The Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe

Augustus Montague Toplady was a Church of England clergyman and hymn writer.  He was born at Farnham in Surrey on 4^th 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 5^th 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 29^th 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 11^th 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. 

Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe

Plaque on the Rock of Ages

St Andrew's Church, Blagdon

Further Reading:

Rock of ages: the diary of an eighteenth century country parson: A.M.Toplady. Ina Books, 1987