In the last years of the eighteenth century, Shute Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury, commissioned James Wyatt to carry out repairs to Salisbury Cathedral. In an act that would be described as ‘outrageous’ by later generations, Wyatt removed an ancient porch. The Dean and Chapter, recognising that prominent citizen Henry Penruddocke Wyndham knew how to ‘appreciate such curious monuments of antiquity’, presented him with the ‘elegant remnant’ which he re-erected as a feature in his garden.
The porch is said to have started life as part of a cross in Old Sarum, and was reused as the north porch when the present cathedral was constructed in New Sarum, or Salisbury, in around 1250. According to local histories, the ‘miserably truncated’ cross was covered with a flat roof of lead and functioned as a porch for five centuries until Shute Barrington’s renovations in the late eighteenth century.
As the title photograph shows, the garden ornament is looking a little battered in its old age, but happily an enchanting array of images record its appearance when first moved to its new home.
Wyndham’s family home was St Edmund’s College, a former ecclesiastical building later converted into a private residence. The garden had been laid out to an undated plan by the landscape designer Richard Woods (1715-1793). Woods had suggested that a summerhouse might be placed in a corner of the garden, with a view to the house and church, so the antiquarian Wyndham (1736-1819) knew the perfect spot for the summerhouse and eye-catcher he created by embellishing the ancient cross.
It was Wyatt himself who oversaw the taking down of the porch and its re-erecting in Wyndham’s garden. The porch was dismantled in May 1791 and carted to Wyndham’s grounds. During the summer Wyatt’s masons carved pinnacles and cut stone to make the spire, with work complete by September when Wyatt submitted his bill.
A Latin inscription on a sheet of lead was placed over the east arch inside the building. It is long gone, but it is known to have recorded that the porch was rebuilt in Wyndham’s garden in 1791, having formerly stood in Old Sarum and then at Salisbury Cathedral.
Wyndham’s house and grounds were sold in the late nineteenth century, with much of the land being developed for housing. The house and ten acres of garden were purchased by the Reverend George Hugh Bourne, who lived there until his death in 1925.
In 1927, on the 700th anniversary of Salisbury receiving its charter, the house and grounds on Bourne Hill were purchased by the city to create new municipal offices. The park was opened to the public and the porch, by now shaded by trees, became known to some locally as the Devil’s Arch.
Earlier this year work was carried out to restore the porch (grade II). Rusting iron clamps were removed, and old cement repairs were replaced with lime mortar. Note that although local histories date the porch to the days of Old Sarum, the information boards in Bourne Hill Gardens call it the ’15th Century Porch’.
This remarkable survival deserves to be better known, so do visit if you are in the area. Bourne Hill Gardens (grade II) are always open. Bourne Hill continues to house offices of Wiltshire County Council. St Edmund’s Church is now an arts centre.
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