Anchored in Stone: maritime memories in CCT churches

On the second Monday of each month, we welcome members of CCT to an exclusive lecture. Each lecture starts with a brief exploration of the historical and architectural highlights of one of the churches in our care. On Monday 10th March 2026, we welcomed Dan Snow to talk about Faith in the Ice: Shackleton, Survival, and the Spirit of Antarctica.

To become a member of CCT and enjoy access to exclusive monthly lectures and recordings of past lectures on CCTDigital from just £3.50 a month, sign up here on our website. Alternatively, email supporters@thecct.org.uk for more information.

We hope you enjoy this blog, which offers an overview of what our members discovered at the start of their monthly lecture.

At first glance, the churches of All Saints', Dodington, St Anthony's, Roseland, and St Cuthbert's, Holme Lacy would appear to have little in common, besides being in the care of Churches Conservation Trust. Each belongs to different architectural styles and time periods, and they are located in different regions of England. 

Each of these churches however contains traces of Britain’s long relationship with the sea. Within their walls are memorials to naval officers, sailors, and families whose lives were shaped by maritime service, imperial administration, and global exploration. Although these churches stand in rural landscapes far removed from the oceans, their monuments remind us that England’s parish churches often served as places where global careers were commemorated. Through sculpture, heraldry, and inscription, they preserve stories of voyages, naval service, and distant worlds.

The culture that produced explorers like Shackleton, as featured in our recent lecture with Dan Snow, was rooted in a much older maritime tradition, which can often be found in parish churches. 
 

Our first church stands quietly within the Somerset countryside. All Saints’ Church at Dodington appears, at first sight, to be a typical rural parish church. But inside the building serves as a memorial to a significant naval figure of the early nineteenth century.

Admiral Sir Edward Codrington served in the Royal Navy during what was coined at the time as the great age of naval warfare that accompanied Britain’s global expansion. He commanded HMS Orion at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, one of the most decisive naval engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. Later in his career he commanded the allied fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, a battle that helped secure Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Codrington’s memorial at Dodington illustrates the close relationship between parish churches and the culture of naval commemoration. Yet his story also reminds us that maritime history is rarely straightforward. Codrington’s family wealth included ownership of plantations in the Caribbean worked by enslaved people. Like many naval officers of the period, his career was entangled with the economic systems that underpinned the British Empire. Church monuments therefore preserve not only stories of achievement and service, but also the more complex realities of Britain’s maritime and imperial past.

Our second church stands in one of the most beautiful coastal settings in England. St Anthony’s Church lies on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, overlooking the waters of the Fal estuary. From the sea it is almost hidden behind the great house at Place, giving the impression that the church retreats modestly into the landscape, yet the history of this church reveals deep connections with maritime life.

The site may have had a religious foundation as early as the seventh century, and by the twelfth century the parish had been granted to the Augustinian priory at Plympton. At one time the church functioned as a small monastic cell, offering hospitality to pilgrims and to sailors who had been paid off at nearby St Mawes and were awaiting passage elsewhere. 

From the seventeenth century the estate of Place came into the possession of the Spry family, who rose to prominence through naval service. Over successive generations they produced distinguished officers in the Royal Navy. Inside the church today a remarkable group of monuments commemorates members of this family. 

Among the most striking is the elegant white marble memorial to Admiral Sir Richard Spry. The sculpture depicts the seated figure of Britannia leaning upon an urn bearing the Spry coat of arms, while beside her appears a carved image of one of the admiral’s ships.

Nearby stands the imposing monument to Admiral Thomas Spry, framed by sculpted figures including a young sailor holding a coil of rope and a female figure grasping a ship’s rudder. Naval trophies and flags crown the composition.

Together these monuments transform the church interior into a gallery of maritime memory. They remind us that Cornwall played a vital role in Britain’s seafaring world, supplying sailors, officers, and navigators who served across the oceans.

Our final church lies far inland, in the quiet countryside of Herefordshire. At first glance St Cuthbert’s Church at Holme Lacy might seem an unlikely place to encounter maritime history. Yet within its walls are monuments that connect this rural parish to the wider world of imperial and naval service.

The church dates largely from the late thirteenth century and became closely associated with the Scudamore family, who lived at nearby Holme Lacy House from the fifteenth century onward and filled the church with elaborate monuments celebrating their lineage.  Among these memorials is a striking monument to Captain Charles Scudamore Stanhope of HMS Caledonia, who died on active service in 1871. The monument depicts an angel beside an anchor and chain, with fully rigged sailing ships carved into the composition. 

The imagery leaves little doubt about the identity and career of the man being commemorated. Even here, far from the coast, the language of maritime symbolism appears within the church interior. Families from across England built careers in the Royal Navy and in imperial service, and their achievements were commemorated in the parish churches of the communities from which they came.

Taken together, these churches remind us that England’s parish churches often contain unexpected connections to global history. Through their monuments and memorials, they record the lives of sailors, naval officers, and families whose experiences were shaped by exploration and empire. Buildings that appear deeply local in character are, in fact, linked to stories that stretch across oceans and continents.

Today these remarkable churches survive because they are cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.

Across England the Trust protects more than three hundred historic churches, ensuring that their architecture, monuments, and stories remain accessible to the public. Caring for buildings of this age is an ongoing task. At St Anthony’s in Roseland, for example, the Trust helps maintain the medieval structure of the church and conserves the extraordinary series of naval monuments to the Spry family that fill its interior.  At St Cuthbert’s in Holme Lacy, where the church passed into the Trust’s care after years of isolation and the need for major repairs, work continues to protect the historic fabric and the remarkable collection of monuments and furnishings associated with the Scudamore family. 

Your support helps fund exactly this kind of work: repairing roofs and stonework, conserving fragile marble monuments and historic interiors, and ensuring that these buildings remain safe, accessible, and welcoming to visitors. If you value the work of the Churches Conservation Trust in preserving them, please consider making a donation. Your support helps ensure that buildings like these can continue to be cared for and enjoyed by future generations.