Trust visit: Sherborne Castle and Abbey - TrustNews Sep 16
When Walter Raleigh persuaded Queen Elizabeth to let him have this substantial estate he found its original 12th century castle was perhaps a little too old-fashioned for his status and needs. Raleigh felt something more modern, a place more suitable for gentry, was required, and so built himself the Lodge in 1594, an imposing four-storey rectangular edifice with polygonal towers suggesting fortifications at each corner. During Ralegh’s imprisonment, King James sold the now confiscated estate to the Digby family whose descendants , now Wingfield-Digby, still own it. It was during this time that subsequent additions of turreted wings turned the Lodge back into a ‘Castle’ again, the original having been properly slighted by Parliamentary forces during the Civil War. In the 1750s Capability Brown further landscaped the park, creating the lake beyond which the old ruins now became a romantic eye-catcher to be glimpsed through the trees. The whole setting is quintessentially English and a pleasure for those who love parkland and gardens. The interior is quirky with idiosyncratic decorative features in each room to delight the eye. Being still a home, its scale is not overbearing like some of our greater stately piles, and its style and contents offer a wonderful sense of continuity through the centuries, being a repository of a domestic history one could identify with.
The Abbey came first, of course. Its foundation goes back to the 8th century when the See of Winchester was divided and Sherborne became its own See. At the end of the 10th century the secular canons of the Cathedral were replaced by the Benedictine Order and when the cathedral eventually moved to Old Sarum and the See of Salisbury (it was their worldly bishop, Roger de Caen, who built the original Castle as his fortified palace), the Abbey remained monastic until the Dissolution, after which it became the parish church for Sherborne. Our guide told us something of this together with stories of the quarrels between the Abbey and town that colours the fabric of its history. However, one need not know much or any of this to enjoy the beauty of the place. Ham stone used throughout the town gives Sherborne a warm sweet glow, its heart being the Abbey itself. A walk around the outside reveals only a little of its Saxon origins whereas its mass indicates Roger de Caen’s rebuilding in the Norman style though much of the detailing suggests later Gothic improvements, its richness to be appreciated within. Overwhelming by far is the fantastic vaulting which runs the length of the nave and whose height emphasises the delicacy of the fanning ribs and liernes across the space. The coloured glass in the east end and the clerestory windows is Victorian, and softly illuminates the nave to its terminus in the handsome stone reredos beyond the altar. The Great West Window has strikingly successful contemporary glass-work by Hayward which replaced Pugin’s fading glass and the Lady Chapel has a very fine engraved glass reredos by Lawrence Whistler. What remains of its mediaeval glass can be seen in St Katherine’s Chapel. Carvings abound in the bosses and corbels but these require binoculars to enjoy the creative humour of the masons.
We owe our thanks to Sue Owers for arranging this memorable tour.