The old oak from which this Poor Box
and the post of the Mayor's desk in
the Mayor's pew are made once formed
part of HMS Tremendous, one of Britain's
wooden battleships. She was built at
Woolwich in 1784. She fought under Admiral
Lord Howe on the glorious 1st June 1794
was cut down to a 50 gun frigate & renamed
the Grampus in 1845, paid off 4 years later
converted into a powder hulk & broken
up in 1897.
The panels of the ceiling of the
Souding Board over the pulpit & the
gilded stars thereon are of timber from
HMS Tremendous, Queen Charlotte
Actaeon and Chesapeake and the
central rose is from the Victory.
These relics of the wooden walls
of old England and the cost of making
the Sounding Board were the gift
of members of the congregation of this
Church at its restoration AD 1904 when
the figure surmounting the Sounding Board
was replaced after a lapse of 60 years