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St Mary’s Church ...

Introduction

Just how long there has been a church building on the present site will probably never be known. Sixteen burials lying north south were exposed some years ago by building works in Wyman's Close. A small-long brooch of mid-sixth type dated the burials to that era.  The fact that they were buried north-south would indicate a pagan burial, Christian burials were east-west.

It must be assumed that Christianity came to the Saxon settlement at Borne period after that date. That does not mean that a church was built here in Saxon times. Had there been such a church It would have been constructed of wood, which would have been pulled down when the present structure was built. There is no reference to a church in the Doomsday Book, but as this survey was purely economic many such buildings were not mentioned.

The first mention of a church comes some hundred years later. Rev. Marlow in his "History of Bozeat Village" (pages 4 & 5) writes that David, King of Scotland, owned part of the land In Bozeat parish.

St Mary’s Church in Bozeat village

Framed picture of the Church floor plan

The clock mechanism in the church tower

Daily winding up of the clock

In common with most Midland villages Bozeat did not have one single manor or one single overlord, but three divisions of land are evident in the Doomsday Survey. David became King of the Scots in 1124, owning land in England. This was common practice at the time, when great landowners would own land not only in many different counties in England, but also in different countries, such as Normandy.

Hugh de Morville known to have been in service as Constable to David by 1130, having oversight of his lands. including those held in Bozeat. Hugh married Beatrice de Beauchamp to whom Bozeat Church was given as part of her dowry, or wedding gift, given to her husband on the occasion of their marriage.

When Hugh de Morville died in 1162 the advowson (or the right of presentation of a cleric to the parish) was placed in the hands of Dryburgh Abbey by his widow Beatrice. So we can say that we have the first mention of Bozeat Church about the middle of the 12th century.

This may have been the first stone structure which is Norman, the tower and Norman arch being classed by Pesvener as late Norman (the Norman period of architecture covering the period 1066-1189) and so the structure of Morville's day could very well be that building.

Another site of interest is:
The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain and Ireland and gives much information of interior and exterior features as a digital archive of British and Irish Romanesque stone sculpture.  Click here for the link.

There is an A to Z of the web site which summarises the content of our web pages ......

You are able to reach us by email -  villageteam@bozeat.info with comments and suggestions
for new pages, links to other sites of interest that we can include within this website.
Please look at the magazine page for the diary dates for the village.