Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

The repetition of the title immediately before the title page has been removed.

Ringstead and Holworth.

“Where one may walk along the undulating downs that skirt the Channel, held in place by parapets of cliff that break down straight into the sea; where one may walk mile after mile on natural lawn and not meet a soul—just one’s self, the birds, the glorious scenery, and God.” (See page 109.)

From a water-colour sketch by Mr. William Pye.

Memorials of the Counties of England
General Editor: Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A.

MEMORIALS
OF OLD DORSET

EDITED BY
THOMAS PERKINS, M.A.
Late Rector of Turnworth, Dorset
Author of
“Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory”
“Bath and Malmesbury Abbeys” “Romsey Abbey” &c.

AND
HERBERT PENTIN, M.A.
Vicar of Milton Abbey, Dorset
Vice-President, Hon. Secretary, and Editor
of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club

With many Illustrations

LONDON
BEMROSE & SONS LIMITED, 4 SNOW HILL, E.C.
AND DERBY
1907
[All Rights Reserved]

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD EUSTACE CECIL, F.R.G.S.
PAST PRESIDENT OF THE DORSET NATURAL
HISTORY AND ANTIQUARIAN FIELD CLUB
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY HIS LORDSHIP’S
KIND
PERMISSION

PREFACE

he editing of this Dorset volume was originally undertaken by the Rev. Thomas Perkins, the scholarly Rector of Turnworth. But he, having formulated its plan and written four papers therefor, besides gathering material for most of the other chapters, was laid aside by a very painful illness, which culminated in his unexpected death. This is a great loss to his many friends, to the present volume, and to the county of Dorset as a whole; for Mr. Perkins knew the county as few men know it, his literary ability was of no mean order, and his kindness to all with whom he was brought in contact was proverbial.

After the death of Mr. Perkins, the editing of the work was entrusted to the Rev. Herbert Pentin, Vicar of Milton Abbey, whose knowledge of the county and literary experience as Editor of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club enabled him to gather up the threads where his friend Mr. Perkins had been compelled to lay them down, and to complete the work and see it safely through the press. As General Editor of the series, I desire to express my most grateful thanks to him for his kind and gracious services in perfecting a work which had unfortunately been left incomplete; and all lovers of Old Dorset and readers of this book will greatly appreciate his good offices.

Few counties can rival Dorset either in natural beauty or historic interest, and it deserves an honoured place among the memorials of the counties of England. In preparing the work the Editors have endeavoured to make the volume comprehensive, although it is of course impossible in a single volume to exhaust all the rich store of historical treasures which the county affords. After a general sketch of the history of Dorset by the late Editor, the traces of the earliest races which inhabited this county are discussed by Mr. Prideaux, who tells of the ancient barrows in Dorset, and the details of the Roman occupation are shown by Captain Acland. Dorset is rich in churches, and no one was more capable to describe their chief features than Mr. Perkins. His chapter is followed by others of more detail, dealing with the three great minsters still standing—Sherborne, Milton, and Wimborne, the monastic house at Ford, and the memorial brasses of Dorset. A series of chapters on some of the chief towns and “islands” of the county follows, supplemented by a description of two well-known manor-houses. The literary associations of the county and some of its witchcraft-superstitions form the subjects of the concluding chapters. The names of the able writers who have kindly contributed to this volume will commend themselves to our readers. The Lord Bishop of Durham, the Rev. R. Grosvenor Bartelot, Mr. Sidney Heath, Mr. Wildman, Mr. Prideaux, Mr. Gill, Mrs. King Warry, and our other contributors, are among the chief authorities upon the subjects of which they treat, and our thanks are due to them for their services; and also to Mr. William Pye for the beautiful coloured frontispiece, to Mr. Heath for his charming drawings, and to those who have supplied photographs for reproduction. We hope that this volume will find a welcome in the library of every Dorset book-lover, and meet with the approbation of all who revere the traditions and historical associations of the county.

P. H. Ditchfield,
General Editor.

CONTENTS

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS

HISTORIC DORSET
By the Rev. Thomas Perkins, M.A.

HE physical features due to the geological formation of the district now called Dorset have had such an influence on the inhabitants and their history that it seems necessary to point out briefly what series of stratified rocks may be seen in Dorset, and the lines of their outcrop.

There are no igneous rocks, nor any of those classed as primary, but, beginning with the Rhætic beds, we find every division of the secondary formations, with the possible exception of the Lower Greensand, represented, and in the south-eastern part of the district several of the tertiary beds may be met with on the surface.

The dip of the strata is generally towards the east; hence the earlier formations are found in the west. Nowhere else in England could a traveller in a journey of a little under fifty miles—which is about the distance from Lyme to the eastern boundary of Dorset—cross the outcrop of so many strata. A glance at a geological map of England will show that the Lias, starting from Lyme Regis, sweeps along a curve slightly concave towards the west, almost due north, until it reaches the sea again at Redcar, while the southern boundary of the chalk starting within about ten miles of Lyme runs out eastward to Beechy Head. Hence it is seen that the outcrops of the various strata are wider the further away they are from Lyme Regis.

Dorset has given names to three well-known formations and to one less well known: (1) The Portland beds, first quarried for building stone about 1660; (2) the Purbeck beds, which supplied the Early English church builders with marble for their ornamental shafts; (3) Kimmeridge clay; and (4) the Punfield beds.

The great variety of the formation coming to the surface in the area under consideration has given a striking variety to the character of the landscape: the chalk downs of the North and centre, with their rounded outlines; the abrupt escarpments of the greensand in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury; the rich grazing land of Blackmore Vale on the Oxford clay; and the great Heath (Mr. Hardy’s Egdon) stretching from near Dorchester out to the east across Woolwich, Reading, and Bagshot beds, with their layers of gravel, sand, and clay. The chalk heights are destitute of water; the streams and rivers are those of the level valleys and plains of Oolitic clays—hence they are slow and shallow, and are not navigable, even by small craft, far from their mouths.

The only sides from which in early days invaders were likely to come were the south and east; and both of these boundaries were well protected by natural defences, the former by its wall of cliffs and the deadly line of the Chesil beach. The only opening in the wall was Poole Harbour, a land-locked bay, across which small craft might indeed be rowed, but whose shores were no doubt a swamp entangled by vegetation. Swanage Bay and Lulworth Cove could have been easily defended. Weymouth Bay was the most vulnerable point. Dense forests protected the eastern boundary. These natural defences had a marked effect, as we shall see, on the history of the people. Dorset for many centuries was an isolated district, and is so to a certain extent now, though great changes have taken place during the last fifty or sixty years, due to the two railways that carry passengers from the East to Weymouth and the one that brings them from the North to Poole and on to Bournemouth. This isolation has conduced to the survival not only of old modes of speech, but also of old customs, modes of thought, and superstitions.

It may be well, before speaking of this history, to state that the county with which this volume deals should always be spoken of as “Dorset,” never as “Dorsetshire”; for in no sense of the word is Dorset a shire, as will be explained further on.

We find within the boundaries of the district very few traces of Palæolithic man: the earliest inhabitants, who have left well-marked memorials of themselves, were Iberians, a non-Aryan race, still represented by the Basques of the Pyrenees and by certain inhabitants of Wales. They were short of stature, swarthy of skin, dark of hair, long-skulled. Their characteristic weapon or implement was a stone axe, ground, not chipped, to a sharp edge; they buried their dead in a crouching attitude in the long barrows which are still to be seen in certain parts of Dorset, chiefly to the north-east of the Stour Valley. When and how they came into Britain we cannot tell for certain; it was undoubtedly after the glacial epoch, and probably at a time when the Straits of Dover had not come into being and the Thames was still a tributary of the Rhine. They were in what is known as the Neolithic stage of civilisation; but in course of time, after this country had become an island, invaders broke in upon them, Aryans of the Celtic race, probably (as Professor Rhys thinks, though he says he is not certain on this point) of the Goidelic branch. These men were tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, round-skulled, and were in a more advanced stage of civilisation than the Iberians, using bronze weapons, and burying their dead, sometimes after cremation, in the round barrows that exist in such large numbers on the Dorset downs. Their better arms and greater strength told in the warfare that ensued: whether the earlier inhabitants were altogether destroyed, or expelled or lived on in diminished numbers in a state of slavery, we have no means of ascertaining. But certain it is that the Celts became masters of the land. These men were some of those who are called in school history books “Ancient Britons”; the Wessex folk in after days called them “Welsh”—that is, “foreigners”—the word that in their language answered to βάρβαροι and “barbari” of the Greeks and Romans. What they called themselves we do not know. Ptolemy speaks of them as “Durotriges,” the name by which they were known to the Romans. Despite various conjectures, the etymology of this word is uncertain. The land which they inhabited was, as already pointed out, much isolated. The lofty cliffs from the entrance to Poole Harbour to Portland formed a natural defence; beyond this, the long line of the Chesil beach, and further west, more cliffs right on to the mouth of the Axe. Most of the lowlands of the interior were occupied by impenetrable forests, and the slow-running rivers, which even now in rainy seasons overflow their banks, and must then, when the rainfall was much heavier than now, have spread out into swamps, rendered unnavigable by their thick tangle of vegetation. The inhabitants dwelt on the sloping sides of the downs, getting the water they needed from the valleys, and retiring for safety to the almost innumerable encampments that crowned the crests of the hills, many of which remain easily to be distinguished to this day. Nowhere else in England in an equal area can so many Celtic earthworks be found as in Dorset. The Romans came in due course, landing we know not where, and established themselves in certain towns not far from the coasts.

