Dorchester Abbey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorchester Abbey

Dorchester Abbey is a parish church, formerly an abbey church in the place of a cathedral, situated in the centre of the village of Dorchester-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

1 History
2 Church
3 Present use
4 External links
5 References

[edit] History

Dorchester Abbey was founded in 1140 by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, for Augustinian, or Black, canons (strictly speaking, for that particular group of Augustinian canons known as the Arrouaisian Order). Dorchester, an important Roman city of Mercia, about nine miles from Oxford, had been the seat of a bishopric from 634, when Saint Birinus, the first bishop, was sent to that district by Pope Honorius I, until 1085, when the See of Mercia was transferred to Lincoln.

The abbey, founded fifty-five years later, was dedicated in honour of Saints Peter, Paul and Birinus, was richly endowed out of the lands and tithes of the former bishopric, and had twelve parishes subject to it, being included in the Peculiar of Dorchester, until the suppression of peculiars. The first abbot appears to have been Alured, whose name occurs in 1146 and again in 1163; the last was John Mershe, who was elected in 1533, and in the following year subscribed to the king's supremacy, with five of his canons, and was given a pension of £22 a year. The revenues of the abbey were valued at the time of its suppression at about £220. Henry VIII reserved the greater part of the property of the house for a college, erected by him in honour of the Holy Trinity, for a dean and prebendaries; but this was dissolved in the first year of his successor.

No register or cartulary of Dorchester Abbey is now known to exist, and only a single charter, confirming the donation of a church by King John, is given by Dugdale. Edmund Ashefeld was the first impropriator of the abbey site and precincts, which afterwards passed through various hands.

[edit] Church

A window of Dorchester Abbey

The stately church of Dorchester Abbey, as it stands today, was built entirely by the Augustinian Canons, although there are traces on the north side of Saxon masonry, probably part of the ancient cathedral. The whole length of the church is 230 feet, its width 70 feet and its height 55 feet. The north transept with its doorway is of the Norman period; the north side of the nave and chancel arch, Early English, the south side of nave, south aisle, and choir, Decorated; the south porch, late Perpendicular. The extraordinarily rich sanctuary, with its highly decorated windows (including the famous northern one known as the Jesse Tree window) and beautifully carved sedilia and piscina, dates from 1330. Other fittings include one of the few surviving lead fonts in England, beautiful frescoes of 1340 and several good monuments, especially the well-known 'swaggering knight' effigy (possibly of Sir John Holcombe who died in 1270).

[edit] Present use

Besides being a parish church, the abbey church acts as an atmospheric venue for concerts and cultural events of all kinds. In recent years the Dorchester Abbey Campaign Committee has raised four million pounds and this has enabled the Church Council and the Dorchester Abbey Preservation Trust to undertake significant works in the abbey. These include the impressive Cloister Gallery managed by the Dorchester Museum Committee — longlisted for the Gulbenkian Museum Prize in 2006 — and restoration of medieval and Victorian wall paintings. The Abbey now boasts significantly better heating than in previous times and a modern kitchen and servery in the Tower room.

The Abbey is open every day from 8.00 a.m. to dusk.