overty of
the house, and the fact that the church was not only a place for poor
religious men, but also a parish church to the town and hamlets round
about, whose inhabitants numbered from fifteen to sixteen hundred, that
there was no place where any honest man on horseback or on foot might
have succour or repose for the space of eight or nine miles, "but only
this poor place of Christchurch, to which both rich and poor doth repair
and repose." He goes on to say how it was of late years a place of
secular canons, until the king's antecessors made it a place of canons
regular, that "the poor, not only of the parish and town, but also of
the country, were daily relieved and sustained with bread and ale,
purposely baked and brewed for them weekly to no small quantities
according to their foundation, and a house ordained purposely for
them, and officers according duly given attendance to serve them
to their great comfort and relief." But all the pleading was in vain.
Commissioners were appointed, who presented their report to Lord
Cromwell December 2, 1539. They say that "we found the Prior a very
honest and conformable person, and the house well furnished with jewels
and plate, whereof some be meet for the king's majesty's use." Then
follows a list of the treasures of the abbey, of the yearly value of
the several endowments, and of the officers of the Priory, thirteen in
number besides the Prior. Prior Draper retired on a pension, and the
site of the domestic buildings was conveyed to Stephen and Margaret
Kirton. The domestic buildings themselves gradually disappeared, but the
whole of the church was handed over to the parish as a church, the grant
to the churchwardens being made by letters patent 23 October 32 Henry
VIII. It conveyed to them "the choir body, bell-tower with seven bells,
stones, timber, lead of roofing and gutters of the church and the
cemetery on the north side." Since then the church has been served by
vicars, the patronage being in the hands of the dean and chapter of
Winchester until the nineteenth century, when the advowson was purchased
by Lord Malmesbury. The living is now in the gift of the Bishop of
Winchester.

During the present century much restoration has been done. The nave was
vaulted in stucco in 1819; the west window was taken in hand in 1828;
the pinnacles of the tower and the upper part of the turret containing
the stairs were renewed in 1871; and constant repairs have been going on
up