The Celts were not slain or driven out of their land, but lived on together with the Romans, gradually advancing in civilisation under Roman influence. They had already adopted the Christian religion: they belonged to the old British Church, which lived on in the south-west of England even through that period when the Teutonic invaders—Jutes, Angles, Saxons—devastated the south-east, east, north, and central parts of the island, and utterly drove westward before them the Celtic Christians into Wales and the south-west of Scotland. Dorset remained for some time untouched, for though the Romans had cleared some of the forests before them, and had cut roads through others, establishing at intervals along them military stations, and strengthening and occupying many of the Celtic camps, yet the vast forest—“Selwood,” as the English called it—defended Dorset from any attack of the West Saxons, who had settled further to the east. Once, and once only, if we venture, with Professor Freeman, to identify Badbury Rings, near Wimborne, on the Roman Road, with the Mons Badonicus of Gildas, the Saxons, under Cerdic, in 516, invaded the land of the Durotriges, coming along the Roman Road which leads from Salisbury to Dorchester, through the gap in the forest at Woodyates, but found that mighty triple ramparted stronghold held by Celtic Arthur and his knights, round whom so much that is legendary has gathered, but who probably were not altogether mythical. In the fight that followed, the Christian Celt was victorious, and the Saxon invader was driven in flight back to his own territory beyond Selwood. Some place Mons Badonicus in the very north of England, or even in Scotland, and say that the battle was fought between the Northumbrians and the North Welsh: if this view is correct, we may say that no serious attack was made on the Celts of Dorset from the east. According to Mr. Wildman’s theory, as stated in his Life of St. Ealdhelm—which theory has a great air of probability about it—the Wessex folk, under Cenwealh, son of Cynegils, the first Christian King of the West Saxons, won two victories: one at Bradford-on-Avon in 652, and one at the “Hills” in 658. Thus North Dorset was overcome, and gradually the West Saxons passed on westward through Somerset, until in 682 Centwine, according to the English Chronicle, drove the Welsh into the sea. William of Malmesbury calls them “Norht Walæs,” or North Welsh, but this is absurd: Mr. Wildman thinks “Norht” may be a mistake for “Dorn,” or “Thorn,” and that the Celts of Dorset are meant, and that the sea mentioned is the English Channel. From this time the fate of the Durotriges was sealed: their land became part of the great West Saxon kingdom. Well indeed was it for them that they had remained independent until after the time when their conquerors had ceased to worship Woden and Thunder and had given in their allegiance to the White Christ; for had these men still been worshippers of the old fierce gods, the Celts would have fared much worse. Now, instead of being exterminated, they were allowed to dwell among the West Saxon settlers, in an inferior position, but yet protected by the West Saxon laws, as we see from those of Ine who reigned over the West Saxons from 688 to 728. The Wessex settlers in Dorset were called by themselves “Dornsæte,” or “Dorsæte,” whence comes the name of Dorset. It will be seen then, that Dorset is what Professor Freeman calls a “ga”—the land in which a certain tribe settled—and differs entirely from those divisions made after the Mercian land had been won back from the Danes, when shires were formed by shearing up the newly recovered land, not into its former divisions which the Danish conquest had obliterated, but into convenient portions, each called after the name of the chief town within its borders, such as Oxfordshire from Oxford, Leicestershire from Leicester. The Danes did for a time get possession of the larger part of Wessex, but it was only for a time: the boundaries of Dorset were not wiped out, and there was no need to make any fresh division. So when we use the name Dorset for the county we use the very name that it was known by in the seventh century. It is also interesting to observe that Dorset has been Christian from the days of the conversion of the Roman Empire, that no altars smoked on Dorset soil to Woden, no temples were built in honour of Thunder, no prayers were offered to Freya; but it is also worth notice that the Celtic Christian Church was not ready to amalgamate with the Wessex Church, which had derived its Christianity from Papal Rome. However, the Church of the Conquerors prevailed, and Dorset became not only part of the West Saxon kingdom, but also of the West Saxon diocese, under the supervision of a bishop, who at first had his bishop-stool at Dorchester, not the Dorset town, but one of the same name on the Thames, not far from Abingdon. In 705, when Ine was King, it received a bishop of its own in the person of St. Ealdhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, who on his appointment placed his bishop-stool at Sherborne: he did not live to hold this office long, for he died in 709. But a line of twenty-five bishops ruled at Sherborne, the last of whom—Herman, a Fleming brought over by Eadward the Confessor—transferred his see in 1075 to Old Sarum, as it is now called; whereupon the church of Sherborne lost its cathedral rank.

The southern part of Dorset, especially in the neighbourhood of Poole Harbour, suffered much during the time that the Danes were harrying the coast of England. There were fights at sea in Swanage Bay, there were fights on land round the walls of Wareham, there were burnings of religious houses at Wimborne and Wareham. Then followed the victories of Ælfred, and for a time Dorset had rest. But after Eadward was murdered at “Corfes-geat” by his stepmother Ælfthryth’s order, and the weak King Æthelred was crowned, the Danes gave trouble again. The King first bribed them to land alone; and afterwards, when, trusting to a treaty he had made with them, many Danes had settled peacefully in the country, he gave orders for a general massacre—men, women and children—on St. Brice’s Day (November 13th), 1002. Among those who perished was a sister of Swegen, the Danish King, Christian though she was. This treacherous and cruel deed brought the old Dane across the seas in hot haste to take terrible vengeance on the perpetrator of the dastardly outrage. All southern England, including Dorset, was soon ablaze with burning towns. The walls of Dorchester were demolished, the Abbey of Cerne was pillaged and destroyed, Wareham was reduced to ashes. Swegen became King, but reigned only a short time, and his greater son, Cnut, succeeded him. When he had been recognised as King by the English, and had got rid of all probable rivals, he governed well and justly, and the land had rest. Dorset had peace until Harold had fallen on the hill of Battle, and the south-eastern and southern parts of England had acknowledged William as King. The men of the west still remained independent, Exeter being the chief city to assert its independence. In 1088 William resolved to set about to subdue these western rebels, as he called them. He demanded that they should accept him as King, take oaths of allegiance to him, and receive him within their walls. To this the men of Exeter made answer that they would pay tribute to him as overlord of England as they had paid to the previous King, but that they would not take oaths of allegiance, nor would they allow him to enter the city. William’s answer was an immediate march westward. Professor Freeman says that there is no record of the details of his march; but naturally it would lie through Dorset, the towns of which were in sympathy with Exeter. Knowing what harsh and cruel things William could do when it suited his purpose, we cannot for a moment doubt that he fearfully harried all the Dorset towns on the line of his march, seeking by severity to them to overawe the city of Exeter.

In the wars between Stephen and Maud, Dorset was often the battle-ground of the rival claimants for the throne. Wareham, unfortunate then, as usual, was taken and re-taken more than once, first by one party, then by the other; but lack of space prevents the telling of this piece of local history.

King John evidently had a liking for Dorset. He often visited it, having houses of his own at Bere Regis, Canford, Corfe, Cranborne, Gillingham, and Dorchester. In the sixteenth year of his reign he put strong garrisons into Corfe Castle and Wareham as a defence against his discontented barons.

In the wars between his son, Henry III., and the Barons there was fighting again in Dorset, especially at Corfe. Dorset, among other sea-side counties, supplied ships and sailors to Edward III. and Henry V. for their expeditions against France.

The Wars of the Roses seem hardly to have touched the county; but one incident must be mentioned: On April 14th, 1471, Margaret, wife of Henry VI., landed at Weymouth with her son Edward and a small band of Frenchmen; but she soon heard that on the very day of her landing her great supporter, though once he had been her bitterest enemy, Warwick the King-maker, had been defeated and slain at Barnet. This led her to seek sanctuary in the Abbey at Cerne, about sixteen miles to the north of Weymouth; but her restless spirit would not allow her long to stay in this secluded spot, and she started with young Edward, gathering supporters as she went, till on May 4th her army was defeated at Tewkesbury, and there her last hopes were extinguished when King Edward IV. smote her son, who had been taken prisoner, with gauntleted hand upon the mouth, and the daggers of Clarence and Gloucester ended the poor boy’s life.

We hear nothing of resistance on the part of Dorset to the Earl of Richmond when he came to overthrow Richard III. Probably, as the Lancastrian family of the Beauforts were large landowners in Dorset, Dorset sympathy was enlisted on the side of the son of the Lady Margaret, great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt.

Like all the rest of England, Dorset had to see its religious houses suppressed and despoiled; its abbots and abbesses, with all their subordinate officers, as well as their monks and nuns, turned out of their old homes, though let it in fairness be stated, not unprovided for, for all those who surrendered their ecclesiastical property to the King received pensions sufficient to keep them in moderate comfort, if not in affluence. Dorset accepted the dissolution of the monasteries and the new services without any manifest dissatisfaction. There was no rioting or fighting as in the neighbouring county of Devon.

Dorset did not escape so easily in the days of the Civil War. Lyme, holden for the Parliament by Governor Creely and some 500 men, held out from April 20th to June 16th, 1644, against Prince Maurice with 4,000 men, when the Earl of Essex came to its relief. Corfe Castle and Sherborne Castle were each besieged twice. Abbotsbury was taken by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper in September, 1644. Wareham, also, was more than once the scene of fighting. In the north of Dorset a band of about 5,000 rustics, known as “Clubmen,” assembled. These men knew little and cared less for the rival causes of King and Parliament which divided the rest of England; but one thing they did know and greatly cared for: they found that ever and again bands of armed horsemen came riding through the villages, some singing rollicking songs and with oaths on their lips, others chanting psalms and quoting the Bible, but all alike treading down their crops, demanding food, and sometimes their horses, often forgetting to pay for them; so they resolved to arm themselves and keep off Cavaliers and Roundheads alike. At one time they encamped at Shaftesbury, but could not keep the Roundheads from occupying the Hill Town; so they, to the number of 4,000, betook themselves to the old Celtic camp of Hambledon, some seven or eight miles to the south. Cromwell himself, in a letter to Fairfax, dated August 4th, 1645, tells what befell them there:

We marched on to Shaftesbury, when we heard a great body of them was drawn up together about Hambledon Hill. I sent up a forlorn hope of about 50 horse, who coming very civilly to them, they fired upon them; and ours desiring some of them to come to me were refused with disdain. They were drawn into one of the old camps upon a very high hill. They refused to submit, and fired at us. I sent a second time to let them know that if they would lay down their arms no wrong should be done them. They still—through the animation of their leaders, and especially two vile ministers[1]—refused. When we came near they let fly at us, killed about two of our men, and at least four horses. The passage not being for above three abreast kept us out, whereupon Major Desborow wheeled about, got in the rear of them, beat them from the work, and did some small execution upon them, I believe killed not twelve of them, but cut very many, and put them all to flight. We have taken about 300, many of whom are poor silly creatures, whom, if you please to let me send home, they promise to be very dutiful for time to come, and will be hanged before they come out again.

From which we see that “Grim old Oliver,” who could be severe enough when policy demanded it, yet could show mercy at times, for throughout this episode his dealings with the Clubmen were marked with much forbearance.

