Romsey Abbey

The church was originally built during the 10th century, as part of a Benedictine foundation. The surviving church is the town's outstanding feature, which is all the more remarkable because the abbey, as a nunnery, would have been less well financially endowed than other religious establishments of the time.

The west window of Romsey Abbey.

The religious community continued to grow and a village grew around it to keep it supplied with produce. Both suffered in 993 when Viking raiders sacked the village and burnt down the original church. However, the abbey was rebuilt in stone in around 1000 and the village quickly recovered. The abbey and its religious community flourished and were renowned as a seat of learning – especially for the children of the nobility.

In Norman times a substantial, new stone abbey, primarily designed as a convent, was built on the old Anglo-Saxon foundation (circa 1130 to 1140 AD) by Henry Blois, Bishop of Winchester and Abbot of Glastonbury. Bishop Henry was the younger brother of King Stephen and his structure dominates the town to this day. By 1240 in excess of 100 nuns were living in the community.

The rule of Elizabeth Broke was filled with scandal. A commission was held against her for many charges including allowing poor dress standards for nuns, allowing nuns to go to the towns taverns, poor account keeping and an unhealthy relationship with the Chaplain.[1]

The abbey continued to grow and prosper until the Black Death struck the town in 1348-9. While it is thought that as much as half of the population of the town – which was then about 1,000 – died as a result, the number of nuns fell by over 80% to 19. 72 nuns died including Abbess Johanna. After the plague there were never more than 26 nuns in the Abbey.[1]

This so affected the area that the overall prosperity of the abbey dwindled and it was finally suppressed by Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.

Tombs in Romsey Abbey, including that of Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

However the abbey did not suffer the fate of many other religious establishments at this time and was not demolished, although the community itself was forcibly dispersed. This was because it had, in modern terms, become "dual use" containing a church within a church – a substantial section being dedicated to St Lawrence and used solely by the townspeople.

Subsequently, the town purchased the abbey from the Crown for £100 in 1544 and then set about demolishing that very section, set aside as the church of St Lawrence, that had ensured its survival in the first place.

The abbey survives today not least due to the efforts of the Reverend Edward Lyon Berthon during the 19th century who set about restoring it to some of its former glory. It is now the largest parish church in the county and houses the tomb of Lord Mountbatten of Burma and of Sir William Petty FRS, the great English economist, scientist and philosopher. Mountbatten had been granted the lesser title of Baron Romsey in 1947 on being given his Earldom and lived locally at Broadlands House. On 27 August 1979, Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas, and two others were assassinated by a bomb set by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, hidden aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland. He was buried in the abbey following a full state funeral in Westminster Abbey.

The current vicar is the Reverend Thomas Wharton, who took up the post in September 2018.[2]

The church's bells were once housed in a detached campanile. After its demolition in 1625, the set of six bells was transferred to a wooden belfry on top of the central tower. They were replaced by a new set of eight in 1791; the heaviest, the tenor, weighing 26 cwt.[9] Three of the bells were recast in 1932. The bells and their eighteenth century bell frame were restored in 2007, when removing the crown reduced the weight of the tenor to 22 cwt. The Bells are now known across the region for being one of the finest rings of 8 bells.

Titanic memorial to Arthur Ward

One of the Titanic's engineering officers, Arthur (Bob) Ward, who died in the sinking, is commemorated in the Abbey with a plaque in one of the chapels.

The village of Crampmoor, to the east of Romsey, is within the ecclesiastical parish of Romsey.[21] St Swithun's, Crampmoor, is Romsey Abbey's daughter church. It was built in the nineteenth century to serve a rural community as both a church and a school. There were originally two other such combined use buildings in the parish; the school moved out from St Swithun's in 1927.[22]

• List of English abbeys, priories and friaries serving as parish churches

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Romsey Abbey.

• Romsey Abbey Website
• Romsey Abbey Choir Website
• Romsey Abbey Images
• Stained Glass Windows at Romsey Abbey