CHURCH.
Newnham had a church by the 12th
century: fragments of a church of that date were
reused in the later building on a new site, (fn. 64) and a
priest of Newnham is recorded from 1166. (fn. 65) In
origin the church was evidently a chapel of Westbury
church: it was a large building in the earlier 13th
century, (fn. 66) but in 1261 an inquisition determined that
Newnham was a chapelry belonging to the Rector
of Westbury in right of his church. (fn. 67) The Crown's
presentation to the so-called rectory of Newnham in
1261 (fn. 68) may indicate a desire to make Newnham
parochially independent, but later in the same year
the bishop was ordered not to allow the rights of the
Rector of Westbury in the chapel of Newnham to be
infringed. (fn. 69) The outcome of another royal presentation to Newnham church, in 1269, (fn. 70) is not known;
in 1291 Newnham was still named as a chapel of
Westbury. (fn. 71) In 1309, however, the king again
presented a clerk to Newnham church (fn. 72) and in a suit
against the patron of Westbury established that
Newnham was a mother church and not a chapel of
Westbury. (fn. 73) In 1311 the bishop instituted the king's
presentee, (fn. 74) whose successors were similarly presented and instituted as rectors, (fn. 75) though the claim
of the patron of Westbury was not finally abandoned
until 1344. (fn. 76)
After 1327 the advowson passed with Newnham
manor to the Earl of Norfolk, (fn. 77) whose successor, the
Earl of Northampton, granted it to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Gloucester, in 1343 so that the
hospital might appropriate the rectory. (fn. 78) The bishop
sanctioned the appropriation the same year; he
reserved the right to ordain a vicarage (fn. 79) but did not
exercise it. The parish was served in the later
Middle Ages by parochial chaplains or curates, (fn. 80)
presumably appointed by St. Bartholomew's. Littledean, which was appropriated in the 14th century
to St. Bartholomew's, was declared in 1413 to be a
chapelry of Newnham, (fn. 81) and until the 19th century
there was a single parish priest for the two parishes. (fn. 82)
In Newnham there was a chantry which provided
for an extra priest. The chapel of St. Mary Magdalen
recorded in 1247 (fn. 83) may have been the chapel in the
castle (fn. 84) or a chantry-chapel. In 1457 St. Mary's
chantry had an endowment of various rent charges
and lands, (fn. 85) which were used partly to pay a
chaplain until shortly before 1548. (fn. 86) No evidence
has been found to support the statement that Ruddle
once had a chapel. (fn. 87)
In the 16th century the curates presumably
continued to be appointed by St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, which retained the rectory. By 1603 the
curate held the rectory at farm from the governors
of the hospital, (fn. 88) a practice which continued until
1844, (fn. 89) and the curates came to be regarded as
perpetual curates. The rectory, assessed at £10 a
year before the appropriation (fn. 90) and in 1535, (fn. 91) and
at £40 in the 17th century, (fn. 92) appears to have comprised only tithes and buildings. In 1348 there was
a rectory-house, which an armed band set on fire,
stealing goods and assaulting a brother of St.
Bartholomew's, (fn. 93) possibly in manifestation of
hostility to the recent appropriation. The house
stood not far from the church in 1457. (fn. 94) In 1547 it
was said that the rectory-house and barn had both
fallen down and that neither timber nor tiles
remained. (fn. 95) In 1689 the curate had a house of two
bays, (fn. 96) which may have been the parsonage-house
that was much out of repair in 1739 (fn. 97) and was
mentioned in 1768. (fn. 98) The house of 1768 was
evidently on the same site, and may have been the
same building, as the 18th-century rendered house
on the west side of High Street, near its upper end,
that was in possession of the perpetual curate in
1839 (fn. 99) and after 1889 came to be called the Old
Vicarage. It was presumably the 'vicarage house' on
which the perpetual curate was rated in 1804 and
1812. (fn. 1)
In 1839 the tithes belonging to the patrons were
commuted for a rent charge of £201. (fn. 2) Evidently as
a result, a Chancery Decree of 1844 ruled that St.
Bartholomew's Hospital should receive the whole
rent charge and pay the perpetual curate, who had
held a lease of the tithes at £8 a year, a stipend of
£80. In 1866 M. F. Carter bought both the advowson and the tithe rent charge, evidently to enable
him to augment the living: in 1874 he and the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners were augmenting it by
£90 a year. In 1883 Carter endowed the living with
a rent charge of £43 and sold the advowson to Mrs.
C. S. Jones, who gave it to the Bishop of Gloucester. (fn. 3)
The bishop remained patron in 1968.