Charles II., after his defeat at Worcester, September 3rd, 1651, during his romantic wanderings and hidings before he could get safe to sea, spent nearly three weeks in what is now Dorset, though most of the time he was in concealment at the Manor House at Trent, which was then within the boundaries of Somerset, having only recently been transferred to Dorset. This manor house belonged to Colonel Francis Wyndham. Hither on Wednesday, September 17th, came Jane Lane, sister of Colonel Lane, from whose house at Bentley, Worcestershire, she had ridden on a pillion behind one who passed as her groom, really Charles in disguise, with one attendant, Cornet Lassels. Jane and the Cornet left Trent the next day on their return journey, and Charles was stowed away in Lady Wyndham’s room, from which there was access to a hiding-place between two floors. His object was to effect his escape from one of the small Dorset ports. Colonel Wyndham rode next day to Melbury Sampford, where lived Sir John Strangways, to see if either of his sons could manage to hire a boat at Lyme, Weymouth, or Poole, which would take Charles to France. He failed in this, but brought back one hundred pounds, the gift of Sir John Strangways. Colonel Wyndham then went to Lyme to see one Captain Ellesdon, to whom he said that Lord Wilmot wanted to be taken across to France. Arrangements were then made with Stephen Limbrey, the skipper of a coasting vessel, to take a party of three or four royalist gentlemen to France from Charmouth. Lord Wilmot was described as a Mr. Payne, a bankrupt merchant running away from his creditors, and taking his servant (Charles) with him. It was agreed that Limbrey should have a rowing-boat ready on Charmouth beach on the night of September 22nd, when the tide was high, to convey the party to his ship and carry them safe to France, for which service he was to receive £60. September 22nd was “fair day” at Lyme, and as many people would probably be about, it was necessary that the party should find some safe lodging where they could wait quietly till the tide was in, about midnight. Rooms were secured, as for a runaway couple, at a small inn at Charmouth. At this inn on Monday morning arrived Colonel Wyndham, who acted as guide, and his wife and niece, a Mrs. Juliana Coningsby (the supposed eloping damsel), riding behind her groom (Charles). Lord Wilmot, the supposed bridegroom, with Colonel Wyndham’s confidential servant, Peters, followed. Towards midnight Wyndham and Peters went down to the beach, Wilmot and Charles waiting at the inn ready to be called as soon as the boat should come. But no signs of the boat appeared throughout the whole night. It seems that Mrs. Limbrey had seen posted up at Lyme a notice about the heavy penalty that anyone would incur who helped Charles Stuart to escape, and suspecting that the mysterious enterprise on which her husband was engaged might have something to do with helping in such an escape, she, when he came back in the evening to get some things he had need of for the voyage, locked him in his room and would not let him out; and he dared not break out lest the noise and his wife’s violent words might attract attention and the matter get noised abroad. Charles, by Wyndham’s advice, rode off to Bridport the next morning with Mistress Coningsby, as before, the Colonel going with them; Wilmot stayed behind. His horse cast a shoe, and Peters took it to the smith to have another put on; and the smith, examining the horse’s feet, said: “These three remaining shoes were put on in three different counties, and one looks like a Worcester shoe.” When the shoe was fixed, the smith went to a Puritan minister, one Bartholomew Wesley, and told him what he suspected. Wesley went to the landlady of the inn: “Why, Margaret,” said he, “you are now a maid of honour.” “What do you mean by that, Mr. Parson?” said she. “Why, Charles Stuart lay at your house last night, and kissed you at his departure, so that you cannot now but be a maid of honour.” Whereupon the hostess waxed wroth, and told Wesley that he was an ill-conditioned man to try and bring her and her house into trouble; but, with a touch of female vanity, she added: “If I thought it was the King, as you say it was, I should think the better of my lips all the days of my life. So, Mr. Parson, get you out of my house, or I’ll get those who shall kick you out.”

However, the matter soon got abroad, and a pursuit began. Meanwhile, Charles and his party had pressed on into Bridport, which happened to be full of soldiers mustering there before joining a projected expedition to capture the Channel Islands for the Parliament. Charles’s presence of mind saved him. He pushed through the crowd into the inn yard, groomed the horse, chatted with the soldiers, who had no suspicion that he was other than he seemed, and then said that he must go and serve his mistress at table. By this time Wilmot and Peters had arrived, and they told him of the incident at the shoeing forge; so, losing no time, the party started on the Dorchester road, but, turning off into a by-lane, got safe to Broadwinsor, and thence once more to Trent, which they reached on September 24th. On October 5th Wilmot and Charles left Trent and made their way to Shoreham in Sussex. But they had not quite done with Dorset yet; for it was a Dorset skipper, one Tattersal, whose business it was to sail a collier brig, The Surprise, between Poole and Shoreham, who carried Charles Stuart and Lord Wilmot from Shoreham to Fécamp, and received the £60 that poor Limbrey might have had save for his wife’s interference.

Dorset was the stage on which were acted the first and one of the concluding scenes of the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685. On June 11th the inhabitants of Lyme Regis were sorely perplexed when they saw three foreign-looking ships, which bore no colours, at anchor in the bay; and their anxiety was not lessened when they saw the custom house officers, who had rowed out, as their habit was, to overhaul the cargo of any vessel arriving at the port, reach the vessels but return not again. Then from seven boats landed some eighty armed men, whose leader knelt down on the shore to offer up thanksgiving for his safe voyage, and to pray for God’s blessing on his enterprise. When it was known that this leader was the Duke of Monmouth the people welcomed him, his blue flag was set up in the market place, and Monmouth’s undignified Declaration—the composition of Ferguson—was read. That same evening the Mayor, who approved of none of these things, set off to rouse the West in the King’s favour, and from Honiton sent a letter giving information of the landing. On June 14th, the first blood was shed in a skirmish near Bridport (it was not a decisive engagement). Monmouth’s men, however, came back to Lyme, the infantry in good order, the cavalry helter-skelter; and little wonder, seeing that the horses, most of them taken from the plough, had never before heard the sound of firearms.

Then Monmouth and his men pass off our stage. It is not for the local Dorset historian to trace his marches up and down Somerset, or to describe the battle that was fought in the early hours of the morning of July 6th under the light of the full moon, amid the sheet of thick mist, which clung like a pall over the swampy surface of the level stretch of Sedgemoor. Once again Dorset received Monmouth, no longer at the head of an enthusiastic and brave, though a badly armed and undisciplined multitude, but a lonely, hungry, haggard, heartbroken fugitive. On the morning of July 8th he was found in a field near Horton, which still bears the name of Monmouth’s Close, hiding in a ditch. He was brought before Anthony Etricke of Holt, the Recorder of Poole, and by him sent under escort to London, there to meet his ghastly end on Tower Hill, and to be laid to rest in what Macaulay calls the saddest spot on earth, St. Peter’s in the Tower, the last resting-place of the unsuccessfully ambitious, of those guilty of treason, and also of some whose only fault it was that they were too near akin to a fallen dynasty, and so roused the fears and jealousy of the reigning monarch.

Everyone has heard of the Bloody Assize which followed, but the names and the number of those who perished were not accurately known till a manuscript of forty-seven pages, of folio size, was offered for sale among a mass of waste paper in an auction room at Dorchester, December, 1875.[2] It was bought by Mr. W. B. Barrett, and he found that it was a copy of the presentment of rebels at the Autumn Assizes of 1685, probably made for the use of some official of the Assize Court, as no doubt the list that Jeffreys had would have been written on parchment, and this was on paper. It gives the names of 2,611 persons presented at Dorchester, Exeter, and Taunton, as having been implicated in the rebellion, the parishes where they lived, and the nature of their callings. Of these, 312 were charged at Dorchester, and only about one-sixth escaped punishment. Seventy-four were executed, 175 were transported, nine were whipped or fined, and 54 were acquitted or were not captured. It is worth notice that the percentage of those punished at Exeter and Taunton was far less than at Dorchester. Out of 488 charged at Exeter, 455 escaped; and at Taunton, out of 1,811, 1,378 did not suffer. It is possible that the Devon and Somerset rebels, having heard of Jeffreys’ severity at Dorchester, found means of escape. No doubt many of the country folk who had not sympathized with the rebellion would yet help to conceal those who were suspected, when they knew (from what had happened at Dorchester) that if they were taken they would in all probability be condemned to death or slavery—for those “transported” were really handed over to Court favourites as slaves for work on their West Indian plantations. It is gratifying to know that it has been discovered, since Macaulay’s time, that such of the transported as were living when William and Mary came to the throne were pardoned and set at liberty on the application of Sir William Young.

Monmouth was the last invader to land in Dorset; but there was in the early part of the nineteenth century very great fear among the Dorset folk that a far more formidable enemy might choose some spot, probably Weymouth, on the Dorset coast for landing his army. Along the heights of the Dorset downs they built beacons of dry stubs and furze, with guards in attendance, ready to flash the news of Napoleon’s landing, should he land. The general excitement that prevailed, the false rumours that from time to time made the peaceable inhabitants, women and children, flee inland, and sent the men capable of bearing arms flocking seaward, are well described in Mr. Hardy’s Trumpet Major. But Napoleon never came, and the dread of invasion passed away for ever in 1805.

In the wild October night time, when the wind raved round the land,

And the back-sea met the front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand,

And we heard the drub of Dead-man’s Bay, where bones of thousands are,

(But) knew not what that day had done for us at Trafalgar.[3]

The isolation of Dorset, which has been before spoken of, has had much to do with preserving from extinction the old dialect spoken in the days of the Wessex kings. Within its boundaries, especially in “outstep placen,” as the people call them, the old speech may be heard in comparative purity. Let it not be supposed that Dorset is an illiterate corruption of literary English. It is an older form of English; it possesses many words that elsewhere have become obsolete, and a grammar with rules as precise as those of any recognised language. No one not to the manner born can successfully imitate the speech of the rustics who, from father to son, through many generations have lived in the same village. A stranger may pick up a few Dorset words, only, in all probability, to use them incorrectly. For instance, he may hear the expression “thic tree” for “that tree,” and go away with the idea that “thic” is the Dorset equivalent of “that,” and so say “thic grass”—an expression which no true son of the Dorset soil would use; for, as the late William Barnes pointed out, things in Dorset are of two classes: (1) The personal class of formed things, as a man, a tree, a boot; (2) the impersonal class of unformed quantities of things, as a quantity of hair, or wood, or water. “He” is the personal pronoun for class (1); “it” for class (2). Similarly, “thëase” and “thic” are the demonstratives of class (1); “this” and “that” of class (2). A book is “he”; some water is “it.” We say in Dorset: “Thëase tree by this water,” “Thic cow in that grass.” Again, a curious distinction is made in the infinitive mood: when it is not followed by an object, it ends in “y”; when an object follows, the “y” is omitted:—“Can you mowy?” but “Can you mow this grass for me?” The common use of “do” and “did” as auxiliary verbs, and not only when emphasis is intended, is noteworthy (the “o” of the “do” being faintly heard). “How do you manage about threading your needles?” asked a lady of an old woman engaged in sewing, whose sight was very dim from cataract. The answer came: “Oh, he” (her husband) “dô dread ’em for me.” In Dorset we say not only “to-day” and “to-morrow,” but also “to-week,” “to-year.” “Tar’ble” is often used for “very,” in a good as well as a bad sense. There are many words bearing no resemblance to English in Dorset speech. What modern Englishman would recognise a “mole hill” in a “wont-heave,” or “cantankerous” in “thirtover”? But too much space would be occupied were this fascinating subject to be pursued further.

