Augustus Montague
Toplady was a Church of England clergyman and hymn writer. He was born at Farnham in Surrey on 4th
November 1740 but grew up and was educated in London. He went to university in Dublin and then
returned to London. He met and was
influenced by many Calvinist ministers but he was ordained a deacon in the
Church of England by the Bishop of Bath and Wells on 5th June 1762
and given the curacy of Blagdon in
North Somerset. He stayed there for less
than two years and preached his last sermon at Blagdon on 29th April
1764. He returned briefly to London, then was curate at Farleigh Hungerford
near Frome for a year. He was then vicar
of Harpford and Venn Ottery and later at Broadhembury in East Devon. He died of tuberculosis in Knightsbridge,
London on 11th August 1778 and was buried at Whitefield’s Tabernacle
in Tottenham Court Road, London.
It is during his two years in Blagdon that Augustus Toplady
is said to have sheltered from a storm in a cleft in the rock in Burrington Combe. This is supposed to
have inspired him to write the hymn Rock
of Ages, which starts and ends with the lines:
“Rock of Ages, cleft
for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee”
This story is however unlikely to be true. The first verse of Rock of Ages was not
published until 1775 and the rest of the hymn was published the following year.
His main work Psalms and Hymns for Public
and Private Worship was published in 1776.
However Rock of Ages is the only one of his hymns that still remains
popular today.
The crag in which the Rock of Ages is located is composed of Burrington oolite, which is a coral rich limestone. The Rock of Ages is located at the side of the B3134, which runs the length of Burrington Combe, and is almost opposite a car park. The grid reference is ST476 587.
Further Reading:
Rock of ages: the diary of an eighteenth century country parson: A.M.Toplady. Ina Books, 1987
