Church Moving on the Isle of Wight

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godshill

Some traces of Fairy superstition still linger also in Hampshire. Gads Hill or God’s Hill, near Newport, in the Isle of Wight, is remarkable for a very ancient church built on its summit, and, until lately, the old women, as they toiled up this hill to their devotions, might be heard lamenting ‘that the Fairies would not let the church bide on the plain, where it was intended to be built.’ This church, according to the tradition, was commenced on the plain at the foot of the hill, and considerable progress was made with the building in that situation. One morning, however, when the workmen arrived, they found, to their great astonishment, that the walls had completely disappeared, and at last they discovered them on the summit of the hill, precisely in the same state they had been left in on the plain the preceding evening. As it was not intended to have the church in that elevated situation, the workmen pulled down the walls, removed the bricks from the hill to the plain, and again commenced the building. But no sooner had the walls gained their former height, than they were again transported to the hill. The workmen, though less surprised than before, persevered in their intention of building on the plain, and having brought down the bricks, began for the third time to erect the church. When the walls were raised to the same height as before, they determined on watching for the persons who had so provokingly removed them to the summit of the hill, and had thus twice frustrated their intention. The weather favoured the workmen, for it was a beautiful moonlight night, and they distinctly saw innumerable little people busily employed in demolishing the walls. Although the bricks seemed considerably larger than these little creatures, yet they appeared to carry them without difficulty, and very soon completed their purpose of having the church upon the hill. Some of the workmen said that they saw them dancing in a ring on the site after having removed the bricks. Ocular proof being thus given of the impossibility of carrying on the design of building the church on the plain, it was determined to erect it on the hill, where it was speedily completed without interruption. The hill, from the church, received the name of God’s Hill, afterwards corrupted into Gads Hill; and when the building was finished, great rejoicing and shouting was heard, which was supposed to proceed from the little people making merry on account of their success. This legend I received a few months since from a friend : he had obtained it from his nurse, who was then above ninety, and with whose death he has just acquainted me.

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