National schools, however, are corrupting Wessex speech, and the niceties of Wessex grammar are often neglected by the children. Probably the true Dorset will soon be a thing of the past. William Barnes’ poems and Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels, especially the latter, will then become invaluable to the philologist. In some instances Mr. Barnes’ spelling seems hardly to represent the sound of words as they are uttered by Dorset, or, as they say here, “Darset” lips.

THE BARROWS OF DORSET

By C. S. Prideaux

HE County of Dorset is exceedingly rich in the prehistoric burial-places commonly called barrows. At the present time considerably over a thousand are marked on the one-inch Ordnance Map, and, considering the numbers which have been destroyed, we may surely claim that Dorset was a populous centre in prehistoric times, owing probably to its proximity to the Continent and its safe harbours, as well as to its high and dry downs and wooded valleys.

The long barrow is the earliest form of sepulchral mound, being the burial-place of the people of the Neolithic or Late Stone Age, a period when men were quite ignorant of the use of metals, with the possible exception of gold, using flint or stone weapons and implements, but who cultivated cereals, domesticated animals, and manufactured a rude kind of hand-made pottery. Previous to this, stone implements and weapons were of a rather rude type; but now not only were they more finely chipped, but often polished.

The round barrows are the burial-places of the Goidels, a branch of the Celtic family, who were taller than the Neolithic men and had rounder heads. They belong to the Bronze Age, a period when that metal was first introduced into Britain; and although comparatively little is found in the round barrows of Dorset, still less has been discovered in the North of England, probably owing to the greater distance from the Continent.

Hand-made pottery abounds, artistically decorated with diagonal lines and dots, which are combined to form such a variety of patterns that probably no two vessels are found alike. Stone and flint implements were still in common use, and may be found almost anywhere in Dorset, especially on ploughed uplands after a storm of rain, when the freshly-turned-up flints have been washed clear of earth.

In discussing different periods, we must never lose sight of the fact that there is much overlapping; and although it is known that the long-barrow men had long heads and were a short race, averaging 5 ft. 4 in. in height, and that the round-barrow men had round heads and averaged 5 ft. 8 in.,[4] we sometimes find fairly long-shaped skulls in the round barrows, showing that the physical peculiarities of the two races became blended.

Long barrows are not common in Dorset, and little has been done in examining their contents. This is probably due to their large size, and the consequent difficulty in opening them. They are generally found inland, and singly, with their long diameter east and west; and the primary interments, at any rate in Dorset, are unburnt, and usually placed nearer the east end. Some are chambered, especially where large flat stones were easily obtainable, but more often they are simply formed of mould and chalk rubble. Their great size cannot fail to impress us, and we may well wonder how such huge mounds were constructed with the primitive implements at the disposal of Neolithic man. One near Pimperne, measured by Mr. Charles Warne, is 110 yards long, and there are others near Bere Regis, Cranborne, Gussage, and Kingston Russell; and within a couple of miles of the latter place, besides the huge long barrow, are dozens of round barrows, the remains of British villages, hut circles, stone circles, and a monolith.

PLATE I. Figs. 1 3 2 4 6 5
Bronze Age Objects from Dorset Round Barrows
(IN THE DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM).
⅕ Scale.

PLATE II. Figs. 1 3 2 4
Bronze Age Objects from Dorset Round Barrows
(IN THE DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM).
⅕ Scale.

The late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, in 1893, removed the whole of Wor Barrow, on Handley Down,[5] and made a very exhaustive examination of its contents, which presented many features of peculiar interest. This barrow, with ditch, was about 175 feet long, 125 feet wide, and 13½ feet high; inside the mound on the ground level was an oblong space, 93 ft. by 34 ft., surrounded by a trench filled with flints. The earth above the trench bore traces of wooden piles, which were, no doubt, originally stuck into the trench with the flints packed around to keep them in place, thus forming a palisade; the wooden piles in this case taking the place of the stone slabs found in the stone-chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire and elsewhere.

Six primary interments by inhumation were discovered at the south-east part of the enclosure, with a fragment of coarse British pottery. Three of the bodies were in a crouched position. The remaining three had been deposited as bones, not in sequence, the long bones being laid out by the side of the skulls; and careful measurement of these bones shows that their owners were the short people of the long-headed or Neolithic race, which confirms the first part of Dr. Thurnam’s axiom: “Long barrows long skulls, round barrows round skulls.” Nineteen secondary interments of a later date were found in the upper part of the barrow and in the surrounding ditch, with numerous pieces of pottery, flint implements, fragments of bronze and iron, and coins, proving that the barrow was used as a place of burial down to Roman times.

In Dorset the round barrows are generally found on the summits of the hills which run through the county, more particularly on the Ridgeway, which roughly follows the coast line from near Bridport to Swanage, where may be seen some hundreds of all sizes, from huge barrows over 100 feet in diameter and 15 feet in height to small mounds, so little raised above the surface that only the tell-tale shadows cast by the rising or setting sun show where a former inhabitant lies buried.

In the western part of the county they may be traced from Kingston Russell to Agger-Dun, through Sydling and Cerne Abbas to Bulbarrow, and in the east, from Swanage Bay to Bere Regis; and also near Dorchester, Wimborne, Blandford, and other places.

In the Bronze Age cremation and inhumation were both practised; but in Dorset burials by cremation are the more common. The cremated remains were sometimes placed in a hole or on the surface line, with nothing to protect them from the weight of the barrow above; at other times they were covered by flat slabs of stone, built in the form of a small closed chamber or cist. Often they were placed on a flat piece of stone, and covered with an inverted urn, or put in an urn, with a covering slab over them; and they have been found wrapped in an animal’s skin, or in a bag of some woven material, or even in a wooden coffin.

The inhumed bodies are nearly always found in a contracted posture, with the knees drawn up towards the chin; and a larger number face either east, south or west, than north. In the case of an inhumation, when the body was deposited below the old surface level, the grave was often neatly hewn and sometimes lined with slabs of stone, and it was the common custom to pile a heap of flints over it, affording a protection from wild animals; above the flints was heaped the main portion of the mound, which consisted of mould and chalk rubble.

A ditch, with or without a causeway,[6] usually surrounds each barrow, but is so often silted up that no trace of it can be seen on the surface; it probably helped to supply the chalk rubble of the barrow.

Bronze Age sepulchral pottery, which is hand-made, often imperfectly baked and unglazed, has been divided into four classes: the beaker or drinking vessel, the food vessel, the incense cup, and the cinerary urn. The two former are usually associated with inhumations; the two latter with cremations.

As a type of prehistoric ceramic art in Britain, the Hon. J. Abercromby says that the beaker is the earliest, and the cinerary urn the latest.[7]

Plate II., fig. 2, is a typical drinking vessel or beaker which was found in the hands of a skeleton during alterations to the Masonic Hall at Dorchester. It is made of thin, reddish, well-baked pottery, and from the stains inside it evidently contained food or liquid at some time. The beaker is more often met with than the food vessel, being found on the Continent as well as in England. The food vessel, on the other hand, is a type unrepresented outside the British Isles, and is entirely wanting in Wiltshire,[8] although common in the North of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester there are several fine examples found in the county, and Plate I., fig. 1, represents one taken from a barrow near Martinstown.[9] It is of unusual interest, as one-handled food-vessels are rare. In this inhumed primary interment the vessel was lying in the arms of the skeleton, whilst close by was another and much smaller vessel, with the remains of three infants.

The terms “drinking-vessel” and “food-vessel” may possibly be accurate, as these vessels may have held liquids or food; but there is no evidence to show that the so-called “incense cups” had anything to do with incense. The more feasible idea seems to be that they were used to hold embers with which to fire the funeral pile, and the holes with which they are generally perforated would have been most useful for admitting air to keep the embers alight.[10] These small vessels are usually very much ornamented, even on their bases, with horizontal lines, zigzags, chevrons, and the like, and occasionally a grape-like pattern. They are seldom more than three inches in height, but vary much in shape, and often are found broken, with the fragments widely separated, as if they had been smashed purposely at the time of the burial. Plate II., figs. 3 and 4, are from specimens in the Dorset County Museum, which also contains several other Dorset examples.

There can be no doubt as to the use of the cinerary urn, which always either contains or covers cremated remains. The urn (Plate II., fig. 1) is from the celebrated Deverel Barrow, which was opened in 1825 by Mr. W. A. Miles. The shape of this urn is particularly common in Dorset, as well as another variety which has handles, or, rather, perforated projections or knobs. A third and prettier variety is also met with, having a small base, and a thick overhanging rim or band at the mouth, generally ornamented.

It is rare to find curved lines in the ornamentation of Bronze Age pottery, but sometimes concentric circles and spiral ornaments are met with on rock-surfaces and sculptured stones. Mr. Charles Warne found in tumulus 12, Came Down, Dorchester, two flat stones covering two cairns with incised concentric circles cut on their surfaces.[11]

There is no clear evidence of iron having been found in the round barrows of Dorset in connection with a Bronze Age interment; but of gold several examples may be seen in the County Museum, and one, which was found in Clandon Barrow, near Martinstown, with a jet head of a sceptre with gold studs, is shown in Plate I., fig 2. Others were discovered in Mayo’s Barrow and Culliford Tree.[12] Bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, is the only other metal found with primary interments in our Dorset round barrows.

