Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2008 | Page 47

FEATURE
Revd. Mark Whatson,
Rector of St. Agnes

with flower arrangements around the
church including one in the porch Lady
Tennyson gave in memory of her mother.
Outside the entrance were two topiary
trees made of lavender, chyrysanthemums
and daisies and inside, each display had a
theme like ‘The Poet Laureate who resided
at Farringford’, showing Tennyson’s cloak
and hat, an inkpot and quill and a book
of poems and on the other side of the
church, one for his friend and admirer,
Julia Margaret Cameron. The Summer
Holiday Haven and Walking Centre had
chosen a bucket, spade and flowers and a

www.wightfrog.com/islandlife

walking boot filled
with heather from
Headon Warren
while the new organ
was decorated
with a music book,
lilies, gladioli and
carnations.
“Today is a day
for celebration,”
said Revd. Mark
Whatson, Rector
of St. Agnes’
Church, attended
during the service
by Archdeacon
Caroline Baston.
We sang, “Gloria
in Excelsis”, the
organ music and
our singing rising
to the rafters.
“The new organ
cost £8.000,” the
organist, Chris
Mackay, told me
afterwards, “but the
old one sounded
like a box of
whistles.”
The wind
was blowing round the church, rain
streamed down the windows as the Dean
of Portsmouth, the Very Revd. David
Brindley, said in his sermon, “The church
is like a lifeboat station for saving souls,
a base to go out from”. But a hundred
years ago the people of Freshwater Bay
didn’t have their sturdy church, instead
they had to use ‘The Iron Room’ for
services. The building was hot in summer
and cold in the winter, prompting the
rector of Freshwater at that time, the
Revd. A.J. Robertson, to make a water

life

colour of his idea for a
real church in the Bay. An
architect, Mr. I. Jones, drew
up a design for a church
from the painting and it was
Lord Tennyson’s wife, Lady
Tennyson, who suggested that
the church be dedicated to St.
Agnes, a Virgin Martyr saint
whom she admired.
An appeal for subscriptions
for building the new church
raised £679.7s.3d.towards the
total cost of £1,000 and the
structure was built of stone
from an old derelict farm
house on Hooke Hill, Freshwater, but the
1622 date stone integrated into the vestry
wall often misleads people into thinking
St. Agnes is a 17th century church. On
August 12th, 1908, the little thatched
church was consecrated by Bishop Ryle,
then Bishop of Winchester.
This year to celebrate the centenary an
evening concert was held in the church
on August 12th, the actual date of St.
Agnes’ 100th anniversary. Organised
by Julia Sheard, it was a combination of
items suitable for St. Agnes 1,700 years
ago and for the poet, Alfred Tennyson.
Peter King, Bath Abbey organist, played
‘Evensong’ by Easthope Martin and
Sandy Hunt composed and conducted the
arrangement, ‘St. Agnes’, for cello, viola
and violin.
Gardens were featured by Tennyson’s
poems, ‘Come into the garden, Maude’
sung by Robin Lang and ‘The Flower’
sung by the children’s choir. The children
also recited ‘The Lamb’ by William Blake
as St. Agnes is often represented in art
with a lamb at her feet or in her arms.
Emily Strode and Michael Bell gave
readings and mezzo soprano Theresa Shaw
sang Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear my Prayer’.
I asked Alan Titchmarsh (the Dean had
said in his sermon that he’d discovered
St. Agnes was also the patron saint of
gardeners) how he felt about the church.
“St. Agnes must be one of the most
beautiful small churches in the country,”
he said. “Sir John Betjeman rightly
championed St. Enodoc in Cornwall and
I think the Isle of Wight can boast a
church every bit as impressive. St. Agnes
is handsome, well proportioned but, above
all, friendly and welcoming as a church