Anonymous

There has been a church on this yew fringed patch of ground north of the River Thames since at least the 12th century, meaning that today’s congregation continue a tradition of worship that can be traced back nearly 1000 years.

The current chancel dates from the 12th century church but there is archaeological evidence of a pre-Conquest building. In subsequent times the nave has been rebuilt and the floor level raised. At the west end of the nave is a Norman font with decorative designs carved into the stonework around the basin.

The font occupies a central spot beneath an ancient oak gallery which is home to the church organ and, further back even still, sits the massive Tudor tower, the summit of which is the highest point in Dorney.

The south porch, the day to day entrance to the church, is made of ancient red brick and dates to 1661 when it was built to commemorate the birth of Lady Anne Palmer, the child of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine.

Dorney Court is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house and is situated in the village of Dorney which lies on a slight rise in the Thames floodplain, Dorney means Island of Bumble Bees and the estate is renowned for its honey which is still produced to this day. The house has changed little since its 15th century origins. The first known record of a house at Dorney is dated just after the Norman Conquest.

The house is panelled in wood and contains many interesting treasures, paintings and artefacts and it even has a ghost. The upper floor rooms have barrel vaulted chambers, one of which, the great chamber is held up by ancient twig branches.

Photo copyright Dorney Court

Stepping into the great hall is like stepping back in time. The wall panelling was once in Faversham Abbey and the fireplace predates the current Hall. Two tables are placed in the room, one on a dais for the Lord and Lady of the Manor and another for family, guests and villagers in the hall below. In Tudor times this is where they would have dined. This room used to hold the manor court which may still be legally held there today. The most recent court was held to sort out matters related to Dorney Common after the Second World War during which parts of the Common were requisitioned by the government.

Photo copyright Dorney Court

Dorney Court is home to the Palmers and has been handed down from father to son in succession since 1620 and prior to that, through marriage to the Garrards, since 1538.

The Palmer lineage goes back as far as Charlemagne, the founding father of both the French and German monarchies (747-814). John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the Baldwins of Flanders and the Plantagenet Kings of England are other notable Palmer ancestors.

The name Palmer goes back to the crusades, Crusaders returning from the First Crusade were referred to as ‘Palmers’ for the tradition of returning home with palm-branches. From one of those crusaders descended the present occupiers of Dorney.

Not all of the Palmer family renounced their Catholic faith and they continued to practice their religion which led to their indictment for recusancy.

In the 1600s Roger Palmer (1634-1705) married Barbara Villiers whose notorious behaviour brought her to the notice of Charles II. She mothered a daughter who was born in 1661 (Anne). The King insisted that Anne be referred to as ‘Fitzroy’ (child of the King). Despite Roger’s loyalty to the monarchy, he was imprisoned on more than one occasion for his staunch support of Catholicism.

Henry Palmer (born 1646) was in the army at St. Omers when in September 1668 where he was wounded. On 1st May 1679 he was indicted for recusancy. On his way to his trial in England the passage boat was cast away and he drowned in sight of Calais.

Charles Palmer (1651-1714) was a Catholic and serving soldier. He resigned at the time of the Glorious Revolution which saw King James II being overthrown in favour of Prince William of Orange who became William III of England. In 1693 Charles was indicted for Recusancy.

In 1842 Henry Palmer became Vicar of Dorney, his name can be seen on the list of rectors and ministers within the Church of St. John the Less.

Photo copyright Dorney Court

Not surprisingly with the family’s rich Catholic heritage, in recent years the house has revealed a secret. Whilst undertaking property renovations in the parlour an entrance to a priest hole was found in the south west corner. It is thought to be connected to Burnham Abbey via a secret passage.

Sources:

A church has graced the banks of the River Thames in Hurley since Saxon times.

Formerly a Benedictine priory the monk’s traditions of hospitality, care and spiritual renewal still continue to this day. And the chime of St Mary’s bells ring out across the village, as they have for over a millennium.*

In 1545 the estates passed to John Lovelace and much of the materials from the Old Priory were used to build the first Ladye Place Mansion. At this time the east end of the church was filled in and repaired to the shape it is today. At the turn of the 17th century, Richard, 1st Baron Lovelace of Hurley, installed the bell turret and the largest bell.

A major restoration took place in 1852 when the large porch over the South West Door was removed. The east end of the church was completely rebuilt and the existing east windows and the bath stone screen behind the Altar were installed.

In 1987, after many years of planning, thought and prayer, the Priory Room extension was built and dedicated by the newly enthroned Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, on 2nd July 1987.