The County Museum possesses some excellent celts and palstaves; a set of six socketed celts came from a barrow near Agger-Dun, and look as if they had just come from the mould. They are ornamented with slender ridges, ending in tiny knobs, and have never been sharpened (two of them are figured in Plate I., figs. 3 and 4); another celt, from a barrow in the Ridgeway, is interesting as having a fragment of cloth adhering to it. Daggers are found, generally, with cremated remains, and are usually ornamented with a line or lines, which, beginning just below the point, run down the blade parallel with the cutting edges. The rivets which fastened the blade to the handle are often in position with fragments of the original wooden handle and sheath.[13] These daggers seem to be more common in Dorset than in the northern counties, and many examples may be seen in the County Museum, and two are illustrated in Plate I., figs. 5 and 6.

Bronze pins, glass beads, amber and Kimmeridge shell objects, bone tweezers and pins, slingstones and whetstones, are occasionally met with; but by far the most common objects are the flint and stone implements, weapons, and flakes.

In making a trench through a barrow near Martinstown,[14] more than 1,200 flakes or chips of flints were found, besides some beautifully-formed scrapers, a fabricator, a flint saw, most skilfully notched, and a borer with a gimlet-like point.

Arrow-heads are not common in Dorset, but six were found in a barrow in Fordington Field, Dorchester. They are beautiful specimens, barbed and tongued; the heaviest only weighs twenty-five grains, and the lightest sixteen grains. Mr. Warne mentions the finding of arrow-heads, and also (a rare find in Dorset) a stone battle-axe, from a barrow on Steepleton Down.

Charred wood is a conspicuous feature, and animal bones are also met with in the county, and in such positions as to prove that they were placed there at the time of the primary interment. Stags’ horns, often with the tips worn as though they had been used as picks, are found, both in the barrows and in the ditches.

So far only objects belonging to the Bronze Age have been mentioned; but as later races used these burial-places, objects of a later date are common. Bronze and iron objects and pottery, and coins of every period, are often found above the original interment and in the ditches. This makes it difficult for an investigator to settle with certainty the different positions in which the objects were deposited; and unless he is most careful he will get the relics from various periods mixed. Therefore, the practice of digging a hole into one of these burial-mounds, for the sake of a possible find, cannot be too heartily condemned. Anyone who is ambitious to open a barrow should carefully read those wonderful books on Excavations in Cranborne Chase, by the late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, before he puts a spade into the ground; for a careless dig means evidence destroyed for those that come after.

Most Dorset people will remember the late curator of the County Museum, Mr. Henry Moule, and perhaps some may have heard him tell this story, but it will bear repeating. A labourer had brought a piece of pottery to the Museum, and Mr. Moule explained to him that it not only came from a barrow, but that it was most interesting, and that he would like to keep it for the Museum. The man looked surprised, and said, “Well, Meäster, I’ve a-knocked up scores o’ theäsem things. I used to level them there hipes (or heäps) an’ drawed awaÿ the vlints vor to mend the roads; an’ I must ha’ broke up dozens o’ theäse here wold pots; but they niver had no cwoins inzide ’em.” Those who knew Mr. Moule can imagine his horror.

Much more remains to be done by Dorset people in investigating these most interesting relics of the past, for we know little of the builders of these mounds; and, as Mr. Warne says in his introduction to The Celtic Tumuli of Dorset:—

If the Dorsetshire barrows cannot be placed in comparison with many of those of Wiltshire ... or Derbyshire, they may, nevertheless, be regarded with intense interest, as their examination has satisfactorily established the fact that they constitute the earliest series of tumuli in any part of the kingdom; whilst they identify Dorset as one of the earliest colonised portions of Britain.

THE ROMAN OCCUPATION

By Captain J. E. Acland
Curator, Dorset County Museum

LTHOUGH we are dealing with historic and not prehistoric times in describing the occupation of the County of Dorset by the Romans, it is to the work of the spade and not of the pen that we must turn for the memorials of that most interesting and important period, which lasted nearly four hundred years; when the all-powerful, masterful race, the conquerors of the world, held sway, enforced obedience to their laws, and inaugurated that system of colonisation which was perhaps the best the world has ever seen—a system designed and developed according to exact regulations, which savoured more of military discipline than of that civil liberty which we associate with the profession of agriculture.

The Roman occupation was indeed an admirable combination of military and civil rule; and the memorials fall naturally into two distinct classes, corresponding with two distinct periods. There is, first, the period of conquest, embracing the years during which the Roman Legions drove back the native levies, and captured their strongholds; not in one summer campaign we may well believe, but year after year, with irresistible force, until the subjugated tribes laid down their arms and yielded the hostages demanded by the conquerors. Then followed the period of peace, of civilisation, and of colonising; of improving the roads, and marking out of farms; the days of trade and commerce, and of building houses, temples, and places for public amusement.

Now both aspects of the occupation are to be seen as clearly at this day as if they were described in the pages of a book; and yet what is the fact? Scarcely a sentence can be found of written history which deals with it. General Pitt-Rivers, who, living in Dorset, devoted many years of his life to antiquarian research, asserts that having read with attention all the writings that were accessible upon that obscure period of history, some by scholars of great ability, nothing definite can be found to relate to the Roman Conquest. It is, however, generally assumed that it fell to the lot of Vespasian, in command of the world-famous “Legio Secunda,” to commence, if not to complete, the subjugation of the Durotriges, the people who are believed to have inhabited the southern portion of the county. The only reference to Vespasian’s campaign by contemporary historians is made by Suetonius. He says that Vespasian crossed to Britain, fought with the enemy some thirty times, and reduced to submission two most warlike tribes and twenty fortified camps, and the island (Isle of Wight) adjacent to the coast. In this statement, which is all too brief to satisfy our curiosity, may lie the main facts of the passing of Dorset into Roman power. The work begun by Vespasian may, indeed, have been completed by others—by Paulinus Suetonius, the Governor of Britain about the year 60, and by Agricola; and where so much is left to conjecture, it is at least worth while to give once more the theory propounded by the well-known antiquary, the late Mr. Charles Warne, F.S.A. In a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in June, 1867, he suggests that as the south-eastern parts of Britain had been previously visited by Roman armies, Vespasian directed his course further to the west, and either made the Isle of Wight the base of his operations or anchored his ships in the harbours of Swanage or Poole. Close by is the commencement of the long range of hills, The Ridgeway, which, with few interruptions, follows the coast line, and still shews by the number of the burial-mounds the district inhabited by the British.

Mr. Warne proceeds to enumerate the various camps along this route, all at convenient distances from one another, some of which shew by their construction that they were Roman camps, and others British camps, captured by the conquering legions, as narrated by Suetonius. If Vespasian had pursued this plan of campaign, it would have had the additional advantage of enabling him to keep in touch with his transports. As one hill fortress after another was captured in the march westward along the Ridgeway heights, so the fleet might have changed its anchorage from Swanage Bay to Lulworth, from Lulworth to the shelter of Weymouth and Portland, and finally to the neighbourhood of Charmouth or Lyme Regis.

There is this also to be said in favour of Mr. Warne’s conjecture. An attacking force must find out and capture the strongholds of the defenders, which would naturally be made more strongly, and therefore last longer than the camps of the invaders. And this is what we see in the suggested line of the Roman advance. First, on the east, Flowers, or Florus Bury Camp, and Bindun, then Mai-dun (Maiden Castle), after that Eggardun, and finally, at the western limit of the county, Conig’s Castle and Pylsdun. All these are (as far as can be seen now) British camps of refuge; all of them must have been captured before the Roman generals could feel secure in their own isolated position on a foreign shore. That they were one and all occupied by the conquerors is also most probable, and would account for the discovery of Roman relics within their areas. No Roman camps can be seen at all approaching in strength or size these magnificent hill fortresses. It is, of course, well known that the armies of Rome never halted for a night without forming an entrenchment of sufficient size to include not only the fighting men, but the baggage train, and though traces of these still remain on the hills of Dorset, the majority have long ago disappeared.

Perhaps the most interesting example of the military occupation of the two races is to be seen at Hod Hill, near Blandford, where a well-defined Roman Camp is constructed within the area of a previously occupied British fortress, and here have been found spear heads, arrow heads, spurs and portions of harness, rings and fibulæ, and fragments of pottery, all indicating the Roman occupation; iron was found more generally than bronze, and the coins are those of the earlier emperors, including Claudius, in whose reign Vespasian made his conquests. Badbury, four miles north-west of Wimborne, Woodbury, near Bere Regis, and Hambledon, five miles north of Blandford, may be referred to as memorials of the time of the Roman occupation, though not of Roman construction.

Poundbury Camp, with its Saxon appellation, deserves special mention, for, being situated on the outskirts of Dorchester, it has been studied more frequently perhaps than any other earthwork in the county. It has the form of an irregular square, with a single vallum, except on the more exposed west side, where it is doubled, and traces have been discovered of other ramparts now obliterated. On the north the camp overhangs the river and valley, once probably a lake or morass, and here the defences are slight. The area within the vallum is about 330 yards from east to west, and 180 yards from north to south. Some authorities affirm that it was raised by the Danes about A.D. 1002, when they attacked Dorchester. Stukeley regards it as one of Vespasian’s camps when engaged in his conquest of the Durotriges, while other antiquarians claim for it a British origin, prior to the Roman invasion. Mr. Warne, whose opinions are always worthy of most careful consideration, “holds it to be a safer speculation to regard it as a Roman earthwork,” and, no doubt, in form and general outline and size it is very similar to other Roman camps, and altogether different to the magnificent British fortress Maiden Castle, not two miles away. Many Roman relics have been found, including coins ranging from the times of Claudius to Constantine, and a tumulus is still to be seen within the vallum, which alone would be an argument against its Celtic origin.

Poundbury is insignificant indeed when compared with Mai-dun, and it is impossible by mere description to convey an adequate impression of this great earth fortress, singled out by many as the finest work of its kind. It certainly surpasses all others in the land of the Durotriges, and probably nowhere in the world can entrenchments be seen of such stupendous strength. This camp, which is said to occupy 120 acres, is in form an irregular oval, embracing the whole of the hill on which it stands; its length is nearly 800 yards, and width 275 yards. On the north, facing the plain, there are three lines of ramparts, with intervening ditches, the slopes being exceedingly steep, and measuring over 60 feet from apex to base. On the south the number of ramparts is increased, but they are not so grand, and, indeed, as Mr. Warne remarks, they appear to have been left in an unfinished condition. At the east and west ends are the two principal entrances, and here the ingenuity of the designer is manifested in a surprising manner. At one end five or six ramparts, at the other as many as seven or eight are built, so as to cover or overlap one another; vallum and fossa, arranged with consummate skill, to complete the intricacies of entrance, and to compel an enemy to undertake a task of the utmost difficulty and danger.

