More information : (SU 3690 1648 Sited to St Boniface Church from OS 1:2500 1973)
St Boniface Church, Nursling is the probable site of the C8th Monastery from which St Boniface departed to convert the Germans to Christianity, one of the most important evangelical acts in European history. O G S Crawford thought it probably stood near the present church. (SU 31 NE 31) (1)
Extensive ground extraction around the church began in 1982, but
there is no conclusive evidence for pre-conquest structures or
settlement. It is reasonable to assume that any ecclesiastical
occupation lies within the present churchyard. (see SU 31 NE 41 for
excavation details) (2)
It is possible that the name `Nhutscelle' (Nursling), from which the nunnery of Romsey received 14 hides in 907 AD, applied to a former royal estate on the East bank of the Test North-West of Hamwic and including Romsey. In Domesday, it is mentioned in the form `ibi ecclesia' which is used only for manorial churches. A foundation at Nursling could have been so ravaged and sacked, perhaps in one of the Viking raids of 840 or 860, that it was removed to Romsey for safety. But the tenurial and ecclesiastical insignificance of Nursling at all dates after the mid-C9th is so compelling that it is difficult to believe of a mother church there unless it was destroyed at an early date. Bearing the above in mind, it is as likely that Boniface's monastery was at Romsey at the minster there. (3) |