CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF PORTSEA, 1794-1847 EDITED , WITH HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, BY CANON ROBERT E. SCANTLEBURY
The City of Portsmouth stands on the Island of Portsea . The Borough of Portsmouth now includes the whole island and its boundaries extend even beyond the island itself . This, however , is a fairly recent development . * Originally the town of Portsmouth was walledin and was confined largely to what is now known as old Portsmouth, mainly the area around the High Street, extending as far as the Gunwharf (now H.M.S. Vernon) on one side and halfway down the Hot Walls on the other. There were two parish churches St. Thomas's ( now the Protestant Cathedral ) for the town of Portsmouth, and St. Mary's, Portsea , outside the walls. Portsmouth Common, later known as Portsea , was divided from Portsmouth by the Milldam a branch of the Harbour, which ran inland as far as Lake Road . In 1775 a writer described Portsea as " a kind of suburb or additional town to Portsmouth . About 80 years ago this was a common field with only one hovel upon it " (William G. Gates, Illustrated History of Portsmouth , Portsmouth, 1900, p. 351 ) . " The district formerly known as Portsmouth Common was first called the Town of Portsea by the authority of the Act 32 Geo. III , Cap. 103 (1792 ) (ibid., pp. 348, 707 ) . The old seal of Portsmouth, still incorporated in the City's arms, shows Our Lady, St. Nicholas , and St. Thomas of Canterbury to have been the patron saints of the town, § and the inscription round reads : Portum : Virgo: Juva, Nicholae : Fove, Roge : Thoma . The names of the incumbentsin the early sixteenth century were : Vicar of Portsea in 1509 Robert Adam, who had previously been Vicar of Portsmouth in 1507 , and Thomas Adams was Vicar of Portsea in 1534; the Vicar of Portsmouth in 1523 was William Watson, and in 1534 Nicholas Damyas (Gates , Hist. of Portsmouth , pp . 36, 50 ). At the time of the Reformation feelingran high in Portsmouth ... the people destroyed the image of St. John the Evangelist in St. Thomas's Church, broke a table of alabaster, and bored out one eye and pierced the sides of an image of Christ crucified (ibid., p. 45) . Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, wrote to Edward Vaughan , Captain of Portsmouth, on 3 May 1547 (Tierney's Dodd , ii, p. xi ) : " Within these two days have I heard of a great and detestable innovation in the town of Portsmouth, where the images of Christ and his saints have been most contemptuously pulled down and spitefully handled. * Portsea was said to have 4,393 houses and 25,387 inhabitants in 1813 while Portsmouth had 1,130 houses and 7,839 inhabitants ( Benjamin Pitts Caper , A Topographical Dictionary of the United Kingdom, London, 1813). This church is still known as St. Mary's , Portsea, though it is now in Kingston . Hence the Milldam Barracks, which still exist . There was a chapel dedicated to Our Lady; St. Nicholas was the patron saint of mariners and the Hospital Domus Dei was dedicated to him , and St. Thomas was the patron saint of the town church.
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