Christchurch Priory

Christchurch Priory stands in the town of Christchurch in Dorset, beside the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour. It is one of the longest parish churches in England and its size rivals many Church of England cathedrals. The present building occupies the site of an earlier church recorded in 800 AD. A Norman church began here in 1094 under Ranulf Flambard, a chief minister of William II. Local legend tells how building materials moved one night from St Catherine’s Hill to the priory site. By about 1150 the Normans had completed a nave, central tower and quire. The priory’s long history is preserved in the Christchurch Priory Cartulary, a collection of over 1,300 documents copied by two clerks and finished in 1372. The cartulary was lost after the Dissolution, rediscovered in the British Museum in 1837 and is now in the British Library. Among its stories is the legend of the miraculous beam, said to have been shortened by Christ himself. The beam still lies in the ambulatory where visitors can see it. The priory also holds 39 misericords carved between 1250 and 1515, showing mythological, folkloric and biblical scenes. Inside, the nave reaches its present height from the 14th century and the Lady Chapel was added soon after. The central tower was rebuilt between 1470 and 1480 after an earlier collapse. The Draper and Salisbury chantry chapels were completed by 1529, giving the church its present form. A monument to Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, by sculptor Henry Weekes, was placed here in 1854. The priory remains the parish church and a place where centuries of craftsmanship and legend meet.