In later times this camp was, no doubt, occupied by Roman troops as summer quarters, its healthy position rendering it very suitable for the purpose. Perhaps, still later, it became the residence of some Roman magnate, who selected that fine eminence for his country villa; at any rate, there should be no difficulty in accounting for the discovery of Roman coins and implements, or even of villas, on the sites of the camps and castles of the British. Many a hard fought battle must have raged around their earthen walls.

Ever and anon, with host to host,

Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,

Shield breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash

Of battle axes on shattered helms.

Many a shout of victory must have been heard as the conquering legions forced their way over the ramparts and planted their eagles on the summit of the captured fortress. And once captured they must have been retained, at first perhaps by a fairly large garrison sufficient to prevent re-capture, then as the tide of battle ebbed from the neighbourhood the numbers might have been reduced; but the sites, always in some commanding position, would have been long utilised as points of observation and centres of control over the conquered tribes.

No revolt is recorded as taking place in the west of Britain such as that led by Queen Boadicea in the east, in the year 61; so in looking back to the Roman occupation, it is reasonable to suppose that before the end of the first century it was reduced to the condition of a Roman province. Trade would soon commence with this, the latest, addition to the Empire, and the soldiers, no longer necessary except as garrisons and guardians of the peace, would be employed in improving the means of communication. The warlike Briton (in these parts at any rate) was transformed into a peaceful husbandman, who sowed and reaped, and paid his taxes, grumbling perhaps, but on the whole contented with his lot.

Roads, or trackways, of some kind there certainly were in use by the British, linking tribe to tribe, or camp to camp, and, judging by the line of what we now term Roman roads, it is most probable that to a very great extent the ancient routes were taken as the foundation of the new system developed by the Romans. The details of this system are given by an authority of contemporary date in The Itinerary of Antonine, which is believed to have been compiled in the third century, and possibly corrected and added to later. In this work we find, as regards the County of Dorset, a description of roads which are easily recognised to-day, roads which are still in use throughout a considerable portion of their length. It must not be lost sight of that these roads are in very close connection with some of the principal British hill-fortresses, which fact would stamp them as being originally constructed by the British race, though to all appearance they are grand examples of Roman skill and energy. The main road, the Via Principalis, of the third and fourth centuries, comes to Dorset from Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, one of the grandest of British camps; it passes close to Badbury Camp, and then makes for Maiden Castle, and onwards to Eggardun, all of earlier date than the Roman invasion. But notwithstanding this obvious connection, the roads as we see them now bear witness to the power of Rome, and are, perhaps, some of the most obvious of the memorials of the past. They are described in the XV. Iter. of Antoninus, with the names of the Roman stations and the distances between them along the road from Silchester (Calleva) to Exeter (Isca Dumnoni), which forms a portion of the great Via Iceniana.

After passing Old Sarum, this road crosses the north-east border of the modern county of Dorset at a small hamlet called Woodyates (near Cranborne), taking a south-westerly course; it passes over Woodyates and Handley Down, and is described by Sir R. Colt Hoare as being at that point “the finest specimen of a Roman road I know.” It runs by Badbury Camp, and thence to Dorchester, where the direction changes to due west, parallel with the coast line, and after leaving the county near Lyme Regis proceeds towards Exeter.

It must not be supposed that this, or any other Roman road, can be traced exactly throughout its whole course. Far from it: the hand of the destroyer has been heavy indeed on these relics of the past, built with a prodigal expenditure of time and material. It is often the case that the modern “turnpike,” or county, road has been made on the very site of the ancient road, the old embankment being levelled to gain additional width. In other places cultivation and the demands of agriculture may have proved the cause of its obliteration. Here and there, especially on waste land and heather-clad downs the true Roman work may still be seen, though covered, perhaps, by grass; but with the aid of the Antonine Itinerary much may be learnt and many a portion be recognised. He names, however, only two stations within the county, and the mileage is short by nearly twenty miles, so in all probability, through error in copying, one other station has been omitted. The two stations mentioned are Vindogladia and Durnovaria. Authorities differ greatly as to the true position of the former of these places; the other station, however, is remarkable for the proofs of its former importance. Here we find no less than four roads meeting, from north, south, east, and west, the east and west roads being the Via Iceniana; the others are roads of less importance, that to the south leading to the sea and towards the Roman settlement, Clavinio (or Jordan Hill), near Weymouth, and that to the north passing Stratton and on to Ilchester.

Other branch roads were made as necessity required in different parts of the county. Thus we find traces of a road leaving the Via Principalis, near Badbury, to connect with the harbour of Poole, and another, starting from the same point, running northwards. Mr. Warne is considered to have made a very interesting and clever discovery of a station which is missing in the XV. Iter. of Antoninus. The distance there given between Vindogladia and Durnovaria is quite obviously too short by some fourteen miles. But on Kingston Down, near Bere Regis, the cultured eyes of the learned Dorset antiquarian discovered traces of a Roman settlement, and on due investigation being made, it was considered that there was sufficient proof to establish at this point a station called Ibernium, referred to by other writers as existing in the county.

The position of Vindogladia, though a subject of long and frequent debate, and though stated by some to have been at Badbury, by others at Wimborne Minster, has now been accepted as on Gussage Down, not far from the north-west border of the county where crossed by the Via Iceniana. This is due to the researches of Sir R. C. Hoare, and stands on a par with Mr. Warne’s discovery of the other Roman station on the great military road.

We come now to a very interesting period of the Roman occupation, when we may imagine the military operations at an end, a firm and beneficial government established, and the colonists (at any rate), who usually obtained a third part of the conquered territory, becoming rich and enabled to build those houses that must have been the envy and admiration of the native population, with their decorative floors and walls, and ample comforts for seasons of heat or cold.

Still, as we have said before, it is not to any printed records that we can turn for its history, but rather to the result of careful excavation and the relics unearthed after fifteen centuries’ burial in the soil: in a word, we trust to the use of the spade for bringing before our minds the life of the past and restoring the memorials of ancient Dorset.

In Warne’s map of the county, prepared in the year 1865 after most patient research and personal investigation, there are more than fifty sites given where relics of the Roman colonisation have been found, exclusive of Durnovaria. Mr. Moule, writing in 1893, says: “Roman work of one kind and another has been found here in Dorset in eighty places, and that for the most part casually.” But year after year this number is increased, and, truth to tell, so frequent are the discoveries that in Dorchester the ordinary labourer, when excavating in the streets, or elsewhere, is ever on the alert, and many a treasure rewards his watchful care; and even children whose eyes have been trained aright will find, when digging in some neglected corner of garden or field, a bit of common pottery, a fragment of Samian ware, or perhaps a coin bearing the image of an Emperor of Rome. And thus our history is written: a word discovered here, a sentence there, until the story of the life of those days may be once more told afresh. The frequency of these discoveries is so far interesting that it draws attention to the large area over which the Roman settlers were distributed. No doubt they found this land of the Durotriges a pleasant land to dwell in, as we do now in this twentieth century. But here may be said, in passing, that Roman colonists were partly at least a Roman garrison. They were frequently old soldiers intended to keep in check the conquered nation, and liable to be called back to active service. But if there was no fear of a hostile rising, the military character of the colony would gradually be lost. And that, no doubt, soon happened here, for the very great majority of the relics of the Roman occupation are signs of its peaceful character.

The discovery of the sites of Roman villas scattered in more or less isolated positions throughout the county tend also to prove this, and especially when the villa is shown to have possessed one of those beautiful mosaic floors which can only have belonged to a prosperous and wealthy colonist or to a British landowner left undisturbed in his possessions, and who employed the Roman craftsmen to build him a house. These tessellated floors have been frequently exposed to view in various parts of Dorset, and too frequently, alas! through ignorance or carelessness, been neglected or destroyed; others, again, have been examined, plans or drawings made, and been covered up once more. Among those which have been described may be mentioned: Thornford and Lenthay Green, near Sherborne; Halstock, six miles south of Yeovil; Rampisham, twelve miles north of Dorchester; Frampton, six miles north of Dorchester; Preston, near Weymouth; Creech, near Wareham; Fifehead Neville, north-west of Blandford; Hemsworth, five miles north of Wimborne; and in Dorchester itself no less than twenty different pavements, either complete or in portions, besides one on the upper area of Maiden Castle. It is difficult to assign a date, even approximately, to these villas, for the coins found amidst the débris cover practically the whole period of Roman occupation, and the other objects generally discovered on the site are not of much assistance. There are no records of inscribed stones being found, which might have helped; and, as a rule, the more valuable part of the building materials, such as cut stones, roof slabs, and timbers, must have been taken away when the houses were left; but the wells and refuse pits are the happy and profitable hunting-ground of the antiquary.

The tessellated pavements are so interesting and attractive that it is worth while to describe them in detail. The system adopted in their construction seems to have been as follows:—If no provision was made for heating the rooms by means of a hypocaust or hot-air flues, the ground was prepared by rough levelling, and 6 to 8 inches thick of flints rammed, or coarse, gravelly mortar or concrete laid; on this 3 or 4 inches of better class white cement, and above some fine cement to take the tessellæ; and after these were laid a liquid cement would be run into the interstices before the final polishing was commenced. The system of laying is well shewn in the annexed illustration, taken of a pavement in situ, before removal to the Dorset County Museum.

Part of the Olga Road Tessellated Pavement, Dorchester.

The tessellæ themselves, as generally found in Dorset, consist of small cubes of stone or brick, but vary in size from about ⅜ or ½ inch to 1½ inch; the smaller are used for the decorative portions; the larger for the borders, or for passages, or for the floors of houses of a humbler character. The colours are for the most part only four—namely: white, dark slate (or blue-black), red, and a sort of drab or grey; occasionally yellow is found, but not often.

