St Simon and St Jude

Old documents are throwing up little known facts which when collated and assessed, provide a different picture of those things we have taken for granted. For instance, few would know that the Abbey Church which is now dedicated to St Peter and St Paul was once known as St Simon and St Jude although the name remained for only two decades in the early years of the 19th century.

The first known reference to this comes from John Moore who wrote one of the earliest surviving descriptions of Bourne almost two centuries ago. His account can be found in his book Collections for a Topographical, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Hundred of Aveland and was published in February 1809 with the help of his benefactor, Mrs Eleanor Frances Pochin, wife of George Pochin, Lord of the Manor of Bourne Abbots for 37 years from 1761 until his death in 1798 and is inscribed: “To Mrs Pochin of Bourne Abbey, this volume of historical collections is respectfully inscribed as a memorial of gratitude for many acts of kindness conferred on her obliged humble servant, John Moore”.

One can almost imagine the writer touching his forelock as a mark of subservience as he wrote it but Mrs Pochin lived at Bourne Abbey, the name then used for the Abbey House which had been built by her late husband, and from 1804 inherited the estates of the Manor of Bourne Abbots, and so she was an important person in the parish, wealthy and influential, and one who undoubtedly expected deference from those of lower station.

Moore’s account of the town makes intriguing reading and he was most certainly influenced by his patron but his assertion is unequivocal because he writes: “Bourne contains a parish church dedicated to St Simon and St Jude.” He did not write in the past tense but was referring to the situation as it was at that time and although some of his descriptions of the church’s history are inaccurate and copied from earlier versions, we have no reason to believe that he was at fault.

It has been suggested elsewhere that St Peter and St Paul referred to the monastic abbey as opposed to the parish church but this is not correct because according to the evidence of the earliest charters and of its conventual seal researched by the Lincoln Record Society in 1920 it was dedicated solely to St Peter which was still in use by 1807 according to The Beauties of Lincolnshire published that year. Perhaps a name change was then being considered because it had become St Simon and St Jude when Moore’s book was published two years later in 1809, a change influenced perhaps by Mrs Pochin who preferred her personal saints more in keeping with high church ideals, this dedication being particularly favoured by Roman Catholics whilst an earnest devotion to these apostles had become popular in the early 1800s and would have been reported in the newspapers available in Bourne.

St Simon and St Jude was still in use in 1826, according to White’s History and Directory of Lincolnshire, although Mrs Pochin’s death in 1823, aged 76, had given church officials who may have been dissatisfied with this departure from tradition the opportunity to reverse the change and by 1830 it had become St Paul again and then in 1835, St Peter and St Paul for the first time, both instances recorded in Pigot's Directory of Lincolnshire for those years.

The dedication of St Simon and St Jude was therefore only in use for around 20 years and has remained largely unknown to most people in the parish. I have checked all of the parish registers for this period and can find no reference to it, not that there should be because these records refer only to dates and events such as baptisms, marriages and burials “in this church”.

This is borne out by David Tabor whose family have been associated with the church for more than a century and has himself given distinguished service in various capacities, not least as verger and parish clerk for almost 40 years. "This is one I have never come across in my time in office, copying old wedding records and such like, even from the 19th century", he said.

WRITTEN JANUARY 2010

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