whose descendant sold it in 1726 to William Pulteney, Esq. The patronage of the living passed into the hands of the bishop of the diocese early in the present century. It is to William Pulteney and his successors — Henrietta Laura Pulteney, Sir William Johnstone, the Earl of Darlington, the Duke of Cleveland, Lord Powlett and the Forester family — that the Bathwick streets owe their names. Raby derives from the family seat, Raby Castle, Co. Durham, and Rockliffe from Rockliffe Park, Darlington, a residence of Captain Forester. To quote again from Collinson’s History which was published in 1791: “The whole parish (i.e. of Bathwick) contains 45 houses and about 250 inhabitants. Most of the houses form an irregular street near the church.” By .1815 this church, S. Mary’s, the mother church of Bathwick, was little more than a ruin. It stood among fields at river level where now the road, on an embankment, leads from Bathwick Street to Cleveland Bridge. FATHER DUNN The bridge itself dates only from 1827. An old drawing of a view from Walcot Parade shows a ferry-boat crossing the river in the direction of a farm which once occupied part of what is now S. John’s Road and the grounds of the present Vicarage, then S. Mary’s Rectory. The old BEGINNINGS Rectory House is close by the farm buildings and the tower of the ancient parish church appears a little to the left of this as one looks across the river. The present S. Mary’s Church, built to replace it, was consecrated in 1820. Its HE HISTORY OF BATHWICK goes back new site enabled it to serve the inhabitants of to very early-times. Roman graves and those stately streets of houses between the city Tother remains found in S. John’s and Bathwick Hill which had come into being churchyard and the neighbourhood of Villa since the building of Pulteney Bridge in 1770. Fields suggest that it must have been the site of Meyler’s Bath Guide of 1827 says that ” it is a Roman settlement. Mr. R. W. M. Wright, an formed to unite the desiderata of elegance and authority on Bath history, thinks it very probable convenience, and may be considered in every that a Saxon church stood near our present S. way worthy of the’ opulent and daily improving John’s in the 9th century. Domesday records neighbourhood in which it is situated.” that the manor of Wiche (Bathwick.) previously held by Alvric was in 1086 part of the lands It was a rector of this church, the Reverend H. granted by William the Conqueror to the French M. Scarth, who in November 1856 addressed a Bishop of Coutances as a reward for his military pastoral letter to his ” Poorer Brethren ” telling services. Collinson in his History of Somerset them that ” It has long been a source of grief to tells us that this bishop had a distinguished me to see how very few of you have attended command at the battle of Hastings, and was the parish church on Sundays “, and he went said to have been ” much more skilful in arms on to admit the inadequacy of the accommodation provided for obtained for the demolition of toy-like from the elevation of them. At that time the only the old Burial Chapel and the the road, a trifle prim and free seats were tucked away use of the materials in the stiffly early English, standing behind the cumbrous pulpit building of the new church. In on a tea-tray of level, lawn and reading-desk at the west a further letter headed ” A with here and there pretty end, with obvious Few Remarks on the little tombstones to add disadvantages for their Proposed New Church ” and interest and sentiment to the occupants. To meet, the addressed to the working view.” difficulty the Rector offered people, the rector explained to hold an afternoon service that provision having been On the day of the for their special benefit in the made by the generosity of consecration the clergy and chapel of the old burial the donor of of the church for parishioners assembled at S. ground, where the excuse of the stipend of the. curate, the Mary’s to meet the Lord not being able to hear, or of only expense which would Bishop and walked in the embarrassment due to fall upon the parishioners procession to S. John’s, led their ” common dress ” wouldbe such as usually by the beadle and sexton compared with the clothes of come under the with their staves. The service the gentry would no longer churchwardens’ account. He was read by the Reverend L. hold good. It is to the estimated that £30 per R. Hamilton assisted by the situation described in this annum would be sufficient to rector, and the sermon was letter that the church of S. cover all such expenses. preached by the bishop. John the Baptist owes its After the consecration existence. On June 24th 1861 ,the ceremony the bishop and corner-stone of St John’s clergy with various officials It appears that the rector’s was laid, and on July 31st, and parishioners were offer did not meet with such 1862 the church was entertained to lunch at the a good response as he had consecrated by Bath Proprietary College, hoped. Be that as it may, the LordAuckland, Bishop of now the Holburne Museum, idea of making better Bath and Wells. The and incidentally the same provision for the poor and architect was Mr. C. E. Giles building (at that time the people of the labouring and the builder Mr. George Sydney Hotel) in which the class, most of whom lived in Mann. The church, which wardens of S. Mary’s had the area of Grove Street, the forms the north aisle of the met 50 years earlier to courts of Bathwick Street present building, consisted discuss the rebuilding of their and Villa Fields, took root of nave and apsidal chancel, church. Toasts were and bore fruit in the mind of with a porch at the N.E. proposed and the assembly one of the curates, the corner forming the base of a drank to the health of the Reverend Leveson Russell tower and spire added three bishop, the chairman Hamilton, now revered as years later. There were two (Prebendary Scarth) and the the founder of S. John’s. In a small transepts on the south Reverend L. R. Hamilton. In letter to his parishioners the side (one of-these was the evening of the next day a rector wrote again in reserved for the children) meeting of the ” labouring February 186.1. to tell them and a vestry on the north classes ” of the parish was of the generous offer made side of the sanctuary. The held in the Rotunda of the by Father Hamilton to build font, placed opposite the Sydney Gardens, lent by the and endow a small chapel north entrance, and the Hanoverian Band capable of holding 300 pulpit of Bath stone were Committee. About 200 persons to serve as a gifts of individual donors- people including a few of the chapel-of-ease to the parish The lectern was a small ladies of the parish sat down church, in which the oaken eagle, the gift of the to tea, presided over by the accommodation would be sculptor. The furniture of the rector. After tea he entirely free. The site Communion Table and the addressed the meeting, between the old Rectory altar-cloth ” of rich Utrecht saying he was desirous that House, now S. John’s velvet adorned with devices the labouring part of the Vicarage, and Cleveland in needlework ” as well as population should know why Bridge was given by the Lord the altar vessels were also the church had been built of the Manor, Lord William special gifts. and urging them to use it. Powlett, and the consent of Later, Father Hamilton the Lord Bishop of the In The Weekly Churchman a expressed his pleasure at diocese obtained. writer described the little being able for the first time to Permission was also church as ” looking almost address collectively the. working people of Bathwick worship and teaching was and A. D’A Burney, was parish. attracting people from all issued ” in the belief that a parts of Bath who crowded to generous sympathy would be The care of S. John’s and of its doors. Each Sunday extended by churchmen at a the 1,500 or so parishioners numbers of those who came distance to a handful of whose welfare he had so had to be turned away. The clergy who, together with much at heart was confided writer in The Weekly some earnest laymen, were to the Reverend Leveson Churchman has a lively doing their best to provide for Russell Hamilton who recollection of the prevailing the true exhibition of church continued to minister there, conditions. ” The centre principles “, and ” that it until his resignation through gangway.” he says, ” was would probably be years ill-health in 1864.

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