Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FOUR.
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION.
X. EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY CHURCHES.

At the opening of the Nineteenth Century, as at the
beginning of the Seventeenth, the old town of Dover had
but two Churches, St. Mary's and St. James's — both of them
badly needing restoration and enlargement; but, before the
Century was half gone, two new ones had been raised — Holy
Trinity and Christ Church — and St. Mary's had been re-built.
The Church building boom began in the Pier District,
where a considerable area of reclaimed land had been
added to St. Mary's parish. There had never been
a Church in that, then populous, locality, except
a small building at Archcliffe Point called " The
Church of Our I,ady of Pity," which was too small for a
place of worship, bemg a thanksgiving oratory chapel erected
by a Northern nobleman in the Middle Ages as a memorial
of his having been saved from shipwreck at that point of
the coast, and it fell into ruin in the Sixteenth Century.
The building of Holy Trinity Church was not entirely a
local effort; half the money was contributed by the Par-
liamentary Commissioners for building Churches in populous
places, and the other half by public .subscription, the total
outlay being ;^7,973. The foundation stone of the Church
was laid by Dr. Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury, in
September, 1833; and the consecration took place in Septem-
ber, 1835. This Church was built on land reclaimed from
the sea in the Tudor Period, but at the time the Church
was built it was the centre of a thickly populated district
which in the two and a half intervening centuries had grown
up around the Harbour. The style of the Church is Gothic,
designed by Mr. W. Edmunds, of Margate.

The building of Christ Church for a district formed,
partly from St. Mary's parish and partly from Hougham,
was the next step in Dover Church building, the site of the
Church being beside the Folkestone Road in the area known
as Hougham-in-Dover. In March, 1843, the Board of
Ordnance gave the land, on condition that there should be
sittings reserved for about 160 soldiers. For the building
and endowment of the Church ;^4,6oo was subscribed; of
which £^i,ioo was invested as an endowment, and ;£3,5oo



198 ANNALS OF DOVER.

spent on the building. The trust deed was drawn in terms
providing that the successive incumbents should be of the
*' Low " division of the Church of England. The foundation
was laid on the 2nd August, 1843, and the Church consecrated
by Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the 13th June,
1844. The Church immediately became popular, and, owing
to the crowded congregations, north and south galleries were
added within the next seven years.

In the middle of the year 1843, the Rev. John Puckle,
Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, wrote: " I found myself free
to seek architect's advice, having during the first year after
my institution to thi.s ancient Vicarage cleared away all
parochial opposition to any work of Church restoration."
The clearance which the Vicar had had to make was very
considerable. His institution had been preceded by a popular
election, in which Mr. Puckle polled 737 votes, and his
principal opponent 550. That opposition continued active
after the Vicar's institution. His desire was to re-build the
Church entirely, with the exception of the tower and the
vestry, at an estimated cost of ;^4,6oo, but the parishioners
in vestry called for an independent survey and estimate ; and
three who undertook it — two builders and an architect —
reported that the Church could be put in repair completely
for ;^i,400. Mr. Puckle and his Churchwarden, Mr. VV.
Sankey, to settle the matter, offered to rel)uild the Church
entirely with the exception of the vestry and tower, and be
responsible for all the expense, if the vestry would contribute
^1,600. On those terms the re-building was undertaken,
on the plans of Mr. John Chessell Buckler, architect, of
Oxford. The tower and vestry being left standing, the
external appearance of the Church, viewed from Cannon
Street, was not much altered, and the principal feature of
the interior, the six western nave columns and their serai-
circular arches, were restored as though they had not been
touched, for, respecting these, Mr. Puckle said: "We
numbered and stored carefully each stone, so that in due
time we had only to replace them in the order in which they
were taken down ; and thus the cement in the joints is
literally the only thing in which the restored work is other
than that which our Saxon fathers built." Mr. Puckle and
his predecessor, Mr. Lyon, had a fondness for believing this
old Church was of Saxon origin, but a much greater authority
on Church architecture, the Sir. Stephen R. Glynne, Bart.,

says it is " of Norman origin," to which the most ancient
parts of the interior stand as silent witnesses.

The estimated cost of the re-building was ;£4,470,
towards which there was ;^i,8oo raised by subscriptions;
there was ;^8oo granted by the Church Building Commis-
sioners; and ;^i,6oo provided by the vestry on the security
of a church rate; leaving a floating balance of ;£27o, which
was soon afterwards liquidated.

The building of Christ Church and the re-building of
St. Mary's Church, while they were important results of the
Church revival in the first part of the Nineteenth Century,
are also memorials of a cleavage in the Church of
England, which was a marked feature in Dover and else-
where at that time. The Rev. John Puckle, who came to
St. Mary's, Dover, as the assistant minister under the Rev.
John Maule, in 1838, soon was generally esteemed as a
clergyman of much more than average ability, but he was
a High Churchman, in sympathy with the Oxford Movement.
The Low Churchmen in the parish were, no doubt, in a
majority at his first coming, but the well-to-do class were
his admirers, and they had means of influencing their
poorer neighbours, so it came to pass that, in 1842, when
there was a poll of the parish to choose a successor to the
Rev. John Maule, who had resigned, Mr. Puckle secured
187 more votes than Mr. Seaton, the Low Church candidate.
The defeated party had amongst them a great many earnest
men and women, who felt that it would be for the good of
Dover to seek Diocesan authority to build a new Church
in the Folkestone Road district, where there was a prospect
of a large population. The arrangements were soon made;
the Church rapidly built; and a minister whose views were
in accord with the large number who supported Mr. Seaton
drew great congregations. There was really no bitterness
between the congregations of St. Mary-the-Virgin and Christ
Church, but there was healthy rivalry, and it was owing to
the warmth engendered by the parochial contest that the
funds were so quickly raised to build Christ Church and to
re-build the ancient Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin. The
other two Churches, which had now come to be reckoned as
being within the boundaries of Dover — Charlton and Buck-
land, ancient parish Churches — were restored and enlarged
in the early part of the Nineteenth Century.



200 ANNALS OF DOVER.