Church Of St Boniface (Old Church)

Church of St Boniface (Old Church)

A small Norman church comprising a 12th-century nave and 13th-century chancel, built of Isle of Wight stone rubble with 20th-century tiled roofs. The church was restored by architect Percy Stone in 1923 and 1931. A west bellcote dates to around 1830.

The plan consists of a three-bay nave with west bellcote, south porch, and a lower two-bay chancel. The nave features stone coping to the gable ends with kneelers and a cross-shaped saddlestone to the east. The west end displays a paired round-headed window, a square buttress, and a square stone bellcote with small round-headed bell openings surmounted by a cross-shaped saddlestone. The south wall of the nave contains two paired round-headed windows with leaded lights. A large gabled central south porch, topped with a cross-shaped saddlestone and kneelers, contains a simple round-headed arched doorway with a studded door probably dating to the 17th century, with a buttress to the east. The north side of the nave has no windows. The lower chancel features a paired round-headed window with leaded lights and a lancet window on the south side. The east end displays a paired trefoil-headed window and buttress. The north side has a lancet window.

The interior has plastered walls with incised lines imitating masonry (except for the upper part of the north wall) and a tiled floor. A circa 1900 photograph shows a plain round-headed chancel arch which Percy Stone embellished around 1930 with carved impost blocks and dogtooth ornament. He also added a step leading into the chancel and refurbished the nave roof at the same time. The chancel has a further two steps by the altar, wooden altar rails (not shown in the circa 1900 photograph), and a deep splay to the east window.

The most significant interior feature is the remains of Romanesque wall paintings on the upper part of the north wall of the nave, dating to the first third of the 12th century. These include parts of two draped figures, a tower-like structure, and swags decorated with stars. The top of this painting was lost when the height of the wall was reduced at a later date. The chancel contains a 17th-century Flemish wooden cross behind the altar on a base with winged cherubs, scrolls, and swags, brought here in the early 19th century. A 1943 photograph records a circular tooled stone font in the nave.

The church was founded by monks from the abbey of Lyra in Normandy who had been granted the tithes of Luccombe and Bonchurch by William Fitz Osborne, Lord of the Island. However, the dedication to Saint Boniface, a Saxon saint who joined the Benedictine monastery at Nursling in Hampshire in 700 AD, later became Archbishop of Mainz, and was martyred at Dokkum in North Holland in 755 AD, suggests there was a Saxon church on the same site. According to legend, Saint Boniface preached here to fishermen during missions from the Benedictine monastery. The parish of Bonchurch first appears in Domesday Book as Bonecerce, a contraction of Boniface with "cerce," the Anglo-Saxon word for church. The list of Rectors of Bonchurch begins in 1283. King Charles I was brought here from his prison at Carisbrooke Castle to attend the burial of Sir Ralph Chamberlayne. The poet Algernon Swinburne was baptised here. The church ceased to be used as the parish church of Bonchurch in 1848 when a new church was consecrated. An unmarked grave in the churchyard contains the Chevalier D'Aux, leader of the French, who was killed in the 1545 attack on Bonchurch. John Sterling, the writer and poet (died 1844), and William Adams, Church of England clergyman and author (died 1848), are also buried in the churchyard.