At the heart of the small town of Sherborne, in Dorset, the abbey unfolds one of the finest fan vaults in England. A masterpiece of the transition between late Gothic and Renaissance, it also offers a fine example of how a local community saved its church from the wreck of the Dissolution.
A vault of stone in lace
The glory of Sherborne is its fan vault, which covers the nave and choir: completed around 1490 by the master mason William Smyth, it ranks among the most accomplished in the realm. These fan vaults, where the stone spreads in ribbed corollas of astonishing complexity, are a typically English invention of the late Perpendicular Gothic — the equivalent, in the art of building, of what the Renaissance was elsewhere. The architectural historian Simon Jenkins wrote that he 'would set it against any contemporary work of the Italian Renaissance'.
The buy-back by the townsfolk
Sherborne was a Benedictine abbey. At the Dissolution of 1539, it might have been demolished like so many others. But Sir John Horsey, who acquired it, resold it to the townsfolk of Sherborne, who made it their parish church — thus saving it from destruction. This pattern of reconversion, where a community buys back the old abbey church for its own use, allowed some of the finest religious buildings in England to be preserved. In 1550, the young king Edward VI granted by charter a foundation to Sherborne School, prolonging the educational vocation of the place. To see: the fan vault, the tombs of the kings of Wessex (Æthelbald and Æthelberht), the rose-tinted stone marking a fire of 1437, the Wykeham Chapel (Horsey tombs).
Did you know?
The stone of Sherborne keeps, in places, a strange rosy tint: it dates from a fire of 1437. That year, a violent conflict between the monks and the parishioners, over the baptismal font, turned to a riot; a burning arrow set fire to the choir, melting the lead of the roof and the bells. The heat reddened the stone for ever — the coloured scar of a parish quarrel become a blaze.
Notes
Sherborne Abbey lies at Sherborne, Dorset; a working parish (abbey) church, open to visits. Hours to check.
Quiz
- What is exceptional about Sherborne Abbey?
- Its fan vault (c. 1490)
- Its gilded dome
- Its Roman mosaics
- How was the abbey saved at the Dissolution?
- Bought back by the townsfolk as a parish church
- Protected by the pope
- Hidden underground
- Where does the rosy tint of the stone come from?
- From a fire in 1437
- From a recent wash
- From the natural colour of the limestone