FUND RAISING IN PAST TIMES

The burden of care for the 12th century Abbey Church falls mainly on the congregation and it is a constant battle to make ends meet because maintenance of the fabric is extremely costly and there is always another bill round the corner waiting to be paid. 

Fund raising has been an essential ingredient of church life down the centuries and few months go by without a coffee morning, whist drive, garden fete or concert to bring in those extra pounds that are needed to keep the church going. Major alterations continue to cause a headache for the parochial church council yet despite the size of the bill it always somehow gets settled in the end.

One of the biggest such problems faced the church 170 years ago when major restoration work was undertaken resulting in a bill for £800. This was over £70,000 by today’s values (2013) and a staggering burden for Bourne when the population was under 3,500 yet parishioners rose to the challenge and the task was given the go-ahead. This was the first recorded restoration scheme of recent times, the alterations being carried out during September and October 1839 when new box-style pews were installed, the ceiling and walls stuccoed and the whole interior repaired and beautified. The church was closed for two months to allow the work proceed and services were held at the Town Hall.  

The church eventually reopened on 27th October 1839 with a peal of bells followed by three celebration services at which the choir of St Mary’s Church at Stamford lead the singing and three clergymen noted for their piety and eloquence preached the sermons. Among them was the Vicar of Bourne, the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, who called on a packed congregation, and indeed everyone in the town, to support the restoration with voluntary and free will offerings as proof of the interest they had in the temporal and eternal welfare of the parish. His appeal did not fall on stony ground because collections at the three services totalled £42 [£3,700].

Further collections and subscriptions were made over the next eighteen months to defray the cost but the bill was not finally settled until 1841. As the balance was slowly whittled down, a church bazaar was held over two days on Wednesday and Thursday 3rd and 4th March that year to finally liquidate the debt.

This was a grand affair held at the Town Hall and organised by a ladies committee under the patronage of the Marchioness of Exeter and other dignitaries who donated valuable items for sale including drawings, fancy work and confectionery, to attract buyers while the public were charged a one shilling admission fee, children half price.

Visitors thronged the Town Hall on both days including most of the titled and landed gentry from the neighbourhood as well as wealthy businessmen and tradesmen and their wives and we have a description of the scene because the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 12th March: “The stalls, which were tastefully decorated with flowers, presented a most animated appearance and it seemed as if the ladies engaged in the cause had vied with each other in their efforts to attract public attention. The doors were opened at twelve o’clock and immediately after, the room began to fill and ultimately it became so crowded that it was with difficulty that the goods on display could be examined by the visitors.”

In fact, the event attracted so much attention and excitement in the town that many visitors handed over donations without buying a thing and this contributed to its undoubted success. The newspaper reported that the bazaar had attracted "all the respectable families in the neighbourhood who were very liberal purchasers", raising almost £300 and so enabling the debt to be cleared.

The restoration work, however, did not please everyone and one critic wrote to the newspaper to complain. “The old pews are cleared away”, he said, “and we could almost wish that the new ones were to be dispensed with and the old Catholic plan adopted of each person who requires a seat taking one with him. It is only in the absence of these obstructions that you discover the harmony of the architectural design of some of our old churches to which modern innovation has given a sombre appearance.”

Ironically, the new box-style pews lasted only fifty years and were replaced by the present ones during another major restoration scheme in 1892, thus ending the system of private sittings, a practice whereby important and wealthy people from the parish could, for a small contribution to church funds, reserve their own place for services, the majority of worshippers favouring the principle of all seating being free and available to everyone without drawing invidious distinctions and this system was duly adopted and remains in force today.

NOTE: This article was published by the parish magazine in the issue for January 2014.

LIGHTING UP THE ABBEY CHURCH

Electric lighting has become part of modern life with the flick of a switch driving out the darkness in our homes, offices, public halls and elsewhere. But before it became commonplace, coal gas enjoyed a popularity over many decades and prior to that oil lamps and candles were widely used including places of worship such as the Abbey Church.

Open flames were however dangerous and candles expensive, particularly for the magnificent brass candelabra which hangs in the nave, donated to the church by local landowner Mathew Clay in 1742 to the memory of his daughter who died at the age of 22. It has 24 branches and is still lit for special services and festivals but as each requires a tallow candle to provide the light, this could have been costly around Easter and Christmas.

The rest of the church was also lit by candles with brass sconces or pillars of varying sizes fixed to the walls and the backs of the pews, a total of twenty-six in all, the larger ones holding two and the smaller models a single candle. All had to be lit prior to services and extinguished afterwards with each candle being replaced once it had burned low.

The coming of coal gas changed all that with the formation of the Bourne Gas Light and Coke Company in 1840 with premises on a site at the top end of Eastgate. This was a commercial undertaking but the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, first curate then vicar of Bourne, was a man who took a deep interest in the many modern ideas then being developed for community benefit.

Mr Dodsworth immediately saw the advantages of a gasworks for the town and became one of the company’s original investors after buying £10 worth of shares which were issued to those who wanted a financial stake in the venture and because of his social standing in the town he was also appointed one of the five trustees. The gasworks were erected at a cost of £2,000 and the enterprise prospered, the first project being the installation of gas lighting in the Abbey Church.

This was a scheme dear to his heart and one that was encouraged by one of the church wardens, Henry Bott, landlord of the Angel Hotel, who had also been appointed a trustee and so lighting the church had solid support within the company. The work was completed in the autumn of 1841 and a special sermon was preached to mark the occasion on Sunday 31st October when a collection was held to help defray the cost of the fittings.

