Cockermouth Info

DEARHAM

Roman. Saxon. and Norman

A village in the Cumberland coalfield, it bears the mark of industry and attracts us only to the church where it has rare treasures. Here is Roman, Saxon, and Norman.

The church has Roman material in the walls, including part of a Roman altar in the vestry. Its nave is the size and shape of the church the Normans built; its chancel is 13th century; and its massive tower was raised over 600 years ago as a place of protection for men and beasts when the raiders came over the border. Built into the walls of the porch and the modem aisle are a number of medieval coffin stones and memorials, many carved with elaborate crosses.

There is a Norman doorway, and a fascinating Norman font carved with patterns on two sides and with imaginary creatures on the other two. One defies description; the other is a flying dragon. In the first,. the vicar suggested, we see the devil coming in before baptism, and 10 the second he has grown wings to fly away.

The special treasures of Dearham are older than anything the Normans built in England, and one at least was used by them as building material. It is called the Adam Stone, and stands about four feet high in the window where it is mounted for us to see. Its carving is a piece of symbolism supposed to refer to the fall and restoration of man. Three little figures seem to be Christ and Adam and Eve standing hand in hand above two serpents. Below are many symbols, including tongues of flame, thunderbolts, and the endless twining band of Eternity. At one end of the stone is the word Adam, and at the other is an inscription in runes thought to mean, “May Christ his soul save.”

A second stone is part of a cross apparently illustrating the legend of St Kenith, a 6th-century hermit brought up by seagulls. We can make out among the patterns a bird and a figure on horseback.

Finest of all is the great complete cross now in the church, though it stood outside for centuries. Rather higher than a man. it is in splendid condition, and its carved pattern is said to be an illustration of Yggdrasil, the great world tree in Norse mythology.

These three rare pieces of carving are all at least 900 years old, the Adam stone being perhaps the oldest. Each would be part of a memorial to someone who died before the Normans came; and it would seem as if Dearham were a favourite burying-place for those who could afford a rich monument to their memory. When the church was restored in 1882 several of the actual graves were found. In all of them were hazel wands, and the oldest are thought to have been dug for people who died at the beginning of the 9th century.

Here in 1866 was born John White, founder of a college in Africa.

A White Man Beloved in Africa.

John White was only 26 when he went out to the Transvaal to follow in the steps of those who fought for justice for the natives, sometimes in the face of strong opposition from white men.

Twice he journeyed 500 miles through tropical valleys and swamps and across unbridged rivers to a village in Northern Rhodesia, once in response to a call for a missionary, and again to accompany James Loveless, who started a centre there.

Back in Southern Rhodesia John White gathered a few Africans round him in a mud hut and taught them so that they might become missionaries to their own people. So began the Waddilove Training Institution, of which he was the head for 14 years. He translated the New Testament into the language of the tribes around.

He was never too busy to help whoever came. The Africans loved him so much that they begged him never to leave them, and it is difficult to say who was most distressed when he fell ill after 40 years of work and the doctors insisted on sending him to England. He died at Birmingham in 1933. Courteous to every man without thought of race or colour, he was a hero of whom Dearham and England may be proud.