St.Aldhelm's

The Church of England Parish Church of Branksome, Poole, Dorset, UK

The History Page

If you could stand at the door of St Aldhelms Church and travel back 200 years then you would see many, many changes. It is this story that we want on this page but as you will see, it is not yet complete and in fact we would like to think that it never will be. You will find only a sketched outline below and your help is needed to fill in the details.

If you have any interesting, intriguing, or enlightening stories to tell, or any photographs of Branksome and St. Aldhelm`s Church then please email them or pass them on at one of the services. We will try to include them on this site but so that we can get the order correct dates are important. Also in order for us to be able to use the photographs you must own the copyright and give us permission to use them. For most photographs on this page, more information is available by clicking it. 

• A Short guide to St.Aldhelm`s Church Branksome

• Notable people

• Architectural History

• The Organ - a Short History

• Picture library

• 1902 Article in Bournmouth Visitors Directory 

• Parish Road names - A changing story!

A Short guide to St. Aldhelm`s Church, Branksome

The following information and photographs has been directly taken from a pamphlet of the same name that was published in 1966 by the then Vicar J.C. Townsend.

DEDICATION

St. Aldhelm was a Saxon saint who became the first Bishop of Sherborne in 705.

He is sometimes called the "apostle of Wessex" on account of his enthusiasm in bringing Christian civilisation to that part of England in cooperation with his friend, King Ina of Wessex. He was also a musician and responsible for building many churches. Today suffragan bishops of the diocese of Salisbury take their title from Aldhelm`s see of Sherborne which became part of the diocese of Salisbury in 1075 as part of the re-organisation of the Church of England following the Norman conquest. He is commemorated in the Church Calendar on May 25th.

THE PARISH

The parish of Branksome St. Aldhelm in the diocese of Salisbury came into being on 30th December 1930. Since 1877 it had formed the northern half of the parish of All Saints` Branksome Park and was known as " Bourne Valley". Its artisan population lay north of the Poole Road clustered around the railway, the gas works, and the pottery. Further to the North lay the "smallholdings" in the neighborhood of Winston Avenue.

The first attempt to evangelise the Bourne Valley came, however in 1875 when it still formed part of the parish of Parkstone. In that year the first vicar of St. Peters Bournemouth, the Rev. Alexander Morden-Bennett, crossed both diocesan and parochial boundaries to hold open air meetings amongst the pottery workers.

To facilitate his work he founded, near the pottery, St. Aldhelm`s School which was to serve also as a mission church on Sundays. after the creation of the parish of All Saints` Branksome Park , his work in Bourne Valley was taken over by the new parish and especially championed by its third Vicar, the Rev.d C.G.Doyne who shared both Morden Bennett`s Tractarian principles and evangelistic fervor.

It was Doyne who initiated the building of St. Aldhelm`s church.

THE CHURCH

The site on which the church stands was given by R.J. Bates and the foundation stone was laid on 2nd December 1892. The famous Victorian architect, G.F.Bodley, R.A., designed the church in the style of the latest "Decorated" period.

The exterior is of ashlar work in Bath stone, and the same stone is used in the construction of the pillars and windows.

The first part of the church to be built extended from the east end up to two thirds of its present length. This was dedicated by Bishop John Wordsworth of Salisbury on 11th July 1894 in a most impressive ceremony attended by several hundred people.

The Rev. C.G. Doyne died in 1909, but his work was continued by his successor, the Rev. H.C. Percival until, on 29th June 1912, Bishop Ridgway was able to consecrate the church as we see it today.

The church was never completed. Bodleys design originally provided for a cloistered way from the south door to a campanile. Had this tower been erected it would have relieved the severely plain lines of the exterior as they now are.

At the consecration in 1912 it was reported that £800 was still needed for the furnishing of St. Aldhelm`s. There is no record of that money having been raised.

For instance, the interior roofs were painted white in 1894 " Until such time as they shall receive colour". The colouring has never been carried out, and although the building itself and its original fittings are of the highest quality, little has been added. St Aldhelm`s stands to mark the last high tide in English religion at the close of the Victorian era.

