The Churchyard, Sydling St Nicholas

[puddleshark]

I had forgotten how beautiful the churchyard is at Sydling St Nicholas, tucked away on the high ground at the edge of the village, with a farmyard on one side, and open countryside on two sides. In April, it's full of primroses and daffodils. And in among the spring flowers, old stones ornamented with emblems of mortality: hourglasses, skulls and longbones.






St Nicholas. Tower is c.1430, the nave and the north porch c.1480, and the south aisle c.1500. Built on the site of an earlier 13th century church.


Splendid 15th century gargoyles.


A Fox among the Gargoyles.






A tree eating a headstone.





Snailtrail.


Here Lieth y body of Robert
Rogers who Died y 10th day of
April 1709.


REDER CONSIDER SUCH THOU MUST SHORTLY
BEE WHAT THOU FINDEST
OF OTHERS HERE
AND WEE

The other side is inscribed:
HEERE LYETH THE BODY OF FRANCIS KIDDLE WHO
DYED THE 26 DAY OF MARCH ANO D 1667 HIS AGE 70
GOOD PEOPLE WEE WERE AS YOU THAT SEE AND
AS WEE ARE NOW SO SHALL YOU BEE
HEERE LYETH EEDETH THE WIFE OF FRANCIS
KIDDLE WHO DYED THE 1 DAY OF DECEMBER AD 1665







F.B. At Rest 1862. T.M.B. [Thomas Fiennes Brown] for 28 years Vicar of this Parish.

The 1861 census reveals the following occupants of Vicarage House;
Thomas J Revd; BROWN; Head; Mar; 51; Vicar; East Indies Columbo;
Frances; BROWN; Wife; Mar; 46; Clergyman's wife; Oxfordshire Charlbury;
Mary; BROWN; Daur; ; 9; Scholar; Sydling;
Francis L? T; BROWN; Son; 7; Scholar; Sydling ;
Caroline S?; BROWN; Daur; 5; Scholar; Sydling ;
William W; BROWN; Son; 4; Scholar; Sydling ;
Thomas Davis; ?ONAFORD?; Pupil; 11; Scholar; East Indies Cawnpore;
Emily; BILES; Servt; Un; 20; House servt; Somerset Chilton Cantello;

The Rev. Brown's successor, the Rev. Vernon, became embroiled in a hugely entertaining (to the 19th century press) libel scandal. He was an unpopular incumbent, a stranger to the parish, appointed through his connections, when the parish had been expecting a very well-liked curate to be appointed to the living. The Rev. Vernon became convinced that the curate had poisoned the parish against him.

He produced a pamphlet charging the erstwhile curate with stealing from the tithes and, more personally damaging, accused him of having been – prior to taking holy orders – a policeman forced to resign for drunkenness. All this was unseemly, of course, but there was a singular twist to this little Dorset squabble that proved greatly fascinating for the national papers. In his vicarage garden, where all the churchgoers would see it on their way into St Nicholas on the Sabbath day, Vernon planted mustard and cress in such a way that, when it sprouted, the vegetation spelled out ‘WHITEHEAD IS A SCAMP.’...

Truth, the London-based weekly that delighted in all clerical scandals, enjoyed this one immensely: ‘The last new thing in libel is decidedly quaint and beats chalking on the walls hollow…. The vicar of Sydling, among other things, ingeniously contrived a salad to suit his hungry dislike of a brother clergyman.’

https://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2010/12/%E2%80%98whitehead-is-a-scamp-%E2%80%99/

1817 Neo-Classical table tomb.




Millwheel memorial to the last miller of Sydling St Nicholas.