Day 274 - Hythe town tour

The Hythe town
symbol.

When a local offers to provide a tour of their town, you should be sure to take them up on it. Each Thursday morning at 10:30 during the spring/summer tourist season, a member of the Hythe community provides a tour for the nominal fee of £1. Can't beat that. So we joined a few other people to see if we could discover any further interesting tidbits about the place we're calling home for two weeks.

Boys have been dirtying market squares for centuries
obviously.

Our tour started at the Town Hall which was built in 1794. The ground floor was once an open market, with a carriage entrance at each end. A story goes that a local man sold his wife at this market, and this sale is thought to be behind Thomas Hardys' opening to The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Inside Hythe's Council Chamber.

Exterior of the
town hall.

Council's chambers are on the upper floor. When Hythe was made one of the Cinq ports, it was allowed to set its own laws and collect taxes. a bailiff was effectively head of the town beginning in the 1200s. Subsequently, Queen Elizabeth I decreed that the town should have an elected mayor (choosing the first one herself). Every bailiff and mayor for each and every year since is written on the back wall of the Council Chamber.

Stained glass window
in Canterbury Cathedral's
Chapter House depicting
Thomas Becket.

On the tour, we discovered that the town has links to the murder of Thomas Becket. Becket was the Archbishop of nearby Canterbury from 1162 to 1170 when he was murdered. Becket had been the closest friend of Henry II, when Henry appointed him as Archbishop. Henry saw this appointment as a way to disrupt the power held by the rich bishops and abbots of the Church. While the Church swore loyalty to the king, they insisted that their true allegiance was to God and  the Pope in Rome. Henry stated that the church was subject to the law of the land. On becoming Archbishop, Becket surprised Henry by insisting that the Church was above that law and should retain power over its own.

Stained glass window
from Canterbury Cathedral
depicting Becket's murder.

At a Great Council meeting held at Northampton Castle in 1164, Becket's loyalty to the king was question and he was denounced as a traitor. Becket fled to France. While there, Becket excommunicated three bishops who supported Henry. In 1170, the Pope threatened to excommunicate Henry, so Henry allowed Becket to return to England. Upon his return, Becket refused to overturn the excommunication of the bishops. Enraged, Henry is said to have shouted, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" A few of those listening are thought this to have meant that the king wanted Becket dead.

St. Leonard's Church in Hythe.

Four knights sailed to England from France, allegedly arriving at Hythe at the seaside in front of what is now the Town Hall. They are thought to have gone up the pathway to St. Leonard's Church, where they stopped for the evening before heading on to Canterbury. They reached Canterbury Cathedral the next day, on December 29, where they found Becket before the High Altar. Accounts of what followed vary, but it is thought the knights demanded that Becket restore the bishops and pass legal power over the clergy to the king. When Becket refused, they murdered him violently. It is said that Henry was horrified when he heard the news and in penitence he donned sackcloth and ashes, and starved himself for three days. However, he did not arrest the knights, instead encouraging them to flee to Scotland.

Miracles were said to almost immediately begin happening that were attributed to Becket, and he was canonized in 1173. Pilgrimages began to Canterbury Cathedral, with many of those from the European continent coming ashore at Hythe.

As an aside, it's interesting that we started this trip in Alton by walking along part of The Pilgram's Way that went from Winchester to Canterbury, and now as we near the end of our adventure, we unintentionally find ourselves at this end of the pilgrimage.

But back to our tour, which took in the Military Canal and environs before ending at the bottom of Three Posts Lane, on which we have our cottage. We wanted to explore the church on our own, but it was closed for the next couple of hours, so we took a rest until mid-afternoon when it re-opened. St. Leonard's has been here for almost a thousand years, and along with its cemetery seems to cling to the hillside. The church contains some beautiful stained glass windows, including the one here dedicated to a 19-year old man who died on the Somme in 1916. I have to admit, the peaceful expression on the young man's face brought tears to my eyes.

St Leonard's is most famous for its ossuary, or bone house. The church is home to the largest and best-preserved collection of ancient human bones and skulls in Britain (there is one other ossuary in the UK). The more than 1,000 skulls are arranged on shelves in a crypt, while thigh bones and other skulls have been arranged neatly in a large stack. The crypt is below the chancel and is unique in that it is accessible by large external doors at either end of the long passage. Theories as to why the ossuary exists vary, although one suggests they were bones removed from the graveyard when an section was added to the church. Another theory suggests they were removed to make way for new graves. The bones date from the 13th century onward. Several small displays in cabinets show skulls and leg bones showing signs of various diseases and accidents.

Entrance door to the ossuary at St. Leonard's in Hythe.
You can make out some of the skulls through the door's window.

Sadly, on the previous Sunday, someone broke into the ossuary and carried off 21 skulls all from one spot in the back corner of the room.