ROMSEY ABBEY

Opposite King John's House is the imposing building of Romsey Abbey that was founded by Alfred the Great's son Edward, which was sacked by the Danes and today's building is Norman and English with some of the country's finest 12 and 13th century work which has mainly been brought about by the builder of St Cross at Winchester, Henry de Blois.

By the doorway which has four stone columns and a moulded what is said to be an 800 year old sculpture that depicts Christ on the Cross and if you look closely you will see that he has no nails in either hands of feet and the Hand of God is seen reaching down to him, this is one of two ancient Calvarys the second one being above the altar of the Chapel of St Anne under a wooden canopy that is 600 years old

Romsey Abbey

Inside one is awed by the lofty columns that carry moulded arches and above more arches can be seen in pairs that have a greater arch crowning them. Above this are the clerestory windows with columns that rise high into the roof. The west end is from the 13th century and except for two windows from the 14th century that were from the vanished lady chapel, has not been changed since the Normans.

The entrance porch to Romsey Abbey

The north transept is 900 years old and a trapdoor is set in the floor to let the visitor see the foundations of the first church which started as the house of prayer that St Morwen an her nuns would have used for worship, and it is thought that there may be some fragments from the foundations laid by the granddaughter of King Alfred. The walls  also have small holes in them which are bullet holes from when Cromwell drove the Royalists out of the town. A screen has 600 year old heads in its cresting which was found among old timbers by Edward Lyon Berthon, a past vicar who did a lot to restore the church and served here for 54 years and he can be seen on a memorial opposite with a microscope and a boat, the boat symbolises the fact that he invented the Berthon Collapsible Boat that Samuel Plimsoll showed interest in.

The Saxon rood (stone crucifix) inSt Anne's Chapel dates from AD960, and was perhaps a gift from King Edgar. It is a message of joyful resurrection confirmed by the branches of new life sprouting from the base of the cross

The transept contains a reredos that is though to have been paint c1530 and is hung over the altar of the Chapel of St Lawrence this has been restored after somebody nailed the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments to it.

It shows Christ rising from the tomb and four Roman soldiers looking on in shock, two angels and a tiny figure of a lady kneeling in a corner. Above are a row of nine figures that represent the saints.

The south transept has a marble lady carved 700 years ago under a cuspet and clustered recess wearing a long dress and headdress with angels guarding her. In black and gold is a bust of John St Barbe and also one of his wife who both died during the Commonwealth, she has a plain dress and long hair and kneeling are their four small sons.

If you look upwards at the wall of the transpet with the bullet marks you will see a rather ugly looking figure that has a crook and is grinning and there is also a wooden door dated 1739 standing in a Tudor doorway. Just behind the high altar is a bracket holding a bust of a woman in prayer made of wood.

The memorial to Alice Taylor

Two monuments show a mother and child, the mother is Maud Ashley who died in the 20th century and is shown here in a medallion above a woman holding two children. The child is Alice Taylor, (Click to read story) who was  the daughter of a local doctor and it is he who carved the figure taht shones the little one asleep with a rose in her hand, and inscribed on the tomb is are the words "Is it well with the child? It is well!"

William Petty is commemorated by a plain stone in the south aisle, and it shows the old man asleep wearing long robes. It was in 1623 that he was born in Romsey and he died in 1687. He has been immortalised in two diaries, for Pepys and Evelyn wrote about him.

His father worked in the cloth trade here but William went to sea and on to Europe then returned to teach anatomy and it was him who gave England's its first letter duplicating machine which was more of a mechanical triumph that a commercial success. He was later appointed as physician to the Army in Ireland where he carried out a survey which gave Ireland its first intelligible map. He lost all his property in the Great Fire of London but had enough capital to start up an iron works, and to open lead mines and establish fisheries. He also had dreams of revolutionising navigation for which he is still best remembered, the wonder ship that features in Pepys, it was a double bottomed vessel that was designed to do what no other ship could do until the days of steam, and that was to sail against the wind and tide.

Among the vast collection of antiquities in the Abbey is a Roman soldier with his spear in the Saxon Crucifixion. And is a glass display case at the west end of the Abbey is an actual Roman spearhead with a pair of 600 year old forceps and two stone lamps. And nearby is another treasure, a 500 year old magnificently carved wooden chest mad by Flemish craftsmen, inside of which is the deed by which Romsey bough the abbey church from Henry VIII at the time of the dissolution.

The woman's hair in its case

In another glass case can be found a womans hair complete with a long plait, she is said to have been a Roman officers wife and was buried here in a lead coffin under the wall of the south aisle. She was buried in such a position that suggests a burial that was much older than the church as the coffin was lying north and south. When the coffin was opened all that remained was a pile of dust and the hair.

The effigy of 17th century anatomist, cartographer and inventor. Sir William Petty, erected by his descendant, the Marquis of Landowne in 1858. If is believed he was the one man in the 17th century who might have had enough money to make good the damage done by the Roundheads - although born in 1623 and buried in 1687 in Romsey, Petty left nothing to the abbey in his will. A modest gravestone records his death, and it was not until 1858 that a life-size effigy was placed in the church. Nevertheless he was a remarkable man whose story is worth telling. When he left home at the age of 15 he was already well grounded in Latin, Greek and arithmetic. He studied further in France. In the course of his life he made his name and amassed a fortune. While in Oxford he achieved fame by reviving the corpse of a young woman hanged for murder. His friend Samuel Pepys, the diarist, described him as 'the most rational man in England' and King Charles II greatly admired him.