All Saints Church in Godshill was struck by lightning during a terrible storm on the morning of 14th January 1904, causing extensive damage to the House of God.
Godshill church, which stands on the top of a hill – thus providing the name for the eponymous village – is reputedly the church most struck by lightning in England.
Following the storm, the whole upper part of the tower had to be taken down to the belfry stage and rebuilt stone for stone. Further serious damage included the pinnacles of the roof being torn off, the clock face torn out, and the font split through the middle.
With the church ruined, services were held in the Parish Room. Hundreds of visitors from all parts of the Island visited the ruined church following the lightning strike to witness the damage.
There is a local legend on the origin of Godshill Church, from the time in the 7th century when the Saxon inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were converted to Christianity.
This legend has been reproduced below:
The local inhabitants needed a Christian place of worship. The best location was the pagan site on the top of the small hill where the church now stands. However, the village elders decided to build a chapel to God in a field below.
Article continues below this advertisement The whole village marked out the foundations on the chosen site. They gathered small and large local stones from wherever they could find them to build this chapel.
When they returned to the building site early the following morning, they discovered that everything in the field had disappeared. After a searching for the stones, they found everything ‒ the stones, the markers and lines, and all of their tools and ropes ‒ had been moved back to the top of the hill.
That day, they returned everything from the top of the hill back to the field below. The next morning, they found that the same had happened again ‒ everything had been moved and laid out perfectly once more on top of the hill.
They then returned everything back for a 2nd time and continued the construction work. At the end of the day, they posted watchmen to guard their materials.
At midnight that evening, the watchmen heard rumbling sounds. They saw the giant stones awakening, and the smaller ones jumping and rolling up the hill, leapfrogging each other and the various obstacles in the way. Marker pegs, ropes, shovels, and anything related to the building of the church, flew up the hill with them.
At the top of the hill, marker pegs were hammered into the layout of the church with mallets that swung themselves, and string tied itself to the pegs to form the guide for the church building layout.
After the village elders had heard what had happened, they decided that the church would be built on the top of the hill, and that from that time on, the village would be named ‘God’s Hill’. The field below the hill where they had tried to build their church was, from then on, known as “Devil’s Acre”.
Was the devil behind the destruction of the church by lightning in 1904 or did the pagan Saxon Gods resent a Christian church being built on ‘their’ hill?
Was All Saints Church cursed by being placed on a former site of pagan worship…?
It was climate change.
And brexit .
Like all the heart attacks and sudden death’s, it must be climate change
Interesting and I believe the disappearance of Lucy Lightfoot from Gatcombe Church occurred then too
The angelse were obvious still complaining about it being built on top of a hill.