Thames Page 10

  St. Alphege is the patron saint of Greenwich. He was Archbishop of Canterbury at the beginning of the eleventh century, when he was abducted from the cathedral there by a detachment of Danish invaders and taken to their court by the river at Greenwich. Here he was murdered by his captors, beaten to death with the bones of oxen, and the present church of St. Alphege was erected by Nicholas Hawksmoor on the site of his martyrdom. There is every reason to suppose that shrines have been placed on this spot ever since his death in 1012.

  St. Alban parted the waters of the Thames in front of the blasphemers who murdered him. On his way to execution, on 20 June 304, he was obliged to cross the river. “There,” according to the Venerable Bede,

  he saw a multitude of both sexes, and of every age and rank, assembled to attend the blessed confessor and martyr; and these so crowded the bridge, that he could not pass over that evening. Then St. Alban, urged by an ardent desire to accomplish his martyrdom, drew near to the stream, and the channel was dried up, making a way for him to pass over.

  In his sixth-century chronicle, De Excidio Britanniae, Gildas reported that “with one thousand others, he [Alban] opened a path across the noble river Thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side.” As a result of fervent prayer “he opened up an unknown route across the channel.” Gildas’s analogy here is with the river Jordan in the Holy Land.

  St. Chad is supposed to have given his name to Chadwell St. Mary on the Thames estuary, in the seventh century, and there is a well here in which he is believed to have baptised the East Saxons to the Christian faith. St. Erkenwald founded the abbeys of Barking and of Chertsey in the seventh century, and so can be considered a tutelary spirit of the Thames. And then there is St. Edmund, born by the river in Abingdon, who was one day wandering in the water-meadows beside the Thames when he was vouchsafed a vision. According to Caxton’s Golden Legend (1483), “sodeynlye there apperyd tofore hym a fayr chylde in whyte clothynge which sayd, ‘Hayle, felowe that goest alone.’” But he is perhaps not so much a saint of the river as the saint of solitary walkers, who find by the moving water peace or solace and quiet dreaming.

  There have of course been many female saints intimately associated with the river. St. Frideswide is perhaps the most celebrated. In the late seventh century she fled to the Thames with her two sisters in order to escape the advances of Algar, an Anglo-Saxon prince, and on the Thames near Oxford they found a youth of heavenly appearance, clothed in dazzling white, who seated them in a boat, and within an hour landed them 10 miles downstream at Abingdon. At Abingdon Frideswide performed a miracle and, her presence being known, she sailed upstream to Binsey where she erected a chapel constructed of “wallyns and rough-hewn timber” by the Thames. Here through the medium of prayer she found a stream of water that, in succeeding generations, became a healing well. Hers could be the tale of a river nymph, fleeing from sexual pollution and in the process rendering the water of the Thames sacred. But her principal connection is with Oxford, of which city she remains the divine patroness. She established a monastery in that place which was at a later date transmogrified by Cardinal Wolsey into Christ Church College. She died at Binsey in AD 740, and her shrine is still to be seen in the cathedral of Christ Church. Her most celebrated maxim, according to legend, is that “whatever is not God, is nothing.” That part of the Kentish bank known as the Hoo was under the special care and protection of St. Werburgh, daughter of Wulphere, king of Mercia; little is known of this blessed lady except for the fact that she had an aversion to geese.

  The abbey at Reading once contained a sacred relic, believed to be the hand of James the Apostle. The bones of a human hand were in fact found in the ruins of the abbey, in the late eighteenth century, and somehow or other they migrated to another church by the river, St. Peter’s in Marlow. The Thames has always attracted votive objects. It is suggestive to note, however, that the skeletal cadaver of St. James, buried in the cathedral of Santiago di Compostella, lacks its left hand. At the priory of Caversham, too, many relics were venerated—among them the spearhead that pierced the side of Jesus upon the Cross.