Details of interest

The Pillars

There are nine pillars to the south of the centre isle and eight to the north. They are remarkable for their slender design allowing maximum vision of the chancel.

The Windows

All the windows in the church are the work of C.E. Kempe & Co., Ltd. Their delicate colouring is their outstanding feature.

The east window contains delicate tracery. There are seven panels; the central three depict the Crucifixion with St. Mary and St. John at the foot of the Cross; to the left there are representation of St. Peter and St. Aldhelm carrying a model of the church as it was intended to be, complete with tower; to the right St. Augustine and St. Paul complete the missionary theme.

In the Lady Chapel the east window shows the Virgin and Child in the centre; the figure to the left may represent Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury who dedicated the first part of the Church in 1894; whilst that to the right is St. Francis. Of the windows in the south wall, that nearer the altar shows Christ reigning in glory surrounded by two angels, while the other portrays two women saints, St Agnes with her lamb to the left, and St. Margaret of Antioch to the right.

At the West End the centre window was installed in 1922 in memory of those who died in the first Great War and in gratitude by those who returned home. Its motif is the three Archangels, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael. The window to the south was installed in 1927 in memory of the Rev. J.W.H. Watson-Foale who died while serving a curacy at St. Aldhelm`s. It shows the Virgin seated with her Child in company with Elizabeth and John the Baptist as a boy.

The War Memorial contains the names of those in the parish who were killed in the two Great Wars and also the name of one young man killed in the Suez operation in 1956. The lettering by a local artist, Miss Hilda Price, is particularly beautiful.

The Houseling benches were a gift to the church in 1963 and are copies of those in the Lady Chapel of Llandaff cathedral. The kneelers, embroided by Mrs. D.K. Hope. deserve examination. Their design includes the symbols of St. Aldhelm, the arms of the Borough of Poole, the cross from the cover of the New English Bible, and the ecumenical "ship"

The organ was built by Gray and Davison LTD in 1927. Although it contains three manuals only two, the Great and Swell, have been completed

If you would like to see more pictures from the past visit our Picture Library

Notable people

St Aldhelm's Church, Some Historical Notes by Martin D.P.Hammond

By 1878 the Vicar of St Peter's, Bournemouth had started the mission which was the predecessor of the present St Aldhelm's Church.  Why, because Branksome was in a different diocese and at that time in a different county. 

Morden Bennett was not the kind of man who could see a need and then sit back and do nothing about it.  In the 1870's and possibly earlier he used to go along after Evensong at St Peters to the waste ground opposite Sharp Jones, Bourne Valley Potteries and there he conducted services for the growing community of people who foregathered each Sunday among the stacks of stoneware drainpipes. 

Later he built a school/chapel in Langley Road, off Bournemouth Road-Poole Road.  A possible explanation for this link is that at the time Branksome Park was owned by Henry Bury, who went to live at Branksome Tower in about 1869.  The district was then in the parish of Kinson, but the Bury family worshipped at St Peters.  Bury must have been very conscious of the need for a place of to worship in the 750 acres which comprised his estate, and it seems probable that he discussed this with Morden Bennett, especially in the early years of the decade when Bury was selling off much of his land for building. 

It was 1875, the year that the school-chapel was built, that Bury laid the foundation stone of All Saints, Branksome Park, and Morden  Bennett took part in the service.  In his address he referred to the lack of accommodations for the poorer people on the outskirts of the town, and in doing so indicated the responsibility of local landowners for providing them with places of worship.  The district around the potteries was evidently in his mind, and so it came about that, resulting from his early efforts, the foundations stone of St Aldhelm's Church was laid in 1892.  (Ian McQueen, 'Bournemouth St Peter's' 1971,pp 80-1) It was completed in 1894.

