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Just
outside of Basingstoke is the 12th century church of St Swithun
which is one of only three of its kind in the whole country. It is
built of flint and rubble with Binstead stone dressing and this
aisle less apsidal church has only one door, The roof dates back
to 1786 and the church had restoration work carried out in 1865.
The walls of the church are covered
with Roses and on one of the capitals of the doorway there is a
mermaid.
Nateley Scures and Up Nately are
two parishes, and hypothetical Old English 'Natan leage' (oblique case form of) '(the) wet
wood/clearing'. The word 'naet' is not on record, but it would be an
exact parallel for German 'nass' etc. The church of Nateley Scures lies
down by the river Lyde. Up Nateley is not surprisingly, a little higher.
The wood in question may be the ancestor of the one now bisected by the
M3 motorway.
The two places are distinguished from the late 13th century as 1274 'Neteleye
Scures' (from being held by the de Scures family hailing originally from
'Escures' in Normandy) and 1272 'Upnatelye'.
The Manor belonged to Hugh de
Port, and he kept it with his descendents for many centuries. In
1617 it is said it was held by William Paulet Marquess of
Winchester along with his manor of Basing, It is not known
when the Scures obtained the manor from the de ports but it
probably was at a very early period, When Henry I was on the
throne Roger de Scures signed a charter as witness of Henry
de Port to the abbey of St Vigor of Cerisy and it is thought that
he was the lord of Nately Scures Manor at the time. And the last
male of the de Scures family was John de Scures |
who died in 1381 and his
sister Sybil who married John Uvedale of Titsey in Surrey was his heir
and they brought the manor back to the family and it stayed with them
for around three hundred years.
The Manor was then settle by
Sir William Uvedale to Frances his second daughter by his first wife and
she married Sir Edward Griffin of Braybrooke and Dingley in
Northamptonshire.
The manor then went to
Anthony Henley who son was the first Earl of Northington and on the
death of the second earl in 1786 the manor was sold to Guy Carledton who
was the first Lord Dorchester, and it was in 1899 that the elder
daughter of the third Lord Dorchester, Henrietta Anne was created
Baroness of Dorchester and today her grand daughter is the present
patron.
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Under the west window there is a brass
tablet that depicts a happy couple who died
seven months after the Civil War. The wife was the first to die
and in 1661 her husband
followed, their last words to each other were carved out by the
engraver, who left out
some of the letters then returned to put them back in. Another
mistake was that all the
letter Ns are the wrong way around: |
Here lies John Palmer
and Mary his wife
Prisoners of hope to eternal life.
Then John says to Mary:
Mary make room!
To thee I come
And my last home
Till the Day of Doom.
Then shall we wake, rise, live for aye
With Christ a never-dying day,
And Mary lovingly replies:
I went before
To ope the door;
I could not stay
But now give way.
Come then, my dear, we'll sleep in bliss
And in the dust each other kiss.
And then together these two
dear people tell their simple tale:
Twice sixteen years we
lived together
In sunshine and in stormy weather,
In wedlock bands husband and wife,
In joy, love, peace, void of all strife,
And ten times changed our habitation
And here at last we fixed our station,
Where after ten years spent we have
Obtained at last a quiet grave.
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The Dorchester
Ams |
THE MERMAID
LEGEND OF NATELY SCURES.
Legend has it that somewhere
far off in the great oceans a young sailor met a mermaid and after a
short flirtation with her he left and returned to England where he soon
fell in love with a Nately Scures girl. When the wedding day came the
brial party approached the door and found the mermaid sitting outside.
She grabbed hold of the sailor and carried him off, depicted by the
little figure on the mermaid's back on the carving, and plunged with him
into the stream at Water End and swam down the Lyde and the Loddon and
into the River Thames and on out to sea. And the capital of the church
doorway was carved as a warning to all the flirtatious youths.
Another version in the
King George V Jubilee Number of Punch, 1st May 1935, says that the
mermaid and the girl, on discovering the sailors fickleness both decided
there and then to have nothing to do with him and they both left leaving
him sad and sorry.
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The Original
Mermaid which is
now inside the church |
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A new carving of
the mermaid to replace the original
which was fast wearing away |
HISTORY OF
ST SWITHUN'S CHURCH
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