More about Shalfleet Church

Sexton, tailor, postmaster, shopkeeper – Thomas Hollis of Shalfleet

In early May 1909, a most unusual service was held in Shalfleet parish church. It was arranged for the dedication of the chancel (rood) screen by the Bishop of Southampton to commemorate Thomas Hollis’s 55 years of service as a sexton.

The Rood Screen

However, this was no memorial service as Mr Hollis was himself present. According to the County Press of 15^th May 1909 – “Mr Hollis, who retired from duty at Easter, was present at the service and despite his 84 years appeared well and hearty.

“Ordinary evensong was first said by the vicar (Rev. C. C. Shute) and special hymns were sung. Miss Roach ably presiding at the organ. The Bishop, after reading the dedicatory prayers, gave an address, in which he congratulated the people of Shalfleet on the acquisition of that beautiful and suitable chancel screen, which, he thought they must all feel, added dignity and completeness to the church. The screen had been erected in honour of Thomas Hollis, a very old and esteemed resident in the parish, who had served faithfully in an important church office for upwards of half a century. It was customary to erect offerings of that kind after those in whose honour they were raised passed out of this world. They were therefore glad and thankful that the subject of that offering had not passed away, but was there taking part in the worship that evening.

The screen, which is in its original position across the chancel, was designed by Percy Stone F.R.I.B.A., a well known Island architect of the time and made of 700 year old oak from Arreton Church by local craftsmen.

Not long after its erection, Dr Ernest Wyndham Cottle (see below) of Ningwood Manor, a nephew of a former vicar offered to pay for repairs to the tower, which was in a dangerous state, on the condition that the screen was moved. Repairs were carried out in 1912 and the screen moved to the back of the church. Dr Cottle died in 1919 leaving a substantial sum to found the Wyndham Cottle Home of rest for Animals and build a new wing on the county hospital, but only a green parrot and £20 to his wife. Some years later the parishioners replaced the screen to in the original position where it still stands today.

Shalfleet Parish and the Cottle Family

The east window of Shalfleet church bears the inscription "in memory of Wyndham Cottle ... of Ningwood House who died 2 June 1919 aged 71". On the north wall is a plaque erected "to the glory of God and in memory of the Revd Thomas Cottle ... vicar of  this  parish 1849-1865". The plaque goes on to say that new appliances for warming the church were provided and the church tower strengthened, in memory of the Vicar and his wife. There is a connection between these two memorials:  Ernest Wyndham Cottle, who is commemorated in the window, was the Vicar's nephew, and had come to live in the island when he inherited Ningwood House after his uncle's death in 1895.

In the early years of this century Wyndham Cottle was a generous benefactor to Shalfleet church.  In  1900, when the church tower was found to be in need of repair, he paid for the three iron bars which were needed to make it strong and safe. At the archdeacon's visitation in 1904 it was found that the iron stays provided by Dr Cottle were "fulfilling their purpose admirably.  The ends of these bars can still be seen on the exterior of the tower. The water heating apparatus installed in 1900 in memory of the Revd Thomas Cottle and his wife was also paid for by Dr Wyndham Cottle.  In  1908, when engaged on "various smaller repairs to the church",  it was Dr Cottle who had  the lead work on the tower inspected and who first reached the conclusion that the steeple which then surmounted the tower was a source of danger and should be removed. The steeple had been erected about 100 years before, and Dr Cottle argued that its removal would restore the church to its earlier condition. When it was taken down in 1912 the builder found it so rotten that he "did not know how it managed to keep from toppling"

The window at the east end of Shalfleet church was erected in Dr Cottle's memory in 1923. It depicts Christ inviting the sick to come to be healed, with St Luke on one side and the Good Shepherd on the other.  These themes were evidently chosen to reflect Dr Cottle's profession and his interest in animals. At the request of  his  sister,  Mrs  Manton,  who  paid  for  the erection of  the window, a small oval  picture of Dr Cottle was included at the bottom. Before the window could be installed it was necessary to seek the approval of Sir John Simeon, the lay rector.  It seems that he was only prepared to give his consent provided it was "clearly understood that the cost of upkeep has nothing to do with me".