The Lovelace Memorial was erected c 1605. The left-hand figure is Richard Lovelace esquire (1542-1601), son of John Lovelace, gentleman (c1515-1558).  At his death Richard Lovelace was Lord Lieutenant of the County of Berkshire and Constable of Windosor Castle. An earlier memorial to John Lovelace was destroyed in the 19th century.

The right-hand figure is Sir Richard Lovelace, knight, (1565-1634), son and heir of the other figure. He was knighted in 1599 at Dublin “in ye wars” against the Irish. He was created 1st Lord Lovelace of Hurley by Charles I in 1627. He was High Steward of Maidenhead from 1623 until his death, and was keeper of the rolls or records for the county of Berkshire. He erected this memorial and probably composed the epitaphs.**

The ancient cross. The wooden cross, which was removed from the tower of St. Mary the Virgin, Hurley, was originally placed in the middle of the Saxon Burial Ground about 1040. It was then thought that it was erected on top of the Priory Bell Tower, and on the dissolution of the priory was re-erected on the tower of the present church, which was the nave of the original priory.

This cross must be one of the oldest wooden crosses in England, and it is now safely placed high up against the East wall of the church.**

*From a church pamphlet
**From information board within the church

Hurley Priory, located on the banks of the River Thames was founded in 1086 by Geoffrey Mandeville I as a cell of Westminster Abbey. After declaring himself head of the English Church, Henry VIII suppressed the priory in 1536 and ownership was transferred to Westminster Abbey. When in 1540 Westminster Abbey was dissolved Hurley Priory passed into lay hands.

Jeff Griffiths from Archaeology in Marlow provides a fascinating account of the village of Hurley and the history of the priory:

The biggest change ever to affect the village happened when Geoffrey de Mandeville founded a Benedictine priory in 1086 in memory of his first wife. The Priory was central to the life of the village for 450 years until Henry VIII’s reforms swept it away in 1536. Its Abbot and monks were more fortunate than most at the Dissolution as they could retreat to the protected mother house at Westminster, taking with them the Priory’s 562 charters, which still exist. These charters reveal that the Abbey of Westminster had exchanged one of its London properties to acquire a forested area near its daughter house. The London property exchanged for Hurley Wood was no less than Covent Garden.

After the Dissolution, Hurley’s monastic estate passed into the hands of John Lovelace in 1545 and this family then became Lords of the Manor. The Lovelaces built a mansion called Ladye Place on the site of the ruined Priory. The first Sir Richard Lovelace went on an expedition with Sir Francis Drake and it’s been said that their fine Elizabethan mansion arose in 1600 from “the legalised piracy of a licensed buccaneer”.

The most significant of the Lovelaces was John, the 3rd Lord Lovelace, who played a significant role in the Glorious or Bloodless Revolution of 1688. He was an ardent anti-Catholic who’d been jailed for complicity in the Rye House plot to assassinate King Charles II and his brother and heir James. Lovelace became a staunch supporter of the cause for the Protestant William of Orange to take over the throne from the Catholic James II. The crypt at Ladye Place, once part of the original Priory, became a centre of plotting and it’s said that fellow aristocratic conspirators would enter by way of underground tunnels that led from the river to the crypt to avoid detection. This crypt, which still stands in private grounds on the old monastic estate at Hurley, became a centre of pilgrimage for those who valued the liberties that had been safeguarded by the plot hatched there. William of Orange and George III both visited this crypt where commemorative tablets record this momentous event in England’s history.

This 3rd Lord Lovelace, however, was a dissolute individual – the Master of an Oxford college said he drank a Quart of Brandy every morning – who left the estate heavily in debt. His son, having no estate to inherit, went to America where he became the Governor of New York State. A township there called Hurley commemorates the link with Lovelace’s Berkshire home. The last Lovelace heir in America died without issue and the line became extinct.

The Elizabethan Ladye Place eventually became derelict and was pulled down in 1838. Much later a smaller house also called Ladye Pace was erected next to the church.

The second house in Hurley to bear the name Ladye Place was purchased in 1924 by Colonel Rivers-Moore, a retired Royal Engineer. He was intrigued by the surrounding monastic remains and determined to undertake archaeological investigations as the site had hardly ever been touched. He was particularly intrigued by the prospect of finding the tomb of Editha, Edward the Confessor’s sister, whose ghost, known as the Grey Lady, was supposed to haunt the place. By a stroke of luck, a particularly dry summer revealed the outline of the old Lovelace mansion, which stood on the remains of Hurley Priory and trial excavations started. It’s reputed that family members then began to have visions of a monk instructing them where to find discoveries and that they held séances to seek guidance as to where they should dig.

