ABBOTSBURY'S tiny hilltop chapel of St Catherine's is named after the patron saint of sailors and spinsters.
The chapel was popular as a place for women to pray for a husband, hence the old prayer.
A husband, St Catherine,
A handsome one, St Catherine,
A rich one, St Catherine,
A nice one, St Catherine,
And soon, St Catherine.
It was built in the 14th century and saw service as a beacon point as well as a chapel, being dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria whose emblem is a lighthouse. Its value as a navigational point to sailors is said to have saved it during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
It was also of great value to fishermen who were alerted to shoals of fish by a horn being blown from the chapel.
Legend has it that St Catherine was a Christian-converted noble-born woman in third-century Alexandria who rebuffed pagan Roman emperor Maximinus's offer of marriage.
He ordered her tortured on revolving wheels armed with nails and knives but the wheels shattered killing many pagans, giving rise to the image of the Catherine Wheel and the name of the firework.
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