On 2 September 1823, the artist John Constable RA (1776-1837) made a pencil sketch of the west end of Sherborne Abbey.
Today, John Constable is probably more famous for his paintings of the Suffolk landscape, such as Flatford Mill (1816), The Hay Wain (1821) and The Cornfield (1826). But he also made a number of paintings of the West Country, including Osmington Bay (1816), Weymouth Bay: Bowleaze Cove and Jordon Hill (1816-17), Gillingham Bridge, Dorset (1823), Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds (c.1825), Parham’s Mill, Gillingham, Dorset (1826), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831), and Stonehenge (1835).
Constable’s connection with the West Country dated back to 1807, when his friend Dr John Fisher (1748-1825) was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury. In 1811, Dr Fisher introduced Constable to his nephew the Rev. John Fisher (1788-1832), who served as vicar of two Dorset parishes, Osmington (1813-1832) and Gillingham (1819-1832).
On 2 October 1816, John Constable was married at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in London to Maria Bicknell (1788-1828). The wedding was conducted by the Bishop of Salisbury, after which Constable and Maria spent their six-week honeymoon with the Rev. John Fisher and his wife at Osmington vicarage, near Weymouth.
In 1819, the Rev. John Fisher was appointed vicar of Gillingham, where Constable visited in 1820 and 1823. On 1 September 1823, the Rev. Fisher took Constable to Sherborne. Constable later wrote to Maria describing the visit: ‘Fisher took me a magnificent Ride to Sherborne: a fine old Town – with a magnificent Church finer than Salisbury Cathedral.’ The following day, Constable made a pencil sketch of the west end of Sherborne Abbey, the original of which is now held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum
There are a number of points of interests in Constable’s sketch. Firstly, it shows the west window of Sherborne Abbey as it appeared before the two lower rows of lights were added by the architect R.C. Carpenter during the 1849-51 restoration.
The sketch also shows the Abbey churchyard. For centuries the area around the Abbey was the parish burial ground for the town and surrounding villages and, by the time of Constable’s visit in 1823, the churchyard was overcrowded and untidy. It was not until 1856 that a new cemetery was opened on the western edge of the town and the Abbey churchyard was levelled, with about three feet of ‘grave mould’ removed to the new cemetery.
On the left of Constable’s sketch can be seen the overgrown remains of the north wall of All Hallows church (demolished between 1542 and 1550) and, built into the wall on the site of a side chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Northerne, the sloping roof of the sexton’s cottage. When the sexton’s cottage was demolished in 1854 it was on condition that there should be no access to the churchyard from the School premises.
Behind the sexton’s cottage can be seen the remains of the former monastic buildings, which are now home to the School Library. After the dissolution of the monastery in 1539, the buildings were purchased by Sir John Horsey, and from 1740 they became the Abbey Silk Mill. When Constable visited Sherborne in 1823 John Gouger was running a silk business from the premises, twisting raw silk into yarn for weaving. Additional factory space had been made in the building by the insertion of an extra floor in the roof space with light provided by dormer windows cut through the roof. Sketches made of this building before and after 1823 show the dormer windows in the roof, but for some reason Constable did not show them in his sketch. After Sherborne School acquired the building from Earl Digby in 1851, the architect R.C. Carpenter converted it for school use and removed the extra floor and the dormer windows.
Petit’s print of Sherborne Abbey, c.1850, provides an interesting comparison with John Constable’s sketch of 1823:
See also: John Constable at Gillingham (Gillingham Museum website)
Posted 29 August 2023 by Sherborne School Archives
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