Docking

The Church of St. Mary the

Virgin, Docking

The oldest visible parts of St Mary’s are in the chancel, which was built shortly before the Black Death of 1348. It is highly likely, though that there was a church on this site long before that. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book and in the year 1038 it was mentioned in documents linked with Aelfric, Bishop of Elmham.. The church tower is magnificent and was completed around the year 1415. This was the year of the battle of Agincourt and the period when Henry V dissolved any alien priories that were sending money across the Channel to support mother- houses in France. Docking church was one of these and belonged to a Priory in Normandy. Once confiscated by Henry V the church title was passed first to Joan, Dowager Queen of England, and later by Henry VI to Eton College in 1441.  An ancient record refers to a tomb in the cemetery by the South porch with the Latin inscription - “John Houton 1428, pray for his soul”.  The very old horizontal tombstone to the East of the porch near the South wall of the nave is just about identifiable as that of John Houton, though the inscription is badly eroded. It is extremely rare to find a churchyard grave with an inscription as early as this one. Victorian restoration started early here with a new roof and seats put into the church in 1838. By the year 1875 the people of Docking were dissatisfied with the size and quality of their church. So a London architect, Mr. F. Preedy, was engaged to enlarge the church and raise the height of the nave roof. He designed the whole of the North aisle with its apex roof, the vestry, the organ chamber, the slate roof to the nave and new pews in 1875/6 all for a cost of £4314. The Hare family were the main donors and the balance was raised by public subscription. The 15th century font is Docking Church’s greatest architectural treasure. The carvings on it were mutilated at the Reformation, possibly in compliance with the order of the regents of the boy king, Edward VI, that statues were to be removed from churches. Around the stem are eight female saints, including St Catherine, St Margaret, St Elizabeth, St Mary and St Apollonia. The latter is the patron saint of dentists and can be identified by the rather large pair of forceps that she is grasping in her hand. Around the bottom of the bowl you can see the emblems of the gospel writers St Luke, St Mark, St Matthew & St John – the bull, lion, winged man and eagle. St Mary’s church also has close links to our village school and regularly hosts school services and visits.  As a church we also have our KIDS’ AM group – a monthly children’s club that meets on a Saturday morning for craft, cooking games and singing.  Docking also has a family service and a family communion each month where children play a leading role in our worship as a church community.

St Henry Walpole, Docking’s Saint

Docking’s parish records include a record of the baptism of Henry Walpole in 1558 – right at the end of the reign of Queen Mary I. Henry was born to a wealthy land-owning family and was educated first at Norwich School before going on to study at Peterhouse in Cambridge and Grays Inn in London, where he studied law. Henry was sympathetic to the Catholic faith at a time when Catholicism was being supressed by Queen Elizabeth’s ministers. In 1581 he was present at the execution of Edmund Campion, a Jesuit priest, and was spattered by his blood. Campion’s martyrdom for his faith inspired Henry to leave England and go into exile in France where he studied and became a Jesuit priest himself. During the war between Spain and the Netherlands, he served as a chaplain to the Spanish army and was taken prisoner. On his release he ministered for a while at the Jesuit College in Valladolid in Spain before being asked to join the mission to England. This was a very dangerous calling, for by the time Henry set out for England it was treason to be a Jesuit in England – and offence punishable by death. Henry planned to land in his native Norfolk, but stormy weather meant that his ship was taken up past Norfolk and on to the coast of Yorkshire. Henry landed near Bridlington and, because the authorities had been warned that he was coming, he was captured within a day of his arrival in the country. He was sent to the Tower of London for examination under torture and has the dubious honour of having been the most tortured Jesuit priest of that period. After his examination Henry was returned to York for trial where he was convicted of treason. He was hung, drawn and quartered in York on the 7th April 1595. Together with 39 others he was canonised by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970 and it was in that year that the Roman Catholic Church in Burnham Market was dedicated to St Henry Walpole – Docking’s saint. Today, St Mary’s church has close links to the church of St Henry Walpole and our two congregations join together in remembering St Henry in Burnham Market in April (the month when he died), and in Docking in October (the month of his birth). We worship and pray together in the hope that we might never see the hatred and the intolerance that led to St Henry’s torture and death ever repeated in our villages, or between our churches, again.

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Information

Postcode: PE31 8LH Church Place Docking