The materials of which the tessellæ are composed has given rise to much discussion and, indeed, much difference of opinion; but, as a general principle, it may be assumed that, wherever possible, local stone was used. The red tessellæ are merely brick or tile of a fine description; but, as a means of obtaining a scientific opinion of the other stones, microscopic sections have been cut from the tessellæ and submitted to an expert mineralogist, who has given them the following names. The very dark stone is a fine-grained ferruginous limestone; the grey is also a fine-grained limestone; the drab or yellow is an oolitic limestone; and the white is a hard chalk, showing foraminifera very well. It is believed that the colour may be altered by submitting the stone to heat, an opinion held by Professor Buckman, and explained in a very interesting chapter of his book, Roman Art in Cirencester.

The mosaic floors found in Dorchester are, as a rule, of very simple but effective design, consisting of geometrical arrangements of the single guilloche, the twist or plait, the double guilloche (which is extremely handsome in mosaic work), and the ordinary fret. These, being arranged as outlines of intersecting squares and circles, leave spaces of varying dimensions, spandrels, or trefoils, which are utilised for the introduction of many diverse emblems, such as the fylfot or swastika, the duplex, sprays of foliage, urns, and interlacing knots. In the County Museum may be seen laid on the floor (in which position alone can full justice be done to the skill of the Italian artist) two nearly complete mosaic pavements. One of these shows the area of three adjoining rooms, with entrances or vestibules; the other pavement, found in 1905, is in excellent preservation, measuring 21 feet by 12 feet 6 inches, and is remarkable for two ornamental vases, with two serpents issuing from each.

The pavement at Preston, near Weymouth, still in situ, was discovered in 1852, the coins found near the villa dating from the middle of the third century. At Jordan Hill, close by, is the Roman settlement, Clavinio, which has been productive of a large number of very interesting relics.

At the entrance to the village of Preston, coming from Weymouth, may be seen an arch spanning a small stream. The form and masonry of the arch, as well as its proximity to the other remains here noticed, point to the probability of Roman construction, and is of special interest, as examples of Roman masonry are but rarely found still existing in the county.

The pavement at Lenthay Green was discovered in 1836, and was carefully removed to the dairy of Sherborne Castle. It contains a representation of a sitting figure playing on a lyre, and a second figure dancing and playing a pipe.

The villa on Maiden Castle was discovered by Mr. Cunnington in 1882, and as a result of his excavations he sent to the County Museum many interesting objects: fragments of mosaic floor, wall-plaster, and roof tiles, a curious bronze plate (repoussé work) representing a helmeted figure holding a spear, and coins from Helena, A.D. 290, to Arcadius, A.D. 408.

A mosaic floor at Frampton is remarkable for the introduction into the design of the Christian monogram ☧, known as the Labarum. Extensive excavations were made here at the end of the eighteenth century, and four different pavements were found. They contain numerous representations of heathen deities, Neptune being especially favoured; a motto worked into one of the borders runs: “Neptuni vertex regmen sortiti mobile ventis,” and some other words partly lost. The introduction of the monogram of Christ is probably of a later date than the original work. The pavement is now covered up, but Mr. Lysons, who superintended the excavations in 1797, obtained accurate drawings of the whole site, the mosaic work being shown in correct colours on seven large plates which were published, together with an accurate description.

Tessellated Pavement at Fifehead Neville, Dorset.

The pavements uncovered at Fifehead Neville are also of great interest. The first was discovered in 1881, measuring about 14 feet by 12 feet, the design consisting of an urn, or vase, in the centre, around which seven small fish are depicted, and outside them are four sea-monsters, like dolphins. Coins found here date from A.D. 270 to 340. The second pavement, found in 1903, requires no description, as we are permitted, by the Editor of the Dorset Field Club, to reproduce an illustration which appears in the Club’s Proceedings. The general plan of the design is almost identical with a pavement found in Dyer Street, Cirencester, though the details are altogether different. They may well have been designed by the same artist.

Very little has been said, so far, of Dorchester itself, and yet the modern town is full of memories of the Roman Durnovaria. It lies within the boundaries of the ancient walls, their position, still plainly discernible in many places, being marked by broad walks and avenues of trees. One small portion of the masonry of the wall itself may still be seen in the West Walk. The position of the gates is also fairly easy to decide, though no vestige of them remains. The roads which issued from them have been referred to at a previous page.

It has been asserted recently—and, indeed, proved to the satisfaction of many local authorities—that the course of a Roman aqueduct can be traced here and there to the west of Dorchester skirting the adjacent valleys and hills. It is believed to have been an open water-course, obtaining its supply from the source of a small stream some twelve miles distant.

Perhaps, however, the most remarkable relic of the Roman occupation is the amphitheatre, said to be the best preserved in Britain. It is larger than the so-called “Bull Ring” of Cirencester, and, being quite free from trees and bushes, stands out more boldly than the similar work at Silchester. It is built of chalk, now covered with grass, somewhat elliptical in plan, the height of the sides being given as about 30 feet, and the internal measurements 218 feet by 163 feet. On each side of the entrance there are walks which ascend gradually to the centre of the mounds, where there are small platforms as if for seating the principal spectators or judges, but there are no traces of steps or ledges for the accommodation of the general public; and, judging by the remarks of early Roman writers, it is very probable that the people were obliged to stand throughout the public games.

But in addition to these more obvious relics of a bygone age, the subsoil of Dorchester is full of treasures that emphasise the Roman occupation. It would be impossible to describe in these pages even the most interesting of the objects that have been brought to light in recent years, but it is fortunate that they find their way very frequently to the County Museum, of which the people of Dorset are justly proud. It must suffice at the present time to mention that in its cases may be seen a fine collection of objects made of Kimmeridge shale; glass hairpins, brooches and bracelets, and a metal mirror; pottery of all kinds; many examples of mosaic floors, fragments of wall plaster retaining their brilliant colouring, three curious antefixæ, a Roman sword handle, which is believed to be almost unique, and a base and capital of a column of a temple. In looking at these memorials of the past, and stepping the while on the ancient pavements, the mind is taken back with irresistible force to the men and women who made use of them in their daily occupations—the Romans, who for a period of four hundred years exercised their wise and beneficial influence over the people of Britain.

THE CHURCHES OF DORSET

By the Rev. Thomas Perkins, M.A.

UT of about three hundred churches which are to be found in Dorset, three stand out as far ahead of all the rest—the church (once collegiate, now parochial) of Wimborne Minster; the church of the Benedictine Abbey at Sherborne, now the parish church; and the great Benedictine Abbey Church at Milton, now in parochial use. These three, which receive separate treatment in the present volume, are the only three Dorset churches that can rank with the great parish churches of England.

There were before the Reformation many religious houses, each with its own church, in the county, but at the time of the Dissolution, in the reign of Henry VIII., most of these, as being of no further use, fell into decay, and their ruins were regarded as quarries of hewn stone whenever such material was needed in the neighbourhood. Of the Benedictine nunnery of Shaftesbury, once one of the most wealthy religious foundations in the kingdom, nothing remains save the foundations, which recent excavations have disclosed to view; of Cistercian Bindon, only the gatehouse and a few ivy-clad walls, rising only a few feet above the ground; of Benedictine Cerne, a splendid barn and a beautiful gatehouse, and a few fragments incorporated in some farm buildings; of its daughter abbey at Abbotsbury, a still larger barn, testifying to the wealth of the community, and some ruined walls—this is all that remains to mark the spots where day after day through many centuries the words of prayer and praise rose almost without ceasing, and monks and nuns lived their lives apart from the busy world, spending their time in meditation, in adorning their churches with the carving of capital and boss or miserere, in copying and illuminating manuscripts, in teaching the young, in giving alms to the needy, in tilling their lands in the days while yet they cherished the high ideals of the founders of their orders, before they lapsed into luxury and riotous living.

A few monastic barns remain in other places, as at Tarrant Crawford and Liscombe. These owe their preservation to the fact that they could at once be utilized; for those who received grants of abbey lands, no less than their predecessors, required buildings wherein to store their corn; whereas the refectory, dormitory, cellars, and other domestic buildings designed for a community of monks or nuns were useless when such communities no longer existed; and the churches, unless they could be turned to account as parish churches, would also be of no use.

After the three great ministers already mentioned there is a wide gap, for though many of the Dorset parish churches are of architectural or archæological interest, either generally or because they contain some special object—a Saxon font, a Norman doorway, a Decorated Easter sepulchre, a canopied tomb, or the effigy of a noble who fought in the French wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—yet as a rule the churches are comparatively, if not actually, small, and are for the most part built in the Perpendicular style, the most prosaic and uninteresting of the mediæval styles of architecture, though in mason-craft it can hold its own against all the rest. And, moreover, Dorset Perpendicular is not equal to that which is to be found in the neighbouring county of Somerset. We look in vain for the splendid fifteenth century towers which are the glory of the Somerset churches; here and there in isolated places, and, strange enough, not on the Somerset border, we find traces of the Somerset influence; but for the most part the Dorset towers are utilitarian appendages, not structures carefully designed with a view to beauty of outline and richness and appropriateness of ornament, as the finest of the Somerset towers are. Spires of mediæval date are rare in Dorset. There are but two—one at Winterborne Steepleton, near Dorchester, and one at Trent, a parish added for administration purposes to the County of Dorset in 1895; there is a spire also at Iwerne[15] Minster, but it cannot be called a mediæval one, for though the tower of this church was formerly surmounted by a beautiful spire, yet that to be seen to-day is only a reproduction, built of some of the stones of the old spire, which was taken down at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The upper part above the lower of the two moulded bands, preserves the original slope; the lower has a different slope, as the builder had, in a vertical distance of about ten feet, to connect the base of the original spire with the horizontal section of the upper part, which was originally about thirty feet above the base. The original spire was forty feet in height; the present one is only twenty feet. The stone not used in the rebuilding was sold to a road contractor for metalling the roads.

The hand of the restorer has been laid very heavily on Dorset churches. In some cases, where there was absolutely no necessity for it, old churches were entirely destroyed to make room for smart new buildings; others have been restored—a few judiciously, the majority injudiciously; a few only, so far, have entirely escaped. Many causes in Dorset, as elsewhere, have led to extensive restoration—the desire to adapt the building to the form of worship fashionable at the time, or to put back, as it is called, the church into what was supposed to be its original form, as if such a thing were possible; the love of uniformity, which has led to the removal of seventeenth and eighteenth century additions, such as pulpits and galleries, which were supposed to be out of keeping with the main portion of the church; by which removals much interesting history has been destroyed. Oak pews, sometimes carved, have been swept away in order to put in more comfortable benches of pitch pine; encaustic tiles have taken the place of the old stones, which, if they had become uneven, might have been relaid; ancient plaster has been stripped from walls, and the stones pointed; churchyards have been levelled, and, in some cases, the paths have been paved with old headstones. Unfortunately for Dorset, there has been found no lack of money to carry out these supposed “improvements,” so that the work of “restoration” has been done most thoroughly throughout the length and breadth of the county, and there is now little more that is likely to be done. It is, indeed, almost too late to utter the prayer of Thomas Hardy:—

From restorations of Thy fane,

From smoothings of Thy sward,

From zealous churchmen’s pick and plane,

Deliver us, good Lord![16]

But despite the fact that Dorset is architecturally much poorer at the beginning of the twentieth century than at the beginning of the nineteenth, there is still much that the archæologist may take joy in, though his joy may be mingled with regret at treasures of old time that have vanished for ever.