  With this litany of attendant saints and relics it is not at all surprising that the Thames is a river of churches. Their history often begins with the wooden constructions of Saxon origin, but almost all of the churches in the Thames Valley had taken their present form by the eleventh century. It represents a remarkable story of continuity. There are some very ancient foundations indeed, still manifest in the long and narrow churches by the river. The presence of the Thames is always sensed within them, if for no other reason than that many of them are built as close to the river as the stonemasons and labourers could possibly manage. The churches of Castle Eaton and Kempsford, near the source of the river, are almost in the waters. The church of St. Mary Magdalene at Boveney, meaning “the place above the island,” is so close to the river that it can only be reached by a footpath; it was said originally to have been a chapel upon a wharf. It is now being sponsored by “the friends of friendless churches.”

  The church of All Saints at Bisham stands upon the river-bank. The church of St. Mary the Virgin stands beside the bridge at Henley, raised upon an embankment so that it can look over the waters. The church of St. Peter, at Caversham, is similarly built upon a steep bank beside the river. The churches of Streatley and Goring face each other across the Thames.

  There is some deep connection between worship and the crossing of the water. The church of All Saints at Marlow, built upon a site dating back to at least the twelfth century, is beside the bridge there. The church of St. Leonard at Wallingford is close beside the river and the bridge. The church of St. Mary at Hurley was sited by an important ford, recorded as early as the seventh century. It is likely, however, that there was a significant crossing here in prehistoric times. The church of St. Andrew in Sonning stands beside a bridge. The riverside village of Sonning itself was also the site for the palace of the bishops of Salisbury, dating back to the tenth century; once again the association between the Thames and religious power is maintained.

  To visit these churches now is to be made aware of solemnity and old time; there is a palpable stillness within them, a perpetual harbouring of worship. In many of them are the relics of very different styles, from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries, and this heterogeneity of periods is typical of the Thames churches. It is a place where time itself is mingled and confused. From a certain vantage, in the meadows outside Lechlade, the spire of the church of St. Lawrence seems in fact to rise from the water and become an expression of it.

  CHAPTER 13

  Hail Holy River, Mother of Grace

  There is a church of St. Mary the Virgin at Whitchurch-on-Thames. There is a church of St. Mary in Reading, founded by St. Birinus in the early years of the seventh century. In Wargrave there is a church of St. Mary, also of great antiquity. There is an ancient church of St. Mary in Cricklade; on its north wall was a half-length fresco of the Virgin and Child. The original dedication of the church of St. Lawrence in Lechlade was to St. Mary. The church of St. Mary the Virgin at Castle Eaton had a fresco of the Virgin. The most perfect Norman church in the country is that of St. Mary the Virgin perched above the river at Iffley. The parish church of Putney is dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, as is the church at Bampton. The church of St. Mary the Virgin at Long Wittenham is erected at one end of the village. Among the warehouses of Rotherhithe, beside the Thames, still stands the church of St. Mary the Virgin.

  The church in the market place at Wallingford is known as St. Mary-the-More, in distinction to the one of St. Mary-the-Less that was united with St. Peter in the fourteenth century. The ancient church of St. Mary at Eisey, or “island in the river,” was built on the summit of the hill; it was demolished in the last century for absence of worshippers. There was on the island of Sheppey, at the mouth of the Thames, an abbey dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; the abbey church of the Blessed Virgin Mary still stands there, at the highest point of the
island. The church of St. Mary at Cholsey, or “Ceol’s island,” was originally built upon a dry place in a marshy area. There may have been some sanctity associated with these refuges from the river. In the centre of the island still known as the Isle of Dogs there was formerly a small chapel dedicated to St. Mary, founded for the purpose of offering up masses for the souls of mariners. It has long gone. London’s church of St. Mary at Hill was named because of its position on a steep bank above Billingsgate. St. Mary le Strand stands on an eminence where the Strand and Fleet Street now meet. The river was of course much closer to it, at the time of its erection, than it is now in its present embanked state.

