ST. MARK'S CHURCH.
At the beginning of the last century. Stokes Bay with
its fine uninterrupted view of the Solent and the Isle
of Wight, its beach and its good fishing became
recognised as a most desirable place to live. It
attracted people like Lord Ashburton, the Marchioness of
Bath. the Rt. Hon. John Wilson Croker who built
Alverbank. senior naval and military officers and many
distinguished people.
In 1826 the Marquis of Anglesey laid the first stone of
what later became the Village of Anglesey or
Angleseyville. The village boasted a commodious Bath
House, Reading Room, bathing machines, a pier built by
the London & South Western Railway from which passengers
embarked for the Isle of Wight ferryboats, terraces and
villas, and rapidly developed into a flourishing and
fashionable watering place.
In 1840 Mr. Robert Cruickshank expressed the wish to
build a Church in Anglesey Village. This was strongly
resisted by the Rector, Samuel Wilberforce who felt that
an extension to the parish Church where more free seats
were urgently needed would be of grater value to the
parish than the erection of a new church not more than
half a mile away. The letters which were written by Mr.
Cruickshank, the Rector, and the Bishop of Winchester
over this prolonged and controversial issue are still in
our possession and make interesting reading. The Church
of St. Mark was however built and finally consecrated on
August 13th, 1844, as a Chapel of Ease to St. Mary's.
After an undistinguished history, the Church was
demolished in 1911.
On the north-east wall of St. Mary's, the wall on the
left of the door which leads from the nave into the
vestry, there are a number of brasses to the various
members of the Cruickshank family and one brass plate
which bears the inscription " These brasses were removed
from their original position over the vault of the above
named family in St. Mark's Church. Anglesey, on the
demolition of that Church, November 1911." Behind this
brief inscription there is a story which gives us a
glimpse of an interesting facet of Victorian social
history and tells us something of the personalities who
played a prominent part in the Church and State at that
time.
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