Dr Cottle left a number of bequests in his will. Ningwood Manor was to become the "Wyndham Cottle Home of Rest  for Animals" which was administered by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; it was moved to Buckinghamshire in 1977.

His wife was allowed to remain at Ningwood Manor during her lifetime but otherwise received only a parrot and an annuity of £20.

A further bequest was to be used for building almshouses in the parish of Shalfleet, on land in Warlands Lane which belonged to Dr Cottle. Two pairs of cottages, designed by the local architect John Curtis Millgate, were constructed in 1922-3. In October 1923, the almshouses were fitted out with furniture purchased from Wadhams in Newport, and with linen, crockery and other household goods. In addition each almshouse was supplied with four apple trees and a framed photograph of Dr Cottle. It was laid down that the alms people should be poor persons of good character, not less than 60 years old, who had not been in receipt of poor relief for three years past, and were unable to maintain themselves by reason of age, accident or illness. No Roman Catholic or Jew was eligible, and no woman could live in the almshouses except as the wife of an almsman. Various rules were laid down for the conduct of the almspeople, including prohibitions on letting rooms and taking in washing." The first  almspeople were elected in  October 1923. There were three married couples from Shalfleet and Calbourne  and one widower  from East Coves. Since that time there have been more than  thirty almspeople, and the  almshouses have been occupied more or less continuously down to the present day.

The item above is a extract from a booklet by Sabrina Sutherland and G Yeo published in 1988, revised in 2004, for further details contact me

Shalfleet’s ancient Church

BY W J Roberts

Nine Hundred Years of Architectural History

A GLANCE AT A MAP of the Isle of Wight will help to explain not only why Shalfleet is so called, but why its church was so important in olden days. The Saxon name for the parish was ‘scealdan fleote’ and in the Domesday Book in 1086 it had become ‘seldeflet’. However spelt, Shalfleet means ‘the shallow stream or creek’ and, from the top of the church tower, we get a commanding view over the creeks of the Newtown estuary which were easy access to the Island for invaders. It is not surprising that this tower formed a place of refuge from such invaders. John Betjeman calls it ‘a large fortified tower like a Norman Keep’, and other writers have spoken of its great strength, with walls nearly five feet thick. So it is not only the oldest but the most stalwart of Island church towers. There are those who find beauty in this grey tower rising grandly above the thatched roofs of Shalfleet cottages, but Aubrey de Selincourt’s description is not so flattering:- ‘An ugly but interesting church, interesting for its antiquity but ugly for its monstrous and disproportionate tower’

The church’s mention in the Domesday Book, - a distinction it shares with Calbourne - appears after a reference to ‘a mill worth 11 pence, 4 acres of meadow and woodland for 20 swine’; the entry informs us that ‘there is also a church’  It was, therefore, probably built in the middle of the 11th century. Of that first Norman church little remains, apart from the tower and the doorway in the north wall, over the exterior of which is a tympanum of rare quality. The carving is of a bearded figure of a man, in what is apparently eastern costume, with his bands on the heads of two beasts with floriated tails. Visitors from all parts of the world have added their guesses to those of hundreds before them as to the story this sculpture work depicts - whether Adam in the Garden of Eden, David with lion and bear, or Daniel in the lions’ den.

In the 13th century, when the Island, in semi-independence under the De Redvers family, enjoyed peace and prosperity, much was done to extend our churches; this was particularly so at Shalfleet. A narrow south aisle had been added to the Norman nave in the 12th century, but a much wider and more attractive aisle was built in 1270 — in fact a Vicarial chapel. The admirable work undertaken included an arcade of four arches supported by slender circular columns of Purbeck stone each 52 inches in circumference. The windows, too, of this south chapel are almost unique. Each has three lights but above these, under arched heads, the stonework is pierced with egg-shaped openings. The chancel of Shalfleet church, with its chancel arch and piscina to the right of the altar, are also considered late 13th century additions.

