It was in 1565 that Sir Robert Oxenbridge, who was the owner of Hurstbourne Priors, was ordered to prove by what title he held the five manors, and a law suit was started to determine whether or not they were manors in their own right. Finally it was determined that from time immemorial they had been hamlets of Hurstbourne Priors and Sir Robert obtained a recognition of his title to them.

St Peter's is the parish church and was built around 1157 and here can be found one of the rarest of ecclesiastical treasure in the whole of the county, an 800 year old black marble font that was transported here from Tournai in Belgium, and is one of only four in the county and is regarded as the finest in the country.

In a recess in the south wall is an effigy of a 14th century Knight who is said to be one of the Oxenbridge family.

The village of St Mary Bourne is said to be such a healthy place to live and it was once said "those born in the village would live as long as they liked" and if the burial register for the 19th century is anything to go by it is true as there is a fair proportion of people living to well over 90 years of age and even one to a hundred years.

\How the parish and village got its name is a matter of contention, its main feature though is the Bourne Rivulet a seasonal tributary of the River Test and under the old calendar it may well have risen on 2nd February which was St Mary's Day. Another theory is that the church was originally dedicated to St Mary, but then another mystery opens.........why was it changed to St Peter?

IMAGES OF ST MARY BOURNE

St Peters church		Wisteria growing over the porch
The Bell room		Church brass
Church brass adorns a window		The Crusaders tomb
The effigy of the crusader		The Tournai Font (a brass Plate opposite the Font in the Church reads 'The base of the Font was provided in 1926 to the memory of Lloyd Breadmore and William Longman Churchwardens of this Church for many years.' Lloyd was the son of Henry Breadmore who was the Grocer and Baker in the village for many years and had also been a Churchwarden. Lloyd is mentioned in the 'Occupations in 1881' - 'Grocer' section of the Breadmore One-Name Study web site   http://www.breadmore.org )INFORMATION KINDLY SUBMITTED BY MARGARET YOUNG
The War Memorial
1939-45 J BARTON N P BROAD W COOK F L COX C R C De MORGAN N C J HURST M J MILEY O H OWENS M J PUGH N A SHIPTON		H BAKER WJ BARNES A H V BENOLE C BENHAM F BLAKE H S COX W E COX F C DAY W GIBBONS H GOODYEAR H GOODALL S CONNELL MF HIBBERD   G.HOLBROOKE F HOPGOOD C E JUDGE B C KING O KING W KNELLER D G MEIN MILES MILEY J R H McINTOSH H MOORSE R H W MOSES W PAGE W J PAGE   J PESCOD E PIKE J PIKE H J PRITCHARD W RICHARDS W SIMS W H THRING C TURNELL C VOLLARD G WELLS F A WILLI

The interior of St Peters church

Banners in the church of St Peter The above three photographs kindly contributed by Mike & Sheila Poore, South Australia

The bridge on the main road		Doves abound at this cottage
The George Inn		Cottages on the main road
The main road through the village

St Peter, St Mary Bourne, The Tournai Marble Font
Reproduced with kind permission of Martin A. Coppen, Vicar of St Mary Bournel.
July 1997 - Revised August 1999
© Martin A Coppen

The font in this church is one of the seven (and a broken, lower half of another) in this country, four of which are in Hampshire. The other Hampshire fonts are in Winchester Cathedral; St Michael's, Southampton and All Saints^ East Meon. There are some 49 others in northern France and Belgium. Although loosely described as "marble", they are in fact a dense black/blue schistous limestone of the carboniferous age, capable of being polished like marble. When first cut, the stone is relatively soft and easily worked. There are thin seams of the stone running from Boulogne to Aachen, and the fonts come from Tournai, near the French border, on the river Scheldt in Belgium. Tournai was a lively medieval town and it seems that font production flourished in the second half of the twelfth century. The fonts were quarried and carved in Tournai making them lighter to export by road and water. The Hampshire group was possibly imported by the then Bishop of Winchester, Henri de Blois (1129-1174) a notable art lover. However, there is no strong link as yet shown between this Norman Bishop and St Mary Bourne, then merely a chapel of ease of Hurstboume Priors.

Tournai fonts typically stand a metre high on a thick central column with four separate thinner pillars at each comer. Surviving original bases (also square) often have masks or animal heads on the comers. The original base and pillars of this font are lost. Indeed, the font shows the marks of rough usage, especially on the north-west comer, and it is at least possible that it suffered the zeal of reformers, as did some other parts of the church. For many years the font stood on single sandstone pillar, now outside the church on the north side of the tower. The present base was commissioned from the Tournai quarries and brought over, not without incident, in 1927.