It was a source of wonder to the congregation when they saw the gas lighting on for the first time and the churchwardens immediately removed all of the candle holders from around the church and put them up for sale as being surplus to requirements.

But the credit for the project went to Mr Dodsworth whose business acumen was also manifest in the interests of the community in later years when the town joined the national railway network. In August 1857, he was one of the main sponsors of a scheme to connect Bourne with the main line at Essendine which had already been completed at Stamford. The gentlemen behind the project were the vicar, General William Johnson, a retired army officer, Edward Hardwicke and John Compton Lawrance of Dunsby, who applied for and were granted by Act of Parliament, incorporation of the Bourne and Essendine Railway Company, and the four became its first directors.

The building of the line took more than two years and as the project was nearing completion in 1860, Mr Dodsworth, accompanied by his wife and daughter, made the first trip, travelling from the station at Bourne to Essendine and back upon the tender of the engine. The vicar was obviously an adventurous soul and the Stamford Mercury reported: "The whole journey is said to have been performed in first-rate style, some part of it at the rate of 40 miles per hour, and without any casualty. The line is now nearly finished, except the levelling of the station yards, and it is expected that it will be ready for goods and coal traffic in the course of three weeks or a month."

Joseph Dodsworth died on Wednesday 9th May 1877 at the age of 79 after a long and painful illness, although his dedication to public service was such that he was attending meetings of the various organisations to which he belonged until a few days before he died. He was the town’s longest serving clergyman, having been first curate since 1822 and then vicar from 1842 and so his service to the church at Bourne totalled 55 years.

NOTE: This article was published by the parish magazine in the issue for March 2014.

THE LORD OF THE MANOR WHO LIKED A TIPPLE 

For over one hundred years, an imposing mansion stood next to the Abbey Church, so grand in fact that it enjoyed a reputation as Bourne Abbey.

It was built in 1764 by George Pochin, Lord of the Manor of Bourne Abbots, a wealthy man with large estates in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire who had succeeded to the title from his uncle, Sir Thomas Trollope in 1761. As befitting a man of property, he built himself a large house in a prominent position near to the church on land today occupied by the vicarage and surrounding garden.

George Pochin (1732-96) was Lord of the Manor for 37 years and both he and his wife, Eleanor Frances Pochin (1747-1823), are remembered with a marble plaque on the wall of the chancel that records two lives devoted to public service and Christian charity. We know exactly how grand their house was because a description survives from 1835 when it was advertised to let “on very advantageous terms” and the accompanying description not only gives as gives a glimpse of a property of some distinction but also tells us about the lifestyle of the gentry at that time.

“This capital mansion house”, said the notice, “contains coach houses, stables, granaries, dovecote and other numerous and convenient offices, also the extensive gardens, spacious lawns with other grassland, contiguous to the mansion, the whole containing about twenty acres of very rich land. The Abbey, which is partially furnished, comprises dining, drawing and breakfast rooms, 19 bed-chambers and attics, a spacious kitchen possessing every requisite for culinary purposes, housekeeper’s room, servants’ hall, brewhouse and every other suitable appendage. The tenant will also have the privilege of sporting over two manors adjoining or near the mansion.”

The grassland and sporting estate which were said to be in the immediate vicinity were areas of green countryside that have since been swallowed up for residential and other development but the description enables us picture the rural nature of the locality at a time when Bourne had a population of under 3,000.

Despite his high position in Bourne society, it is also known that George Pochin liked the occasional tipple, usually a glass or two of good wine. In the grounds of the Abbey House was an Early English blank arcade, probably the south termination of the abbey cloisters, and in the absence of suitable storage facilities he hit upon the perfect solution to keep his bottles at the right temperature by making a recess in one of these compartments and fitting it with a lock and key to keep it safe. 

His secret cellar remained secure for several years but one day, on going for a bottle of this wine to receive a particular friend, to his surprise he found the recess empty, every bottle having been taken away. On the robbery becoming known, the pilferers came forward and acknowledged the offence. They were workmen and while employed in effecting some repairs or alterations to the church, a brick fell from the wall.

One of them put his arm into the aperture and brought forth a bottle of wine which was subsequently drunk by him and his companions and much enjoyed, coming to the conclusion that it had been placed there by the monks of the abbey a thousand years before, and having made a successful search for more, they took possession of the whole of the hidden treasure and consumed it with some pleasure. 

Their fate is unknown but given the nature of their confession and belief in providence as to the source of their largesse, it is doubtful if any action was taken against them. George Pochin must have sought out another safe place for his wine and perhaps there are many more bottles still intact in a hidden cache within the church precincts, having remained undiscovered for more than two centuries. 

After Mrs Pochin died, ownership of the house passed to relatives who eventually leased it to various tenants until 1849 when it became the new home of the Rev Joseph Dodsworth (1797-1877), our longest serving clergyman who administered the parish for 55 years as curate and vicar. The vicarage was previously situated at Brook Lodge in South Street but this was too small and cramped for his liking and so he arranged a property deal which traded the old vicarage and 40 acres of land in the North Field for the Abbey House, the Abbey Lawn and a small piece of land in the South Fen, a transaction that is recorded in his own hand in a spare page of the parish registers.

Dodsworth remained there until his death but his successor, the Rev George Massey, disliked the house and as a result it was demolished in 1879, dismantled stone by stone and the materials used in the construction of a new vicarage off Church Walk although that too was phased out when the present vicarage was built in 1986 but remains in useful service as the Cedars retirement home.

NOTE: This article was submitted for publication in the parish magazine for the issue of April 2014.