Unfortunately, there were some alterations in those days not so praisworthy. Not realising that the tower lacked adequate foundations and was standing in ten feet of ‘blue slipper’ clay, these 13th century builders opened up a great arch in the eastern wall of that tower. This involved cutting away nearly the whole of its eastern face. Through subsidence, rents and fissures were later to appear, and, eventually, led to the contortion of the arch today. Although this arch was later blocked up, it was opened up in 1889.

The 14th century was the time in Island history when invasions and threats of invasions during the Hundred Years War made church reconstruction almost impossible. There was there­fore much to be done in the following century throughout the Island. At Shalfleet, the whole church was re-roofed and a porch was added on the south side. This porch probably rendered useless a mass dial scratched on the east jamb of the doorway. At about this time, too, one of the windows of the south aisle was altered, its flat top denoting the perpendicular style, and the original Norman windows in the Keep were modernised with late Gothic tracery.

As all students of English architecture will know, the fabric of our churches was much neglected in the 16th and 17th centuries, though new furnishings appeared under Stuart influence. For example, in Shalfleet, an oak pulpit was introduced in the reign of Charles I with carved brackets and two rows of carve4 panels. The armless wooden crucifix seen above this pulpit was found in a rubbish heap nearby, and is a 20th century addition. Other 17th century craft work will be recognised in what there is left of a Jacobean altar table now worked into a reredos. It has been surmounted with the text which was carved round the upper rail of the Table, ‘I will wash mine hands in innocency 0 Lord and so will compass Thyne Altar’

Within the church today there are a number of old prints which remind us of some of the unhappy alterations made in the 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1760, for example, there was a cupola, a leaden dome at the top of the tower which was replaced about 1808 by a shingled spire which remained until 1912. This spire prompted the composing of the rhymed couplet still so often quoted;

‘Those simple folk, the Shalfleet people

Sold their bells to build a steeple’

So it would seem the church lost some of its bells, but on the two they have today, these words are inscribed, ‘May all whom I shall summon to the grave, The ransom of a well spent life receive’ Incidentally, it was in the 18th century, in 1779, that the three-pound gun kept here for centuries was removed, as we read in the accounts for that year: ‘For the carriage of the great gun to Newport, 5s.’

The changes of the 19th century, here as elsewhere in the Wight, have come in for considerable criticism. The removal of the singing gallery was probably desirable, and the partial rebuilding of the north wall was necessary. This work, in 1812, involved the removal of most of the Norman stone and the building of a new wall partly of bricks, on the original foundations. Wooden mullioned windows unfortunately replaced those of medieval design. Victorian renovation, mainly under­taken in about 1889, included the re-opening of the wide arch at the western end of the church, and — not a particularly wise thing to have done — the cutting of a door in the northern face of the tower, and the removal of the plaster ceiling, so exposing the 15th century timbers. Recent improvements have helped to give this church a still more attractive interior.

Unlike some of our Island churches, there are few examples inside Shalfleet church of ‘storied urn or animated bust’. On the floor of the south aisle there are two sepulchral stones, and on the upper surface of one are carved a helmet, lance and shield. These slabs were found discarded in the churchyard, and later brought inside the church, for it is believed that one of them originally covered the grave of a member of the Trenchard family, Lords of the Manor of Shalfleet until the 16th century.

Charles Cox in his useful little book on the churches of the Isle of Wight (one of a series he wrote on County Churches in Edwardian days), gave it as his opinion that few areas in the British Isles could be found ‘where old churches are of so much variety and of such diversified interest as those of the Isle of Wight’. This is very true of Shalfleet where, for so many centuries the church has served such, a large rural parish including Ningwood, Wellow, Thorley, Cranmore, Hamstead and Bouldnor. Down the years much was done in century after century to maintain this place of worship, and as a result there is so much of architectural interest in this ancient church still to be enjoyed.