The carving on this font is relatively abstract and symbolic, certainly compared with the Winchester Cathedral font, which follows the story of St Nicholas: it lacks the allegorical beasts and figures of so many other Toumai fonts.

Description of the Font
West Side (facing the bell tower)

Six Norman arches and seven double pillars are surmounted by four doves in two symmetrical pairs (the souls of the faithful?), drinking thirstily out of two small cups, with what appear to be two large drops of water overflowing from them. This is apparently unusual for Norman carving and is symbolic of the living water,
overflowing, abundant life (see John 4.14).

West side

North Side (facing the "Bank of England" window)
A further six Norman arches, with seven double pillars are decorated with seven fleur de-lys. The flower symbolises purity and  the Blessed Virgin  Mary. Over the extreme left arch is a smaller plain and flat fleur-de-lys, the symbolic or artistic purpose of which is opaque: it might possibly be a craftsman's mark.

North side

East Side (facing the High Altar)
Two stylised vines on this side are less prolific in their fruiting than the final side, no doubt another symbolic touch, perhaps alluding to the pruning of the branches to beat greater fruit in John 15.2.

East side

South Side (facing the vestry and main door)
Two stylised vines, each with four tendrils, have bunches of grapes and conventional leaves hanging from them. The prolific fruiting recalls the words of Jesus in John 15.1- 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing." Also the vine is a recurring metaphor in the Old Testament for the people of God (see Psalm 80.8-14; Isaiah 5.Iff; Ezekiel 17.5-6; Hosea 10.1).The Toumai font in St Pierre, Montdidier in France has a very similar face, except that in between the two rather more compressed vines is an image of Christ blessing.

South side

The Top
A band of a scrolling vine branch and leaves surrounds the bowl of the font, binding the baptised into the people of God. The comers are filled with a pair of doves sipping from a vase (SE and NW) and a conventional wheat sheaf, bound at the stalk, with its head of grain above (NE). The SW comer has two symmetrical stems and leaves bound together with a tall cross between them, clasped by a design like an open metal bracelet (not a phoenix, as imagined by Dr Stevens!). All together, the reference is again to Holy Communion, this time to both bread and wine, and to the Holy Cross.

The top

Comment
The artist, I believe, carefully chose the symbolism of the decoration to tell a story. Although the symbolism has beesn interpreted by others in a number of different ways, there is general agreement that the intention is to point beyond the font's role in the sacrament of infant baptism towards the mature Christian life. This can be seen more clearly if we imagine the font realigned so that the cross on the top of the south-west comer faces along the length of the church towards the high altar. Anyone entering the church from the main, south entrance, would then see the two arcaded sides, the aisles of a church leading up to the high altar. The worshipper is reminded of Christ's offer of abundant life through the living water (the present west side) and of the need for purity (the fleur-de-lys of the north side) and the incarnation of Christ is alluded to through the Blessed Virgin Mary -  also very appropriate in a village dedicated to her. The initiate thus passes through the waters of baptism and is bound into the people of God (the vine band around the bowl). The depiction of the increasingly abundantly fruiting vines of the final two sides suggests the fruitful life in Christ entered through the ministry of the font itself, the cross being the guide to the spiritual life received in the Eucharist at the High Altar.

The artist, on this interpretation, therefore depicts images of growth and nourishment through Holy Communion and encourages spiritual maturity through the basic sacraments of the Church. Although execution of the carvings has been criticised as somewhat crude, the font in fact tells a subtle and symbolic story to those with the time and understanding to meditate upon it.

Dimensions (metres)
The sides vary between 1.092 and 1.100. The diagonal (SW-NE) measures 1.540: the bowl's diameter is 0.808. The depth of the font is 0.410.

Bibliography
Joseph Stevens, A Parochial History of St Mary Bourne (London, 1888).
Joseph Stevens, 'The Font at St Mary Bourne', letter of 17th June 1876 in the Newbury Weekly News.
Cecil H.Eden, Black Tournai Fonts in England (London, 1909)
C.S.Drake, 'The Distribution of Toumai Fonts' in The Antiquaries Journal, Vol. LXXIII, 1993, pp. 11 -26.
Notes of a lecture given by C. S. Drake in Southampton on 26th February 1995.

ST MARYBOURNE PARISH WEBSITE