St Aldhelm's School, the 'school-chapel' mentioned above, was designed by the architect of St Peter's, George Edmund Street R.A. (1824-81) President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1881; RIBA Gold Medallist 1874. The building was 79feet (24meters) long by 18ft 9in (5.7meters) wide by 27 feet (8.2meters) high.  It was demolished in 1994 to make way for housing. (Patricia M.Wilnecker, 'A History of Upper Parkstone', 1988; Everyman's Concise Encyclopaedia of Architecture ed. Martin S Briggs FRIBA 1959)

The original boundary wall of Branksome Park forms the northern boundary of the church property.  Substantial portions of it still exist between the railway bride and Frizzell's Roundabout.  Next door, Sir Robert Ventry, the airship designer, added seven feet to his section of the wall in about 1901 to stop people on the top deck of the new trams overlooking his garden.

St Aldhelm's was designed by George Fredrick Bodley (1827-1907) and Thomas Garner (1839-1906).  Bodley was the most distinguished exponent of revived 14th century Gothic.  His work included new college buildings at Oxford and Cambridge' and Malborough College chapel.  He designed Cathedrals at San Francisco, and Hobart, Tasmania; Washington, with James Vaughan; and was assessor in the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral competition in 1903, and acted as advisory architect to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott OM, RA, who was only 22 years old when he won it.

The design is very typical of Bodley and Garner's later years, graceful and refined.  A long low 'West Country' style with three gables and no clerestorey.  In the 14th century the distinction between nave and chancel disappeared, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, and only an elaborate rood screen separated the two spaces.  In the absence of a clerestory the nave and aisles were roofed with steeply-pitched roofs with plastered or boarded 'wagon-vaults' internally. 

Here at St Aldhelm's we have wagon vaults of painted boarding over the aisles, but over the nave the roof structure is exposed; each pair of rafters is joined by collar-beam with arch braces, and ashlaring to the top of the walls, all approximating to the vault shape.  The sanctuary however does have a boarded wagon vault enriched with mouldings, blue and gold paint, and the Latin words of the Benedictus. 

It stops against as arch formed of arch braces and wall-posts on its western edge directly above the sanctuary step.  (J.Charles Cox ed. Charles Bradley Ford, 'The Parish Churches of England', 7th edition 1954, pp36, 74-8, 93: M.S Briggs, op.cit) The chancel-nave arcade is in ten bays; from the east end the first two bays are the choir, then the 'uninspired Neo-Perp. 'rood screen. (N.Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Dorset) 

The tenth bay is shorter that the rest, for the west wall is built tight to the St Aldhelm's Road boundary.  The four westernmost bays were completed in 1911 by the architect C G Hare (any relation to the architect Henry Thomas Hare, 1860-1921?)  The break can be seen in the vaulting; it is slightly lighter in colour westwards and there are joints in the planks.  Also in the floor a 100mm wide strip of wood runs right across the diagonal tesselated parquet flooring under the seating areas on this line.  There is, however, no such seam in the masonry work. 

There would have been a temporary end wall at this point pending the completion of the west end.  The nave arcade is almost identical to that designed by Bodley for Wimborne St Giles church in 1887, and destroyed in the fire of 30th September 1908.  It had to be completely rebuilt by his pupil Sir John Ninian Comper. (Jo Draper and Penny Copland-Griffiths, 'Around Verwood, 1999)

The church building measures approximately 47 meters (154ft) x 18.5 metres (60ft 8in).  The walls are of extruded wirecut hard common bricks in English bond, faced externally with Bath stone ashlar and plastered internally. 

Mouldings and dressings are of Bath stone, most likely quarried at Corsham or Box, east Bath (St Aldhelm Ground, what else!)  The closest source of bricks was the Bourne Valley Potteries, which stood on the Poole Commerce Centre site; where they would have been burnt in the Dunnachie gas-fired continuous-burning kiln attached to the brickmaking plant.  This was built in 1884-5 to the patent design of James Dunnachie of Glenboig, Caotbridge, Lanarkshire. 

It had been designed specifically for salt glazed stoneware, the first of its kind; and was demolished in 1947 and its remains lie beneath Courts car park.  I once had some correspondence with a gentleman in Edinburgh whose grandfather once worked for James Dunnachie.

