PORTSDOWN HUNDRED 



PORTSMOUTH 



1788 to 1794. Extracts from the interesting book 

 of churchwardens' accounts for Portsmouth from 1560 

 onwards have been printed in Extracts from the 

 Portsmouth Records?* 



Portsea church was appropriated at an early date to 

 Southwick Priory. In 1291 the value of the church 

 with its chapel was 30 and of the vicarage l o."' 

 The chapel here mentioned may possibly have been 

 the chapel of St. Andrew, Fratton, which was 

 granted to Edward Wymarke in 1588."" 



In 1339 Stephen, vicar of Portsea, craved respite 

 from the triennial tenth granted by the clergy, as his 

 vicarage, houses, goods, and chattels had been burnt 

 by the French, and a similar petition had been made 

 by Walter, vicar of Portsmouth, in the preceding 

 year." 7 After the surrender of the priory of South- 

 wick to the Crown in 1 5 3 8 the rectory and advowson 

 of the vicarage were granted to the college of St. 

 Mary, Winchester, in whose possession they still 

 remain.'* 8 



There was a devotional brotherhood attached to 

 Portsea church for the purpose of maintaining lights 

 there. At the time of its abolition by Edward VI 

 it had lands in Portsmouth liberty."' 



The parish church of ST. THOM4S OF C4N- 

 TERBURT, which stands in the High Street, was 

 also a possession of Southwick Priory, to which it had 

 been appropriated before 1 29 1." The rectory and 

 advowson were granted with those of Portsea to the 

 college of St. Mary, Winchester, in 1544,"' and are 

 still retained by the college. 



The church has a chancel of two double bays 54 ft. 

 by 25 ft. with vaulted aisles, modern north porch and 

 south vestry, north and south transepts 2 5 ft. wide, the 

 north transept being 3 9 ft. long and the south 2 9 ft., 

 and nave of four bays, including the site of the former 

 central tower, 86 ft. by 27 ft. 6 in., with north and 

 south aisles i8ft. 6 in. wide, and west tower 236. 

 square, flanked by north and south porches. All 

 measurements given are internal. A grant of land 

 by John de Gisors in 1 1 80 'for the erection of 

 a chapel in honour of the glorious martyr Thomas, 

 formerly archbishop of Canterbury," gives the earliest 

 limit of date for the building, and the details of 

 the eastern part show that work must have been 

 begun soon after the grant was made. The church 

 was probably completed according to the first design, 

 but the evidence of the finishing of the work 

 is lost, as the central tower was taken down, and all 

 west of the crossing rebuilt between 1683 and 1693, 

 the date 1691 over the west door of the tower showing 

 the progress of the work. The chancel has been 

 lately repaired and made structurally sound, the 

 arcades having been in a dangerous state for some 

 time. 



The internal effect has been injured by the removal 

 of the plaster in 1844, leaving the rubble masonry 

 exposed. 



In spite of the decay of the Caen stone-work which 

 is much used in its construction the Binstead stone 

 as usual standing well the external effect of the 

 church is imposing from its scale and the massive clasp- 

 ing buttresses at the salient angles. The nave stone- 



work is in better condition, the ashlar facing of the 

 tower being very sound and good. The chancel is 

 lighted from the east by three wide lancet window* 

 on the upper or clearstory level, at the sills of which 

 a wall passage runs round the chancel, communicating 

 with a passage in the south transept, which is reached 

 from a vice in the south-west angle of the transept. 



The arches of these windows are carried on 

 Purbeck marble shafts with moulded capitals and 

 bases, and rings at half height, the half-shafts at either 

 side being of stone, with similar details. The clear- 

 story windows on the north and south of the chancel 

 are of the same description, but the Purbeck shafts 

 have no rings. Below the east window is an ill- 

 designed reredos of 1 844, masking a pointed recess, 

 in the back of which is a small lancet, still to be seen 

 on the outer face of the wall. In the gable above 

 the clearstory is a large blocked circular window. 

 The north and south arcades of the ground story of 

 the chancel are of two bays, with clustered responds 

 at either end, and an octagonal column in the 

 middle. Each bay has two pointed sub-arches of two 

 moulded orders with a central column of Purbeck 

 marble, included under a round-headed arch of .a 

 single moulded order. Before 1 904 two of the Pur- 

 beck marble columns, those in the western bays, were 

 ancient, the two in the eastern bays having been 

 replaced by iron columns in 1842. All four are now 

 of marble, and date from 1904, but the old circular 

 moulded marble capital of the south-west bay has 

 been preserved, the other three capitals being of stone 

 and modern. 



The chancel was designed for and probably once 

 covered with a quadripartite stone-ribbed vault. The 

 old vaulting shafts with foliated capitals, and stopping 

 on corbels in the spandrels of the main arcades, are 

 still in position. At the present time there is a 

 plastered wooden vault, set up in 1 844 in place of a 

 flat wooden ceiling, the chancel arch being poor work 

 of the same date. The aisles of the chancel are 

 vaulted in four bays with ribbed vaults, springing 

 from triple vaulting shafts in the outer walls, and 

 from single shafts in the eastern angles. The capitals, 

 which in the main arcades are moulded, are here 

 foliate of various designs, and square abaci and plain 

 leaf-work show the Romanesque feeling which still 

 lingers. The west arches of the aisles are pointed, of 

 three moulded orders, that to the north having foliate 

 capitals in the north respond, and moulded in the 

 south. The aisles were originally lighted by single 

 lancets in each bay, but only those in the east bay on 

 the north, and the two east bays on the south, are 

 ancient. The east windows of the aisles, each of two 

 uncusped lights, are in modern stone-work. The 

 transepts, like the chancel, have been vaulted in stone, 

 the north transept in two bays, the south in one wide 

 bay, but both now have flat plastered ceilings. The 

 north transept has two trefoiled lancet windows in 

 the clearstory stage on the east, and a third light to 

 the north, while in the north wall are three tre- 

 foiled lancets with a sexfoiled opening in the gable 

 above. The west wall has a single trefoiled lancet in 

 the clearstory. In the lower stage is a north window 



5M Extracti from a register beginning 

 in 1556 are given in Additional MS. 



8153, with a memorandum to the effect 632. 



that the original was missing in 1830. 

 555 Pofi Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 211 A. 



659 Pat. 30 Eliz. pt. 7. 



Col. Close, 1337-9, pp. 546 and 



" 8 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, rviii (i), 981 

 (46). 



I 97 



Chant. Cert. (Edw. VI), Hants, 





' Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), zi l 1. 

 "l L. and P. Hen. VIII, xviii (l), 981 

 (46). 



