大象传媒

A book telling the story of a pioneering Wiltshire Anglican clergyman, who took the gospel to the neglected wind bound fleets in the Bristol Channel, has been released by a South Wiltshire Roman Catholic priest.

"Dr Ashley's Pleasure Yacht" tells to the story of John Ashley, who founded the mission in the 1830's. He supposedly went to sea after his little boy asked him how the local islanders went to church. This prompted him to take the church to the them, a move which inspired several of today's society.

Ashley's work away from the waters, saw him being ordained to a title in Sutton Veny by the Bishop of Salisbury and holding a brief curacy in Downton.

Author Father Robert Miller, a Catholic Priest in Tisbury, has worked worked with the missions to seaman and has been a long-time student of maritime social history.