The roof covering is of red handmade plain clay tiles: Keymer, from Burgess Hill, Sussex, or similar.  Internally, the floor in the nave and aisles is finished with diagonal tesselated pine blocks about 100mm square and 25mm thick, stained and sealed.  The walkways between the seating areas are of Portland Stone fags, heavily stained in the past by rising damp, but this does not appear to be a problem now. 

Other areas which are carpeted are probably stone-paved.  the Font, an octagonal basin of closed grained brown travertine marble with astragal and fluted mouldings around the top edge, stands on a stepped plinth of Bath stone.  The wooded cover, painted dark green with gilding, is now in storage.  It is said to be the 'Laudian' style, after Archbishop Laud of Canterbury (1635-45) whose High Church polices were one of the causes of the English Civil War.  The design was by Randoll Blacking. 

The stained glass in the East Window was inserted in 1911, to the design of John Burlison and Thomas Grylls; that in the West window by W E Tower, also in 1911.  All the other windows are plain glass in lozenge leaded lights.  The doors, rood screen, altars, choir stalls, pulpit, and organ case are of light oak, enriched with carving in the Perpendicular Gothic style.

THE ORGAN – A SHORT HISTORY

At the time of the dedication of St Aldhelm’s Church in July 1894 a small temporary organ had been provided. This was installed by Messrs Gray & Davidson Ltd, and was situated at ground level on the north side of the choir. In 1926 it was decided to reconstruct the organ as a memorial to Canon Macleane, who was Vicar of Branksome Park from 1914 to 1922 (at that time St Aldhelm’s was part of his parish).

The original organ proved to be inadequate and the church authorities made plans for a much larger instrument. To provide a completed organ of the size and specification envisaged would have cost at least £3,000 but due to limited resources this was not found to be possible. As a result, in 1927, a two-manual instrument was built by Messrs Gray and Davidson Ltd: this provided a ‘dummy’ choir manual which could be completed when sufficient capital became available. The Great, Swell and Pedal Organs also all contained preparation for additions at a later date. This instrument was built in a gallery to the north of the choir with the console directly below.

Except for minor repairs and cleaning carried out in 1952, the organ remained untouched in its incomplete state. Over the years the condition of the instrument deteriorated and successive organists found the position of the console to be unsatisfactory.

By 1967 it was obvious that major work was long overdue. The celebration of the 75^th Anniversary of the Dedication of the church was thought to be a good time to put the instrument in good repair. Work was started by Messrs Geo.Osmond of Taunton in January 1967 to provide an organ more suited to the needs of the church. The rebuilt instrument was given a new action, it reverted to having two manuals, and the opportunity was taken to fulfil part of the original intention by adding the extra stops which had been prepared for in 1926. The organ now had 27 speaking stops and the console was moved to its present position in the south aisle adjacent to the chancel screen. In this position the organist was able to hear both the instrument and choir to advantage; he could also control the music effectively irrespective of whether the choir was seated in the chancel or the nave.

This instrument would lead the worship at St Aldhelm’s until 1995 by which time the need for major restoration was clear; in addition it had become clear that the instrument was no longer effective in leading the increased congregation in the demands of the revised liturgy. As a result, a complete rebuild of the instrument was proposed which, while retaining as much of the original instrument as possible, would incorporate some new pipe-work in order both to increase the effectiveness of the instrument in accompaniment and make it more versatile as a solo instrument. Furthermore it was thought prudent to take full advantage of modern technology in providing a really reliable action along with all the accessories which have become essential on an instrument of this size. Inevitably this meant that the console would have to be redesigned due to the increase in the number of draw-stops and pistons.

The contract for the rebuild was awarded to Lance Foy of Truro and the organ was dismantled on December 27^th 1995 - the aim being to have it re-instated in time for all the forthcoming Easter services. It was a real team effort with parishioners getting involved with many of the non-technical tasks such as polishing the front pipes and painting the inside of the swell box. All this was of course done under Lance Foy’s ever-watchful eye! The whole project progressed smoothly and by Easter all but the final touches were completed. The Easter services of 1996 were accompanied on the rebuilt instrument and it was immediately apparent that the rebuild had surpassed all expectations.

