Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2007 | Page 48

life

FEATURE

Photo: All Saints Church, Freshwater

Island Churches
By James Kerr

The first Christian Church did not appear
on the Isle of Wight until more than
500 years after Roman settlement, and
almost a century after the rest of Britain
had converted to Christianity. Around
686, when Britain was ruled by Saxon
chieftains, St. Wilfred travelled to the
Island and is thought to have landed near
Bembridge, where he built the first church.
Today, the Island has religious buildings
dating from shortly after St. Wilfred’s arrival
to the present day. Visit some of the village
churches to discover the fascinating
history of the Island’s local communities,
with links to saints, scholars and sinners
(churchyards were useful hiding places for
smugglers), preserved within their grounds.

All Saints' Church, Freshwater
All Saints' Church, Freshwater, is one of
the oldest on the Island. The actual date
of the church is not known but it is listed in
the Domesday survey of 1086, and could
well date back 300 years before that, to just
after the Island’s conversion to Christianity.

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All Saints was originally a small AngloSaxon church. In 1875, when the plaster
covering the interior masonry was removed,
Saxon quoins, or corner structures, were
discovered. These were thought to be
the corners of the original Saxon nave.
Extensive alterations were made to the
church over the centuries, particularly
during the Middle Ages. The church
expanded on all sides until the Saxon
remains were hidden in the middle, and
today, none of the churches original Saxon
construction is visible from the outside.
The Domesday Book tells us a little
about the situation of the church at that
time. Outside the churchyard was a
green on which stood the village stocks,
and around the green were the cottages
that made up the village. This small
settlement remained broadly the same
until the beginning of the 19th century.
The tower that characterises All Saints
was built in the 15th century, to replace the
earlier belfry. It was a convenient store for
smugglers in the 19th century, who used
it to store tubs of contraband liquor that

was subsequently sold around the parish.
In 1853 Alfred Tennyson came to
Freshwater, where he lived at Farringford.
Tennyson and his wife worshipped at
the village church, and although the
poet was interred in Westminster Abbey,
his wife is buried at All Saints and the
family vault is in the churchyard.
Around the church are memorial tablets
to other members of the Tennyson family.
A statue of St. John is a memorial to the
younger son of the poet, who died at
sea at the age of 31. The church cl ock
had specially composed ‘Tennyson
Chimes’. The most recent tribute to
the poet is a bust by the artist Mignon
Jones, commissioned in 1992 by the
Farringford Tennyson Society.
All Saints has a number of beautiful
pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows,
including a reproduction in glass of a
painting by George Frederick Watts. The
face of Sir Galahad is that of the artist's
first wife, the famous actress Ellen Terry,
and the face of the angel continues
the Tennyson connection, being that of

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