Sojourn in Wiltshire October 2022: Part 4

To Wimborne/Wimborne Minster for lunch with Cousin Anne. Not a place we visit very often and the first time I was there was around 1955 when my family stayed with Aunty Hazel and Uncle Bob in Poole. Probably the event that everyone would remember is going to Wimborne Miniature Village (and it's exactly that - Wimborne in miniature) and my brother, aged three-ish, sitting on the roof of a shop and putting his foot through the front window. My mother was mortified. My father was somewhere with the Royal Marines and missed the fun. Anyway, enough of the nostalgia and back to the day: whilst Mrs P and her cousin hit what passed for the shopping centre, I wandered around in a random fashion, as was my want.

Wimborne was an old Saxon settlement and the foundation of the Wimborne Minster dates back to the beginning of the 8th century, when the sisters of the King of the West Saxons endowed a monastery here. Apparently this was a foundation for both sexes. The present Minster, with its twin towers, dates back to the 12th century. One interesting fact about the Minster is that in 1318 Edward II made it a 'Royal Peculiar', that is, it answered directly to the monarch, not to the diocese. It shared this 'peculiar' status with such important churches as St George's Chapel at Windsor, and Westminster Abbey. The royal peculiar status was revoked in 1846. It's unusual to see a church with two towers and I'm not sure it's a good look.

Looking towards the font (presumed Norman but not really known) underneath the west tower.

The famous Wimborne Astronomical clock dates back to the early fourteenth century, possibly around 1320. It might have been built by Peter Lightfoot, a Glastonbury monk. The clock's case was built in the Elizabethan era, but the face and dial are much greater older; the first documents relating to the clock concern repairs carried out in 1409.  The clock has a blue-green image of the Earth in the centre, the Sun rotating in the outer blue ring, and the Moon in the inner starred ring.

An impressive array of original decorated Norman arches in the nave.

Rather hidden in a corner of the Vestry is what I, and others, think is the gem of the Minster. Up a narrow spiral stairway, you can climb to find what has been described as 'one of the rarest intellectual corners in England'. It is one of the largest chained libraries in the country, and, more than that, it could be regarded as the pioneer of free libraries. For 300 years before public libraries were dreamed of, a worthy minister of Wimborne, William Stone, gave his own library to this place for the free use of local residents for ever. Every book was secured by a chain and padlock, and the old chains remain, though the rods are new. There are more than 200 volumes, the oldest of all a vellum manuscript in Latin with illuminated initials written about 600 years ago.
These books were not originally chained, as only people working in the church were able to read them. But in 1695 a Middle Temple lawyer called Roger Gillingham came up with the idea of attaching each book in the library to a chain so that local shopkeepers or the ‘better class of person’, would be able to study and perhaps make a better life for themselves by having access to a free library.

For me, the peculiarity of the Chained Library was the copy, all six volumes of it, of Brian Walton's polygott bible. Polyglots were used for studying the history of the biblical text and its interpretation.  Apparently, the earliest known biblical Polyglot contained six variants and was compiled by Origen around the second century. Issued in six volumes between 1654 and 1657, the Walton Polyglot comprises nine languages, which are- Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Persian. Unsurprisingly the Polyglot was not the sole work of Walton and he engaged a team of erudite contemporary scholars to aid him in his task. Considered as the last and most scholarly ever printed, the Walton Polyglot was the second book in England to be published by subscription. Walton managed to raise ₤9000 for its production by asking for down-payments of ₤10 per set. The Polyglot was originally dedicated to Oliver Cromwell, but since he died during printing, it was subsequently dedicated to King Charles II. Copies including the “republican” and the “royal” prefaces survive. Wimborne has the "republican" version.

 The stained glass window in the Trinity Chapel. Although the tracery is probably from 1300-1350, most of the stained glass generally is mid 19th Century as the original glass had been neglected and was falling apart. A major restoration of the church took place in the 1850's and the glass dates from then.

Looking east down the nave towards the altar. The Norman vaulted arches lead the eye towards the focal point of the altar. An interesting church to visit and there's a lot more to see that requires more than the rather cursory hour I gave it.