In the Footsteps of Treves – Sherborne

I

‘Sherborne – the town of the scir burne or clear brook – lies pleasantly at the foot of a green slope where it glides into the valley of the Yeo. The country around is so prettily wooded and so dainty that Sherborne seems to be sheltered in the glades of an ancient park.’

So begins Sir Frederick Treves writing of Sherborne in his 1906 book Highways and Byways in Dorset. It’s not often that Treves would be positive about anything or anywhere for more than a few lines, let alone remain so and yet Sherborne proves to be one of the few exceptions to this rule – he hasn’t anything other than pleasant things to say: ‘It is a bright town, prim and old-fashioned, and unsullied by the aggressive villas and red brick terraces of the modern suburb. Although a small place, it is yet of much dignity. Its Abbey, its rambling school buildings, its venerable almshouse, its many ancient dwellings, show that it still may claim some of the prestige of a capital in miniature. There is about it much of the quaint solemnity and monastic calm of the cathedral town, much of the gravity of an ancient seat of learning, much of the sober business ways of the mediaeval market.’
Sherborne has expanded since Treves was here; the population has virtually doubled in size. Remarkably, growth has been constrained in the direction of its development by the River Yeo, to the south and Sherborne Lake, together with the Old and ‘New’ Castles to the south east. It’s from this perspective that Sherborne has hardly changed at all; here hills, woods and fields give the feel of the place, as Treves says, being sheltered in some ancient park. Growth has been mainly to the east and west of the town. It is however, in the centre of Sherborne that one can really appreciate what Treves was describing; the Abbey precincts, the school, the monks’ cloister and numerous buildings constructed of the beautiful Ham stone give the place a harmonious ambience.
Despite his humble upbringing, as the son of a Dorchester upholsterer, Treves exhibited a real snobbery regarding the red brick villas which were mushrooming everywhere in his time, there are some to be found which were either being built when he was here or very soon after. He wouldn’t have been happy. Happily oblivious, he continues;
‘The houses are of all heights, sizes, and periods. Here are timber-faced dwellings, where the upper story overhangs the lower, and where the roof breaks out into irrelevant gables; houses with the stone-mullioned casements of Tudor days or the round bow window of the Georgian period; houses with gateways under them leading into courtyards; humble buildings fashioned out of stone filched from a church; cottages with the arched doorways of a convent, or with buttresses worthy of a chapel; pieces of old wall and other miscellaneous fragments which the town with its love for the past has never had the heart to cast aside’.
The majority of what Treves saw can be seen today, notwithstanding that 766 buildings were damaged on 30 September 1940 in a bombing raid originally destined for Yeovil (tragically causing the death of 17 civilians). To walk around the town is to walk back in history and to see so many architecturally varied and beautiful buildings in such a small area is a worthwhile experience. Wander from the centre of town and one can find, set in the wall of a house, pub or shop the odd doorway and window unable to hide their ecclesiastical origins.
At the famous Monks’ Conduit, Treves notes: ‘Set down casually on the pavement of the main street, with for a background an old roof of dormer windows and the Abbey tower rising above a clump of trees, is the Monks’ Conduit. It was built in the sixteenth century, and stood originally in the cloister court of the monastery.
‘It was removed to its present site some centuries ago. The building is many-sided, has fine Gothic windows and a groined roof. To it in old days the water was conducted and here the monks washed and shaved. At the present time it affords a picturesque support for the shoulders of the lounger.’
The Monks’ Conduit straddles the pavement at the south end of Cheap Street. An imposing structure, it has served for short periods as a police station and apparently a bank and yet has no real purpose. That it has survived for so many centuries is intriguing, perhaps its use as a support for ‘loungers’ has ensured its survival!
Treves was inordinately fond of churches and Sherborne’s outstanding example brings out his poetic side, even if he can’t resist a jibe at
the tower;
‘The Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin is a singularly beautiful building, although externally a little spoiled by its stunted tower….The interior of great ecclesiastical buildings is apt to be chilly and grey, and the atmosphere about the vaulted heights to be hazy, as if a wan mist filled the place. Here, however, is a nave warm and ruddy, and so flooded with yellow light that the pillars and high walls seem to have caught the rays of the