Although the perpetual curate lost the lease of the
rectory in 1844 he retained the parsonage-house as
though it were part of his living. (fn. 4) A new vicaragehouse was built in 1889 near the north end of the
Green, (fn. 5) and the Old Vicarage was sold to help to
defray the cost. (fn. 6) The parish was endowed with three
sermon charities under the wills of James Jocham,
dated 1764, Samuel Hawkins (d. 1805), and John
Matthews, dated 1808, (fn. 7) which together yield a total
of £18 to the vicar, clerk, sexton, and singers. (fn. 8)
In 1563 the churchwardens presented that
Thomas Vaughan, the curate, was an unlawful
gamer who failed in other ways in his duties. (fn. 9) He
had been replaced by 1566 by Philip Jones, who was
excommunicated for not paying a subsidy. (fn. 10) Jones's
successor, Edward Erlingham or Fryer, was a former
monk of Flaxley and had been sexton of Kingswood
Abbey. (fn. 11) Lawrence Cook, curate in 1593, was
described as a sufficient scholar but no preacher. (fn. 12)
Samuel Hieron, who conformed as curate of Newnham in 1662, had been a Presbyterian in 1648. (fn. 13)
From 1800 to 1847 James Parsons, editor of the
Oxford Septuagint, was perpetual curate; (fn. 14) he lived
at Littledean and employed stipendiary curates to
serve Newnham. (fn. 15) One of the curates, known there
in 1812 as Thomas White, gained great favour, but
was later found not to be in holy orders and to have
defrauded various inhabitants of money, and was
imprisoned on a charge of forgery. (fn. 16) Parsons's
successor, E. C. Brice, remained vicar until his
death at Newnham in 1881. (fn. 17) In 1875 he opened at
Bullo a mission room, with a Sunday school, (fn. 18)
which remained in use until the 1920s. (fn. 19) In 1880 he
introduced a surpliced choir to the parish church for
the first time. (fn. 20)
The church of ST. PETER, so called in 1310, (fn. 21)
originally stood on the Nab by the river's edge. In
the 14th century it was replaced, on a new site at
the top of the town, by a church that was largely
rebuilt in 1875; the new building was mostly
destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1881.
The church on the earlier site, described c. 1230
as the great church of Newnham standing near the
little way going down to the pill, (fn. 22) was built or
rebuilt in the 12th century, as is clear from features
that were moved to the new church and survived
in 1968: the font described below, a mutilated
tympanum, (fn. 23) a small round-headed doorway reset
above the south doorway to the building of 1881,
and other fragments. In addition, a late-12th- or
early-13th-century chancel arch (fn. 24) survived until the
rebuilding of 1875. Two early-18th-century accounts
of the church recall how the ancient spire church
standing by the Nab's end was taken down for fear
that it should fall because the earth around its
foundations was being washed away; one account
says that the old materials were used to build the
little church at the south end of the town. (fn. 25) Each
account describes the move as though it were
relatively recent, although it was in fact 350 years
earlier. Reference in 1833 to a close above the Nab
as the old profane churchyard (fn. 26) confirms the
position of the old church; the close became the site
and garden of the house called Riverdale, afterwards
Brightlands School, where in 1884 a large number
of human bones were found. (fn. 27)
The site of the new church was said to have been
given by Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, (fn. 28)
who succeeded to that title in 1361 and died in
1373. (fn. 29) It was presumably as the result of the
rebuilding on the new site that Bishop Charlton in
1366 dedicated Newnham church, which was then
said to be at the end of the town, situated by the
High Street. In addition to the high altar, which he
dedicated in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul and
two of his predecessors, the bishop dedicated an
altar on the north side to the Virgin, St. Mary
Magdalen, and St. Catherine and one on the south
side to the Holy Cross, and also dedicated the
churchyard. (fn. 30)
Up to 1875 the church comprised nave, chancel,
south aisle, small south transept, north porch, and
west tower. The doorway within the porch was of
the 12th century (fn. 31) and may have been surmounted
by the tympanum mentioned above; the east wall of
the porch retains a blocked ogee-headed light of the
14th century. By 1710 the upper part of the spire
was replaced, in order to lessen the weight on the
walls, by a low wooden spire, (fn. 32) but the tower was
rebuilt as a pinnacled and embattled structure of
three stages (fn. 33) after a faculty had been granted in
1832. (fn. 34) The church was too small for the population,
and in 1821, when there were already two galleries,
two more were authorized. (fn. 35) It was perhaps to light
them that the nave windows were remodelled; they
may earlier have been similar to the two-light 14thcentury window in the tower that survived c. 1860. (fn. 36)
By 1875 the lychgate at the north-west corner of the
churchyard had been built. (fn. 37)
In 1875, to the designs of Waller & Son, the
chancel and south aisle were rebuilt on a larger
scale, the upper stage of the tower was rebuilt with
a short spire, and north and south vestries were
added. (fn. 38) The fire of 1881 destroyed most of the
fabric except the tower, (fn. 39) but the rebuilding that
followed was intended to restore exactly what had
been there before. (fn. 40)
No ancient memorial monument survives in the
church. The 12th-century font, archaeologically the
most interesting feature, (fn. 41) has an arcaded bowl with
somewhat rudely carved figures of the twelve
apostles standing in the niches. (fn. 42) The church bells
were recast in 1603, (fn. 43) and again in 1696, when there
were four. (fn. 44) John Rudhall recast the bells and added
a fifth in 1810. Another bell, by Llewellyn and
James, was added in 1868, (fn. 45) and two more in 1889. (fn. 46)
A new ring of eight bells by Mears and Stainbank
was dedicated in 1894. (fn. 47) A church clock was recorded in 1686; the churchwardens bought a new
clock with a bell in 1743, (fn. 48) but clock and chime both
had to be repaired in 1752. (fn. 49) In 1895 the bequest of
John Hill (d. 1893) provided for a new clock and
carillon. (fn. 50) The church had a barrel-organ in the
1860s; (fn. 51) a new organ by Forster and Andrews of
Hull was provided after 1881 and rebuilt in 1955. (fn. 52)
The church plate in 1548 still included two chalices,
though 26 oz. of plate had been sold. (fn. 53) In 1968 the
church retained a paten of 1714, but none of the
other plate was older than the 19th century. (fn. 54) The
registers begin in 1547, and have a gap for the
period 1640-51.