Memorials & Monuments
on the Isle of Wight
- Totland -
- Totland Christ Church Lychgate - H.M.S. Thunderer -

Location

At Christ Church, Totland, Isle of Wight
 
IWM War Memorials Archive Record

Link : War Memorials Archive Reference 40899  
 
Historic England Listing Status

Christ Church, Totland does not appear to be Listed by Historic England.
 
Description

The lychgate is made from timbers supposedly salvaged from H.M.S. Thunderer. This is marked by a bronze plaque.

It was erected in memory of Frederick Wildman Burnett (died 1904) by his widow Mrs H W Burnett on the 10th March 1906.

Their son, Francis Ainger Burnett, who died in 1892 in a typhoon, is commemorated by a stained glass window in the church.

Memorial


 

Inscription


 

Further Information

The timbers did not come from the ship named H.M.S. Thunderer which was present at Trafalgar. They came from a hulk, originally launched in 1831 as a two-deck 84-gun ship of the line, H.M.S. Thunderer, which was renamed H.M.S. Comet in 1869, then H.M.S. Nettle in 1870, and broken up in 1901.

Details of the dedication service for the lych-gate and the new aisle in Christ Church, which took place in 1906, can be found in this PDF document, a transcription by Caroline Dudley, of the report in the Isle of Wight County Press of 17 March 1906. More research notes on the vessels named H.M.S Thunderer are also contained in this document.

Lych-gate dedication report

 
Acknowledgments

Caroline Dudley of Freshwater and Totland Archive Group.