St. Aldhelm’s Church now has a fine instrument of which it can be extremely proud. It will provide for the musical needs of the parish well into the next millennium and our thanks must go to Lance Foy and his team of craftsmen for all their superb workmanship.

With grateful thanks to Sean Tucker (who was Assistant Organist at the time of the rebuild of 1996) and John Kilminster.

The following article was printed in the November 1902 Bournemouth Visitors Directory. To the modern ear, the style is difficult to follow but it does give an interesting insight into the early days of the parish.

CHURCH ACCOMMODATION AT ST. ALDHELM

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION

The Vicar (the Rev. C. G. Doyne), writing in this month's parish magazine, refers to the growth of the parish, and in doing so raises two important questions.

He says -

"In the year 1877 there were very few residents in Branksome Park. There were not even in it then the roads that are now passing through it in almost all directions. Few Churchmen, in fact, who are living here now can have any idea of what has had to be done in the parish by those who really care for the Church in order to supply the needs of this ever growing parish.

Originally there was required here only school accommodation for some sixty children, now there is required school accommodation for some 800 children or thereabouts, and so through the generosity of Churchmen several thousands of pounds have been given to build St. Aldhelm's schools as they are at present. Originally again, St.Aldhelm's school chapel, which is now used only as the girls' school (although its chancel still remains intact), was sufficient as a place to worship God in Bourne Valley.

There was a time when the congregations were very small - when it was possible to count the adults present in church on the fingers of both hands. Now, however, through the large increase in the population of that part of our parish and by the blessing of God upon the work of His Church, the congregation of St. Aldhelm's Church has increased so considerably, especially in the evening, that simply for the sake of healthiness the time has come when steps ought to be taken for its completion."

Turning to All Saints' Church the Vicar goes on to say,

"We can hardly hold back the convictions so very long (if more houses are to built around it), we must seriously consider how it will be best to provide the necessary church accommodation. We know and willingly admit that big questions arise when mention is made of these matters.

It is quite natural to ask respecting them -

• Is it best that Branksome should always continue to be as it is now, one parish with two churches in it?
• Or would it be better that there should be a parish known as Branksome St. Aldhelm's, just as now the legal ecclesiastical name of our parish is Branksome All Saints' ?
• Or, is it possible for one vicar to be now what he should be really to parishioners in Branksome Park, and at the same time to do what he should be willing to do for those living in, what we may call for want of a better name, Greater Branksome ?
• Or would it be better to apportion the responsibility between two and then to expect them both to do their duty well ?

These are rather big questions, and, perhaps, not over easy ones to answer. One thing, however, is certain, that is that after all the generosity shown by members of the congregation of little All Saints' - what ought to be considered first is - what is best for the Church of God, and not merely what may be pleasantest for one who was called to work in Branksome when the parish was so wholly different to what it is now. We must move with the times, and changes, it may be, must be made sometimes, where all is changing.

All Saint's Church has at least been in the past a happy spot to one from which to try to do what had to be done here for God and for the souls of others. It is crowded with memories of those who have worked with him here, and have now been taken to their rest. It is associated also with forbearances, generosities of appreciation, largeness of sympathy and kindness in judgement, which fall to the lot of a few only in a world like this. It is for this reason that when the dedication festival of All Saints' Church comes round - in order that her position as mother church of this parish may be recognised by all, that we wish to raise in the minds of our parishioners questions respecting the well being of our parish.

Everyone in such matters has a right to love his own best, so we want Branksome to be a fair place, the joy of all the earth".

(Bournemouth Visitors Directory, 8/11/1902)

Parish Road names - A changing story!

Interestingly many of the road names we know today would not have been recognized during the early days of the Parish. We have reproduced just some of the old and new names here. If you know of any more then we would be pleased to include them. 

Don't forget, to build a full picture of the parish we need your input. However short send your interesting stories to us and they will be included on this page.

February 10, 2008.