| St Olave's Church, Gatcombe | |
|---|---|
 | |
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| 50°39′49″N01°18′15″W / 50.66361°N 1.30417°W | |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Churchmanship | Broad Church |
| Website | www.stolaves.church |
| History | |
| Dedication | St Olave's |
| Administration | |
| Province | Canterbury |
| Diocese | Portsmouth |
| Parish | Gatcombe |
St Olave's Church, Gatcombe is a parish church in the Church of England located in Gatcombe, Isle of Wight. It is grouped with Sts Thomas Minster, Newport, St John's, Newport and St Mary's, Carisbrooke. [1]
Building began on the site in the 13th century and the church was dedicated in 1292. It originally served the Estur family as a chapel to Gatcombe House. The manor later passed into the hands of the Worsley family who provided the church with both financial support and a number of Rectors. The font is probably early 13th-century. The chancel was rebuilt by R. J. Jones in 1864–65; and the church was further restored by W. D. Caröe in c.1920. [2]
The tower contains three bells which are hung dead.
The church is noted for its stained glass by William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones, [3] dating from 1865 and 1866. Rossetti founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with which Morris, Brown and Burne-Jones were associated.
A carved wooden military effigy with crossed legs in the style of the early 14th century lies in a recess in the chancel, on the north side of the altar. It has an angel by its head and a lion at its feet. Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether it is a genuine medieval figure, recut, restored and embellished at a later date; or an early modern concoction in deliberately archaic style. [4] [5] [6] [7] It has been speculatively identified as representing an ancestor of the Estur family. [5] [6] Various legends have been attached to it, and in the 1960s it inspired the "Lucy Lightfoot" hoax. [8] [9] [10]
At the west end of the church stands a monument to Captain Charles Grant Seely, eldest son and heir of Sir Charles Seely, 2nd Baronet, who was killed in action serving with the Isle of Wight Rifles at the Second Battle of Gaza in 1917 and is buried in Gaza War Cemetery. It takes the form of a tomb chest bearing a recumbent effigy of Seely, who is depicted in uniform and with legs crossed in allusion to his service as a modern-day "crusader". It was the final work of the eminent sculptor Sir Thomas Brock, and was unveiled in 1922. In 1927 it was vandalised by a local woman, Nellie Kerley, who appears to have been aggrieved by the contrast between the memorial's grandiosity and the relative neglect of the memory of her brother, who had also died in the war. The damage to the effigy's face and sword-hilt is still clearly visible. [11]
The organ was built by Henry Speechly in 1919. [12] It was donated to the church by Sir Charles and Lady Seely as a memorial to the officers, NCOs and men of the Isle of Wight Rifles who had died in the First World War, and was dedicated in September 1922 on the same occasion as the unveiling of the monument to Charles Grant Seely. [13] [14] The organ chamber was designed by W. D. Caröe. [2] The organ was overhauled in 2000 by Griffiths & Cooper and incorporated pipework from an organ in Upper Chine School, Shanklin. A specification can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. [12]
The churchyard contains two Commonwealth war graves, of an officer (Flight Lieutenant Antony Basil Langton) and a sergeant (Sergeant William Reuben Cooper) of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve from World War II. [15]
Newport is the county town of the Isle of Wight, an island county off the south coast of England. The town is slightly north of the centre of the island, located in the civil parish of Newport and Carisbrooke. It has a quay at the head of the navigable section of the River Medina, which flows northwards to Cowes and the Solent. The 2021 census recorded a population of 25,407.
Sir Charles Hilton Seely, 2nd Baronet, VD, KGStJ was a British industrialist, landowner and Liberal Unionist politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1895 to 1906 and for Mansfield from 1916 to 1918. He was a Justice of the Peace for Hampshire and Nottinghamshire and the Deputy Lieutenant for Nottinghamshire. He was also a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John.
Carisbrooke is a village on the south-western outskirts of Newport, in the civil parish of Newport and Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, England. It is best known as the site of Carisbrooke Castle. It also has a medieval parish church, St Mary's Church, which began as part of a Benedictine priory established by French monks c. 1150. The priory was dissolved by King Henry V of England in 1415, during the Hundred Years' War. In 1907, the church was restored. It has a 14th-century tower rising in five stages with a turret at one corner and a battlemented and pinnacled crown.
Gatcombe is a village in the civil parish of Chillerton and Gatcombe, on the Isle of Wight, England. It is located about two and a half miles south of Newport, in the centre of the island. The parish, which includes Chillerton, had a population of 422 at the 2011 census.
Merstone is a hamlet on the Isle of Wight. It is home to Merston Manor, built in 1605 in the Jacobean style by Edward Cheeke, and rebuilt in the Victorian era. Merston Manor was first mentioned in the Domesday Book, and the present structure is arguably the oldest brick house on the Island. Prior to the Norman Conquest, Merston Manor was owned by the Brictuin family. The manor now belongs to the Crofts family. According to the Post Office the population of the hamlet was at the 2011 Census included in the civil parish of Arreton.
Lucy Lightfoot is the name of a fictional girl who supposedly disappeared mysteriously from the Isle of Wight in 1831. The story was fabricated by James Evans, the vicar of St Olave's Church, Gatcombe, in the early 1960s, as he himself later admitted.
St Mary's Church, Carisbrooke is a parish church in the Church of England located in Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight. A service is held every Sunday morning at 8:00 and 9:30.
The Church of St Nicholas in Castro, Carisbrooke is a parish church in the Church of England located in Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight.
St Mildred's Church, Whippingham is the Church of England parish church of the village of Whippingham, Isle of Wight.
The Church of St. John the Baptist, Newport is a parish church in the Church of England located in Newport, Isle of Wight. It is a Grade II listed building, the only surviving building by the British architect Robert Gunter Wetten (1804–1868).
St Paul's Church, Newport is a parish church in the Church of England located in Barton, Isle of Wight and Newport, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The church is Grade II listed.
Sts Thomas Minster, Newport Minster or The Minster Church of Sts Thomas, until 2008 Sts Thomas Church, is civically recognised as the main Anglican church on the Isle of Wight. Unusually, it is dedicated to both Thomas Becket and Thomas the Apostle.
Gatcombe House is a 15,234 sq ft (1,415.3 m2) manor house in Gatcombe on the Isle of Wight, England. The original building was constructed by the Stur (Estur) family as noted in the Domesday Book. St. Olave's Church, built next to the manor to serve as its chapel, was dedicated in 1292. It also belonged at one time to the Lisles of Wootton.
Percy Goddard Stonefsafriba was an English architect, author and archaeologist who worked extensively on the Isle of Wight, where he lived for most of his life. He designed and restored several churches on the island, designed war memorials and rebuilt Carisbrooke Castle. His "passion for archaeology" led him to excavate the ruins of Quarr Abbey, and as an author he wrote about the churches and antiquities of the Isle of Wight and contributed to the Victoria County History.
Chillerton and Gatcombe is a civil parish on the Isle of Wight, England, including the two villages of Chillerton and Gatcombe. It was previously the parish of Gatcombe but was renamed in 2013 under a 2011 order of Isle of Wight Council.
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