In the summer of 2007, a party from the Thames Valley Dowsers investigated the reputed underground tunnel that runs from the Olde Bell hotel [see my previous post] to the remains of the old Priory behind the church. A cupboard in a bar at the Olde Bell reveals a crumbling staircase entrance which is supposed to lead to the tunnels. Next door to the hotel, Hurley House had a trapdoor through which access to the tunnel had been gained. Dowsing highlighted two tunnels that run from the Olde Bell to the old Ladye Place crypt and then to a property known as the Cloisters, the remains of the old Priory behind the church. Set into the Cloisters’ lawns are gratings which cover entrances to underground tunnels that have been explored and led to the moat, underpinning the stories of the plotters in 1688 surreptitiously entering the crypt by tunnel.

I recommend reading Jeff Griffith’s full article; Hurley’s Hidden History.

On my recent visit to the Olde Bell in Hurley I noticed some information above a wooden panel next to the fireplace. I was intrigued by it and took a closer look. The photo and words informed that a passage runs from the cellar of the Olde Bell to the Village Priory and the passage was accessed by concealed panelling next to the inglenook fireplace.

The Olde Bell first opened its doors in 1135 AD as a guesthouse for visitors to the nearby Benedictine Priory. For hundreds of years, the ringing of the Sanctus Bell signalled to the monks that an important visitor had arrived in the village and was on his way to call at their monastic retreat beside the River Thames. The Sanctus Bell still hangs over the door of The Olde Bell, a sign of welcome and refreshment to travellers.

There is a secret passage running from the cellar of The Olde Bell to the Priory in the village. The secret passage was used by Lord Lovelace of Hurley who was a plotter of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in 1688 which drove the Catholic James II into exile and placed his son-in-law William of Orange jointly with his wife, James’s daughter Mary, on the throne.

Runnymede, the birthplace of democracy.

THE MAGNA CARTA TRUST

The memorial and the land on which it stands is vested in the Magna Carta Trust under the chairmanship of the Master of the Rolls. The principal object of the Magna Carta Trust is the perpetuation of the principles of Magna Carta. The Trust also maintains and cares for the up-keep of the Memorial which was commissioned by the American Bar Association.

THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION MEMORIAL TO MAGNA CARTA

The memorial was designed by Sir Edward Maufe RA and dedicated on the 28th July 1957 in ceremonies attended by over 5,000 people. Built of Portland Stone and supported on eight octagonal pillars the Memorial is a domed classical Temple in the Greek Style. In the centre is a pillar of English Granite inscribed:

‘TO COMMEMORATE MAGNA CARTA
SYMBOL OF FREEDOM UNDER LAW’

Surrounding the memorial are Eight English Oak Trees. Two further oak trees on either side of the path were planted by HRH the Duke of Gloucester in 1987 and the Prime Minister of India in 1994.

MAGNA CART THROUGHOUT THE AGES

After the third and final amendment in 1225 by King Henry III, the Magna Carta was confirmed in 1297 by King Edward I and placed on the first or ‘great’ roll of English Statute thus becoming the first constitutional document in the World. It has throughout the Ages formed a basis for law and democracy in the civilised world. Seen by every Englishman as a safeguard for their constitutional rights against unjust and arbitrary rule, the tenets of the Magna Carta have been upheld and used extensively throughout history.

During the Tudor and Stuart reigns of the 16th and 17th centuries religious intolerance and persecution was rife. By the early 1600’s Puritans no longer tolerated by the Church and Crown set off to seek a new life of religious tolerance in the new world of the American Colonies. In 1620, upon the Mayflower, the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth taking with them a copy of the Magna Carta. The principles of the Charter granting – ‘Freedom under the Law’ – went on to form the basis for the Constitution of the United States and later the Bill of Rights, of which Thomas Jefferson said:

‘ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL IN LIFE, LIBERTY
AND IN THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.’

This pursuit of equality and liberty as laid down in the Magna Carta brought about the abolition of the Slave Trade by William Wilberforce and President Abraham Lincoln.

Magna Carta is still, in the twentieth century, some 780 years after its inception forming the basis for Human Rights. Its passages were quoted by Nancy Astor in the battle for votes for women during the Suffragette Movement of the early 1900’s. The principles of Magna Carta formed the basis for Human Rights during times of war under the Geneva Convention and in times of peace in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on the 10th December 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The constitutions of India and the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe have enshrined key elements and principles first established by Magna Cart.

Information about the Magna Carta Trust can be found here.