  John Stow records that on the marshy bank, opposite Greenwich, stood “the remains of a chapel built of stone” that had been dedicated to St. Mary; it seems to have been connected with the monastery of St. Mary of Graces that had stood near the Tower of London. At Kempsford, Horns Cross, Gravesend, Benfleet, Corringham, Datchet, Hambleden and Teddington are parish churches dedicated to St. Mary. The church of St. Mary at Sunbury lies on the site of a prehistoric settlement. The church of St. Mary the Virgin at Purley is close to that point on the river where a ferry once crossed to Mapledurham. The church of St. Mary at Streatley is also beside the river, as is the church of St. Mary at North Stoke. The ferry that ran between Cookham and Cliveden was known as “My Lady Ferry.” The university church of Oxford in the High Street is also that of St. Mary the Virgin. The parish church of Mortlake is dedicated to St. Mary, as are those of Hampton and of Barnes and of Twickenham, of Walton-upon-Thames and of Thame.

  There is some dispute whether the parish church of Langford, near Kelmscott, is dedicated to St. Mary or St. Matthew but, as Fred Thacker wrote in The Stripling Thames, Mary “was certainly a very favourite dedication amongst these churches.” The church of Abingdon Abbey was originally dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, but in the fifteenth century it was rededicated to All Saints. The church of North Stifford is named in honour of the Virgin. So is the church at Chadwell. These are little-known places, but they are part of a broad sweep of faith. The church of St. Mary at Buscot is beside the river, and contains stained-glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones. The little church by the river at Inglesham has a carving of the Virgin and Child, dated to the early eleventh century, on its south wall; the sculpted forms are taken from a Byzantine model. St. Mary’s at Staines is erected upon the site of a seventh-century church. The church of Lambeth is dedicated to St. Mary. A little further along the river, at Battersea, also stands the church of St. Mary.

  The abbey at Eynsham, of which now only a few stones remain, was named in honour of the Virgin. The monastery at Hurley was dedicated to the Virgin, and was known as Lady Place. Grace’s Alley, by Wellclose Square in the East End, is the only memorial to the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary of Graces that stood by the river. The nunnery at Godstow was dedicated “in honour of the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist.” The priory at Bisham was dedicated to Mary. The Bridgettine abbey at Syon was dedicated to the Virgin as well as to St. Bridget herself. Eton School, beside the river, was founded in the fifteenth century as “the College of the Blessed Mary of Eton, beside Windsor.” The cathedral of Southwark was originally known as St. Mary Overie, or St. Mary over the river.

  From the downstream parapet of the bridge at Radcot a niche still projects; it once supported an image of the Virgin that was destroyed during the Civil War. One arch of the medieval London Bridge was known as “Mary Lock.” In the same period the records refer to “the Ymage of our Lady on the Brydge” and in the church beside the bridge, St. Magnus, a perpetual chantry was set up in honour of the Virgin where “Salve Regina” was sung every evening.

  The ancient abbey at Barking harboured “the Lady Chapel of Berkyngechirche in London” which became the destination of Marian pilgrims; a statue of the Virgin here was reputed to possess miraculous powers. At Caversham there stands Our Lady of Caversham chapel, the only relic of a great shrine to the Virgin where was erected a jewel-encrusted image of Mary, again supposed to contain sacred powers, to which pilgrims travelled from all over the country. When Doctor London, an agent of the Crown, came to this holy place at the time of dissolution he reported in apparent disgust that “even at my being ther com in nott so few as a dosyn with imagies of waxe.”

  When the Saxon kings were crowned at Kingston, the ceremony was conducted in the chapel of St. Mary; it was in this chapel that John Aubrey, in his Antiquities of the County of Surrey (1718), recorded the presence of five pictures of the Saxon monarchs. In the grounds of Culham Court, by the river, is a copy of Elizabeth Frink’s statue known as “Striding Madonna.”

  This litany of names and places suggests that there is more than coincidence at work in the association of the Virgin and the Thames. From the churches of the Upper Thames to the churches of the estuary, the dedication to St. Mary far surpasses all others. It might in fact be claimed that the Thames is Mary’s river. From the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, the churches in her name sprang up on both banks of the river from the source to the sea. There are more than fifty churches, chapels and chantries devoted to the Mother of God, an astonishing number for a river that extends for only 215 miles.

