The old parish of Newchurch is the largest in the island, stretching right across from Ryde to Ventnor, and having an area of about fourteen square miles. The rectorial tithes and the advowson of the vicarage were held by the abbey of Lire up to the suppression of the alien priories in 1414, when they were transferred to the abbey of Beaulieu.
The very name of Newchurch, though it may sound paradoxical, is in itself a proof of the antiquity of the fabric; it tells of the days when the old pre-Conquest church of humble dimensions was rebuilt in Norman days. The church now consists of chancel, nave with aisles, north and south transepts and tower over the porch. It is beautifully situated on high ground, at the top of a steep bank, overlooking a valley which runs down for some three miles east towards Sandown.
The oldest visible portion of the present building is the north wall of the chancel. This, with its three blunt lancet-lights, with no glass grooves and intended for shutters, dates back to the close of the 12th century, and may be termed Transitional Norman. Transepts were added to provide additional accommodation, probably for particular manors of this widespread parish, in the 13th century and this period belongs the widely-splayed lancet opening over the chancel arch, where the Sanctus bell may have hung.
The rose window in the gable of the west end of the nave, which was disclosed during a restoration of 1883, is the only remaining trace of 14th century work. Many alterations were made in the nave arcades, and windows inserted in the aisle walls during the 15th century. The reconstruction of the south porch and the building up on it of a tower, possibly of timber, was probably accomplished about 1450. The situation of the church, on ground which falls away steeply at the west, seems to have forbidden the erection of a tower in the usual place.
In the 16th century further work became necessary. The south chancel walls began to give way about 1520, and this necessitated the south and east walls being rebuilt; at the same time the south transept was re-modelled. The casing of the upper part of the tower with overlapping weather-boards after the fashion of several of the timber towers of Essex, and of a few in Surrey, Kent and Middlesex, was most likely accomplished in the 18th century, but have been a much older expedient.
The old Holy Table, of fairly good Jacobean design, now stands to the south of the alter for use as a credence. The pulpit, with a great clumsy canopy surmounted by a figure, is probably of the year 1725, which was the date when the south transept was extended some ten feet by the Dillingtons, who used it as their burying-place. Against the wall of this transept is a small brass, stating that this church, the ancient parish church of Ryde and Ventnor, “built by William FitzOsborne, cousin of William Rufus, in the 11th Century, was restored by the Revd. A. C. Dicker, vicar, in 1883”.
At the time of the restoration a boldly executed modern wood carving, generally described as a “Pelican in its Piety” was brought here from the Somersetshire church of Frome, and does duty as a lectern by being mounted on a most unsuitable stand. The queer thing about this spirited piece of carving is that the bird is not a pelican, but an eagle, and is represented as vulning itself for three young eaglets, a notion which even the romance of medieval natural history never assigned to this king of birds of prey! It was probably because of this blunder that he authorities of Frome church were glad to get rid of it.
Transcribed from “County Churches by J Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. Pub. 1911.