setting sun’.
Resorting to superlatives Treves describes the glories he sees;
‘The choir of the Abbey is most magnificent, harmonious, and inspiring. In many places its panelled walls are stained an Indian red by the great fire which befell the church about the time of its reconstruction. Most glorious is the fan tracery in the roof, which is said to be unrivalled in England; most suggestive is the contrast between the sturdy, unpretending Norman arches and the dainty, effeminate Gothic work which they support’.
The setting of Sherborne Abbey Church is beautiful, although the Abbey itself does not show off its splendours to the passer by; it’s once inside that one’s breath will be taken away. Treves’ superlatives are apt, and the first words heard whispered by visitors entering the place and looking up, invariably begin with ‘wow’. The Great West Window dedicated in May 1998 in the presence of the Queen and Prince Philip was designed by John Hayward and replaced a Victorian window by Augustus Pugin. This new addition serves to further enhance the interior of this glorious place.
Very close by is the school, Treves begins: ‘Of the famous school of Sherborne it is needless to say more than it was founded about 705, was unaffected by the dissolution of the monastery, and was refounded by Edward VI. In 1550. A statue of this monarch was set up in the school in 1614, and still stands with much glory in the ancient dining hall. It is of painted stone, is the work of a certain Godfrey Arnold, and cost £9 5s & 4d. From time to time henceforth we get entries in the school accounts of this sort: “For washing of ye King – 6d.”’
Treves quotes William Wildman, once a schoolmaster at Sherborne, who wrote extensively on the history of the town. His statement that the school was founded in about 705 is based on writings suggesting St Aldhelm founded a school here around this time and cannot be accepted as hard fact. The dining hall, now the ‘old school room’ and used mainly for functions, continues to display Edward VI’s statue, which was carved from Portland stone.
In the entrance to the school chapel 221 former pupils lost in the Great War are remembered on a memorial by Sir Reginald Blomfield, who amongst many famous works was responsible for the Menin Gate at Ypres and played a major part in the design of the Quadrant on Regent Street. After World War II a further 242 names were added to this memorial. A tradition is held where pupils passing on their way to chapel do so silently, as a mark of respect. Another tradition states that pupils are not to walk under the Monks’ Conduit.
Treves continues: ‘The most charming entry to the ancient college is by the south, through the Old Court. Here an arched doorway in a high wall opens from a lane into a little yard covered with grass. Across the lawn leads a flagged path. To step into the tiny square is to step back into the seventeenth century. In front is the dining hall, once the schoolhouse, which bears well its burden of 230 years. It is a building of one story (sic), with tall, stone-mullioned windows whose small diamond panes glitter from under a canopy of ivy’.
With the exception of the ‘canopy of ivy’ all that Treves mentions is still extant. The school does appear to sit within the Abbey grounds and indeed many of the buildings started out as ecclesiastical. There is a very long line of distinguished former pupils and one, while perhaps not as famous as some, has a fascinating story linked to the aforementioned German bombing of September 1940. The Squadron Leader of eight Spitfires that intercepted the Heinkel bombers and their fighter escort, was one Peter Devitt, a Sherborne alumnus from 1924-29. Devitt was at the time based at RAF Warmwell, near Dorchester.
Close by the school and Abbey are the St Johns’ almshouses, Treves is further impressed: ‘Another very interesting feature of Sherborne is the almshouse, founded, or refounded in 1437. The old part of the present building was completed in 1448. It is a low, many-gabled house of two stories [sic], with a roof of stone tiles and a beautiful oriel window looking down the street. In this quiet nook is a quadrangle, with on two sides a stone cloister where the old men sit and smoke, dream in the sun over the past, and wait for the end. Here can be heard, mumbled by toothless mouths and jerked out by the stems of cherished pipes, the rare, enchanting dialect of “Dosset.”’
No ‘toothless mouths’ were heard mumbling in dialect, nevertheless St Johns’ House continues to accommodate eighteen residents and a tortoise named Tabitha. Still governed by the Master and Brethren and continuing much as it has been since 1437, the beautiful almshouse sits close by the Abbey and School.
The author would like to extend his thanks to Kate Whitlock and Rachel Hassell at Sherborne School and to the very knowledgeable guides at Sherborne Abbey.