  The connection has not been noticed in books upon the Thames, but it is one of deep significance in the history of a river that has always been associated with the “great mother” of primaeval beliefs that predate those of Celtic myth. There are strange laws of association at work here. In Irish myth Bridget was the goddess of fertility—and also the Swan Goddess—and according to Robert Graves in The White Goddess (1948) “in medieval Irish poetry Mary was equally plainly identified with Brigit.” The great goddesses of the river in ancient and classical myth, Isis in particular, are thus associated with the Virgin Queen and Mother of God. Isis herself was once the Mother Goddess, the emblem of fertility and the womb of rebirth. It is not a great leap of faith from Isis to the Virgin. There is a strange reference in William Harrison’s The Description of Britaine (1587) to the church of St. Mary in Reading when he refers to those natives “which call the aforesaid church by the name of S. Marie Auderies, or S. Marie ouer Isis, or Ise.” The names become conflated, and substituted. Mary is simply the latest, and perhaps the most powerful, of all the water goddesses. The river was in legend and superstition also associated with the virgin. Virgins would bathe in the Thames so that they might become fertile. It is one of the oldest myths of the river. So who better to bless the water than the Virgin herself?

  CHAPTER 14

  The Ruins

  The Normans, like all previous invaders, understood the benevolent aspects of the river. They had come upon what was essentially a civilised and stable society in the Thames region, in many ways in advance of their own culture, and they did not attempt to alter it in any significant fashion. It can in fact be claimed that the region civilised its new inhabitants. The parish boundaries, and the county boundaries, were preserved. The hamlets and villages by the Thames remained intact, albeit under new lordship; they maintained a pattern of settlement that had persisted for more than a thousand years and perhaps for much longer. Many of the Norman, and later medieval, churches were built on Saxon foundations. There were occasional changes of name, in villages with a French accent such as Kingston Blount and Compton Beauchamp, but the ancient nomenclature was in general respected.

  But the Normans did in part alter the appearance of the river. They built palaces, and castles, and fortresses beside it. They built the Tower of London as a solemn token of the king’s strength over the adjacent city; in its original state it was essentially the White Tower, La Blaunche Tour, made of Caen stone sailed up the Thames from Normandy. They built Baynard’s Castle, or Castle Baynard, on the banks of the river near the present Blackfriars. They constructed the castle of Windsor, on a high knoll of chalk, as another example of military pre-eminence. It was here, in 1070, that William I celebrated Christmas. He also laid out hunting grounds in the vicinity, and e
nforested many other stretches along the Thames.

  It can hardly be claimed that the Normans inaugurated the passion for building royal palaces beside the river. In the eighth century Offa had built a palace near the church at Benson, and there was a Saxon palace at Ewelme described by Leland; there was also a Saxon palace in Kempsford. Canute had built at Westminster, and there had been a hall in the place now known as Old Windsor. It can be said, however, that the Normans were the first fully to exploit the connection of the river with royal power. They essentially created the sovereign’s river from the Tower to Windsor. The charter of William I declares that Windsor came into the possession of the king “because that place seems commodious for the King, by reason of the nearness of the river, and the forest for hunting, and many other conveniences; being likewise a place fit for the King’s Retirement.”

  These “conveniences” may in part help to explain the ubiquity of royal palaces by the river. From the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, there were built six others below Windsor. They were Hampton Court and Richmond, Greenwich and Whitehall; there was a royal palace at Bermondsey, erected by Edward III in the middle of the fourteenth century, of which a few stones remain. And then of course there is the Tower of London itself. It can be said, in general, that the towns along the river were designed principally as strongholds or as defensive settlements. Oxford is essentially an island fortress. Windsor Castle itself is set upon an ancient mound that may have been the site of very early fortifications. Cricklade and Lechlade are protected by the Churn and the Leach as well as by the Thames. Wallingford is protected by marsh as well as water. That is why mints were set up in Wallingford, Oxford and Cricklade. They were well known to be secure places. The ancient name for Wallingford was Gallena (Guallenford), from the British words guall hen meaning “old fortification.” It is not possible to re-create the exact conditions of the earliest warfare, but the heavy settlement along the Thames would suggest that the river itself has always been of paramount importance in time of conflict.