Dover.uk.com

Early Nineteenth Century Churches

X. EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY CHURCHES. 

At the opening of the Nineteenth Century, as at the beginning of the Seventeenth, the old town of Dover had but two Churches, St. Mary's and St. James's — both of them badly needing restoration and enlargement; but, before the Century was half gone, two new ones had been raised — Holy Trinity and Christ Church — and St. Mary's had been re-built. The Church building boom began in the Pier District, where a considerable area of reclaimed land had been added to St. Mary's parish. There had never been a Church in that, then populous, locality, except a small building at Archcliffe Point called " The Church of Our I,ady of Pity," which was too small for a place of worship, bemg a thanksgiving oratory chapel erected by a Northern nobleman in the Middle Ages as a memorial of his having been saved from shipwreck at that point of the coast, and it fell into ruin in the Sixteenth Century. The building of Holy Trinity Church was not entirely a local effort; half the money was contributed by the Par- liamentary Commissioners for building Churches in populous places, and the other half by public .subscription, the total outlay being ;^7,973. The foundation stone of the Church was laid by Dr. Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury, in September, 1833; and the consecration took place in Septem- ber, 1835. This Church was built on land reclaimed from the sea in the Tudor Period, but at the time the Church was built it was the centre of a thickly populated district which in the two and a half intervening centuries had grown up around the Harbour. The style of the Church is Gothic, designed by Mr. W. Edmunds, of Margate. 

The building of Christ Church for a district formed, partly from St. Mary's parish and partly from Hougham, was the next step in Dover Church building, the site of the Church being beside the Folkestone Road in the area known as Hougham-in-Dover. In March, 1843, the Board of Ordnance gave the land, on condition that there should be sittings reserved for about 160 soldiers. For the building and endowment of the Church ;^4,6oo was subscribed; of which £^i,ioo was invested as an endowment, and ;£3,5oo spent on the building. The trust deed was drawn in terms providing that the successive incumbents should be of the *' Low " division of the Church of England. The foundation was laid on the 2nd August, 1843, and the Church consecrated by Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the 13th June, 1844. The Church immediately became popular, and, owing to the crowded congregations, north and south galleries were added within the next seven years. 

In the middle of the year 1843, the Rev. John Puckle, Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, wrote: " I found myself free to seek architect's advice, having during the first year after my institution to thi.s ancient Vicarage cleared away all parochial opposition to any work of Church restoration." The clearance which the Vicar had had to make was very considerable. His institution had been preceded by a popular election, in which Mr. Puckle polled 737 votes, and his principal opponent 550. That opposition continued active after the Vicar's institution. His desire was to re-build the Church entirely, with the exception of the tower and the vestry, at an estimated cost of ;^4,6oo, but the parishioners in vestry called for an independent survey and estimate ; and three who undertook it — two builders and an architect — reported that the Church could be put in repair completely for ;^i,400. Mr. Puckle and his Churchwarden, Mr. VV. Sankey, to settle the matter, offered to rel)uild the Church entirely with the exception of the vestry and tower, and be responsible for all the expense, if the vestry would contribute ^1,600. On those terms the re-building was undertaken, on the plans of Mr. John Chessell Buckler, architect, of Oxford. The tower and vestry being left standing, the external appearance of the Church, viewed from Cannon Street, was not much altered, and the principal feature of the interior, the six western nave columns and their serai- circular arches, were restored as though they had not been touched, for, respecting these, Mr. Puckle said: "We numbered and stored carefully each stone, so that in due time we had only to replace them in the order in which they were taken down ; and thus the cement in the joints is literally the only thing in which the restored work is other than that which our Saxon fathers built." Mr. Puckle and his predecessor, Mr. Lyon, had a fondness for believing this old Church was of Saxon origin, but a much greater authority on Church architecture, the Rev. Stephen R. Glynne, Bart., says it is " of Norman origin," to which the most ancient parts of the interior stand as silent witnesses. 

The estimated cost of the re-building was ;£4,470, towards which there was ;^i,8oo raised by subscriptions; there was ;^8oo granted by the Church Building Commis- sioners; and ;^i,6oo provided by the vestry on the security of a church rate; leaving a floating balance of ;£27o, which was soon afterwards liquidated. 

The building of Christ Church and the re-building of St. Mary's Church, while they were important results of the Church revival in the first part of the Nineteenth Century, are also memorials of a cleavage in the Church of England, which was a marked feature in Dover and else- where at that time. The Rev. John Puckle, who came to St. Mary's, Dover, as the assistant minister under the Rev. John Maule, in 1838, soon was generally esteemed as a clergyman of much more than average ability, but he was a High Churchman, in sympathy with the Oxford Movement. The Low Churchmen in the parish were, no doubt, in a majority at his first coming, but the well-to-do class were his admirers, and they had means of influencing their poorer neighbours, so it came to pass that, in 1842, when there was a poll of the parish to choose a successor to the Rev. John Maule, who had resigned, Mr. Puckle secured 187 more votes than Mr. Seaton, the Low Church candidate. The defeated party had amongst them a great many earnest men and women, who felt that it would be for the good of Dover to seek Diocesan authority to build a new Church in the Folkestone Road district, where there was a prospect of a large population. The arrangements were soon made; the Church rapidly built; and a minister whose views were in accord with the large number who supported Mr. Seaton drew great congregations. There was really no bitterness between the congregations of St. Mary-the-Virgin and Christ Church, but there was healthy rivalry, and it was owing to the warmth engendered by the parochial contest that the funds were so quickly raised to build Christ Church and to re-build the ancient Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin. The other two Churches, which had now come to be reckoned as being within the boundaries of Dover — Charlton and Buck- land, ancient parish Churches — were restored and enlarged in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. 
end link