One of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in Dorset is the little church, disused for many years save for an occasional service, of St. Martin, at Wareham. Some of it is probably of Saxon date; in size and proportion it bears a remarkable likeness to St. Ealdhelm’s recently re-discovered church of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on-Avon. This is specially interesting, as it is said that St. Ealdhelm founded a monastery or nunnery at Wareham, and the similarity of this church to that which he built at Bradford gives some confirmation to the belief that this church also was built by him during the time of his episcopate at Sherborne (705-709). Some authorities, while recognising the church as of Saxon foundation, would date it approximately 1050. The chancel arch is low, like that at Bradford, but not so narrow; the nave, though subsequently lengthened, is short, narrow, and high—long and short work may be seen in the coigns of the walls; all these seem to indicate its Saxon origin. The church, however, has been enlarged from time to time; the north aisle is divided from the nave by round-headed arches; the windows at the east of the chancel and aisle, now walled up, are of the Perpendicular period; and a window in the south wall of the nave is of Decorated date; but an early Norman one may be seen on the north side of the chancel. The tower, with a gabled roof, is an early addition to the building. When, in 1762, a great fire destroyed about a third of the town of Wareham, many of those whom this disaster rendered homeless found a refuge within the walls of the little church, which even then had ceased to be used for service. Beneath the church a vast number of burials took place; it would seem that the limited space within the walls was used over and over again for this purpose.

Among other examples of Saxon work to be found in Dorset may be mentioned a walled-up doorway, with triangular head, on the south wall of Worth Matravers church, in the Isle of Purbeck; a fragment of herring-bone work in Corfe Castle, which may possibly be a portion of a wall of the chapel founded here by St. Ealdhelm, though it may, on the other hand, be of Norman date; and fonts at Toller Fratrum and Martinstown; and the carved stone over the doorway of Tarrant Rushton, the chancel arch of which church is also probably of pre-Conquest date.

St. Martin’s Church, Wareham.

Norman work is naturally more abundant. The church at Studland, in the Isle of Purbeck, is no doubt the most complete example to be met with in the county. It is also a fine example of restoration at its best. The church was in great danger of falling, owing to the sinking of an artificial bed of clay on which the foundations of some of the walls were laid; wide cracks had opened in the walls, in the chancel arch, and other places; the mortar of the core of the walls had perished; but by underpinning the walls, grouting with cement, the insertion of metal tie-beams, and stopping the cracks, the church has been made safe. There is little work of post-Norman date, but it is by no means certain that the Norman builders built the church from its foundations; there is good reason to suppose that a previous church of rude rubble masonry existed here, and that a great part of the original walls was left standing, and that the Norman builders cut out portions of the old walls to insert their own more perfect work in various places. It is a long, narrow church, without aisles; a low central tower, probably never completed, covered with a gable roof, stands between the nave and chancel. The tower arches are low, and the roof is vaulted. The Norman work probably dates from about 1130. The church bears some resemblance to the well-known church at Iffley, but the decoration is not so elaborate.

Next to Studland in interest comes the church of Worth Matravers, also in the Isle of Purbeck. Here, however, the tower stands at the west end. The chancel is Early English, the roof is of wood; but the chancel arch is elaborately carved, as is also the door within the south porch. In the parish of Worth stands a unique building—the chapel of St. Ealdhelm, on St. Ealdhelm’s (or, as it is often incorrectly called, St. Alban’s) Head. It shares with the later chapel of St. Catherine, near Abbotsbury, the peculiarity of being built, within and without, walls and roof alike, of stone. The chapel of St. Ealdhelm stands four square, with a pyramidal roof, now surmounted by a cross, which has taken the place of the cresset in which the beacon fire blazed on nights of storm or national danger. No doubt it showed one of the “twinkling points of fire” of Macaulay’s ballad when the Armada had been sighted off Alderney. There is a legend that it was built by St. Ealdhelm, who, finding that he could not by land get at the heathen of what we now call Dorset, came in a boat and climbed the cliff, and afterwards founded this chapel to mark the spot where he landed. That he landed here is probable enough, but the style of architecture—Norman—shows that it was built long after St. Ealdhelm’s time. It is far more likely that his chapel was built on the hill at “Corfes-geat,” now crowned with the ruins of Corfe Castle. Another more romantic story tells us that this chapel on St. Ealdhelm’s Head was founded by the Norman Lord of the Manor, who, when his daughter, who had just been married, set out from Poole Haven to sail down channel to her home, came to this high spot to watch the vessel that bore her pass, and saw it wrecked on the rocks below. Hence it is said that he built this chapel so that masses might be said there for her soul’s rest. Be this as it may, it is certain that for many centuries the chaplain received his yearly stipend of fifty shillings from the Royal Treasury, and the chapel was a seamen’s chantry, where prayers for their safety might be offered, and whose flaming beacon served as a lighthouse. A narrow Norman window, or, rather, a slit, near the north-west corner of the east wall, alone admits light. A Norman doorway, in the opposite wall, is the only entrance. The stone vault is supported by ribs springing from a central pier, an arrangement similar to that common in polygonal chapter houses. The local name for the building was at one time “The Devil’s Chapel,” and people sought to gain their objects by some process of incantation, one part of the rite being the dropping of a pin into a hole in the central pier, a custom not altogether abandoned even now. On Worth “club walking day,” in Whitsun week, the building was used as a dancing room; at other times of the year as a coastguard store. It has, however, been refitted as a chapel, and service for the coastguard station is held at stated times by the rector of Worth.

Sidney Heath 1901

The Chapel on St. Ealdhelm’s Head.

It is neither possible nor desirable to mention all the Norman work which is to be found in Dorset, but attention must be called to that at Bere Regis. In this church may especially be noticed some curious carved heads on some of the capitals; on one, an arm comes down from above, and the hand raises the eyelids—evidently the gift of sight is here indicated; on another in like manner the fingers open the mouth—probably the gift of speech is here represented, although the carving might be intended to represent the gift of taste.

Work of the Early English period (thirteenth century) is not very common in Dorset. We meet with it, however, in the east end of Wimborne Minster, in the churches of Knighton, Cranborne, Corfe Mullen, Portesham, and Worth, among others.

Nor is the Decorated style more fully represented. The best examples are Milton Abbey Church, which is almost entirely in this style, and the aisles of Wimborne Minster; but it may also be seen in Gussage St. Michael, Tarrant Rushton, and Wooton Glanville, and at St. Peter’s, Dorchester, a well-preserved arch for the Easter sepulchre of this period may be seen. It was customary in such arches to set up at Easter a movable wooden structure representing the grave in Joseph’s garden, where certain rites commemorating the Burial and Resurrection were performed. These sepulchres were very elaborate, and associated with them were figures, of course of small size, representing Christ, the Father, the Holy Ghost, the armed guard, and angels and devils.

The great majority of the Dorset churches are of Perpendicular date, and in churches of earlier date there are few that do not contain some addition or insertion made after the time when this peculiarly English style had had its birth in the Abbey Church at Gloucester, and had been adopted by William of Edington and William of Wykeham in the transformation of the Norman Cathedral Church at Winchester during the latter half of the fourteenth century.

Why was it that so many churches were built during the fifteenth century? Probably because conditions had changed, and the building was no longer the work chiefly of the bishops or of the religious orders as it had been up to the thirteenth century, or of the nobles as it had been in the fourteenth, but of the people. The French wars of Edward III. emptied the purses of the nobles and the monasteries; the Black Death also counted many monks among its victims, and had entirely swept away many of the smaller religious houses, and decreased the numbers of brethren in the larger;[17] and the middle class rose after the Black Death to a position that it had never occupied before. This class demanded parish churches, as well as trade halls and guild chapels, and built them, too—that is, supplied money to pay masons. Architecture became more of a trade and less of an art. Norfolk and Somerset were especially rich districts at a time when England exported the raw material, wool, and not, as now, manufactured goods; and hence in these two counties some of the largest and grandest parish churches were built. And Dorset, lying as it does on the Somerset border, showed, though in less degree, the results of the new conditions. It has no churches of this period to match in size St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, or St. Mary Magdalene’s at Taunton; it has no Perpendicular towers to rival those of Shepton Mallet, St. Cuthbert’s at Wells, or Huish Episcopi; but it has some fine examples, nevertheless, distinctly traceable to Somerset influence. The parent design in Dorset may perhaps be seen in Piddletrenthide, 1487; Fordington St. George, the top of which tower has not been very wisely altered of late, is a little more in advance; St. Peter’s, Dorchester, and Charminster are still further developed; the two last probably are the finest individual towers in the county. Bradford Abbas may be thought by some more beautiful, but the builder borrowed details from the Quantock group of churches. The tower at Cerne is probably by the same builder as Bradford, judging from the similarity of the buttresses and pinnacles in the two churches. Beaminster also has a fine tower, and so has Marnhull, though the general effect of the latter is ruined by the clumsy modern parapet. Milton Abbey tower has good details. In all these cases, excepting Cerne, there are double windows in the belfry stage; but this arrangement is not so common in Dorset as in Somerset, and the writer knows no instance of triple windows. A Somerset feature that is very commonly met with in Dorset is an external stair-turret, an arrangement not found in the East of England. The Somerset builders often placed pinnacles on the offsets of their buttresses; these are rarely seen in Dorset. Generally, the Dorset towers are not so richly ornamented as those of Somerset.

It has been said before that there are only two Dorset churches with spires built before the Reformation. A few words may not be out of place descriptive of the two. Steepleton is a long, narrow church, with nave and chancel, but no aisle. A blocked-up Norman arch, and a pointed one, similarly blocked, in the north wall of the nave, indicate that originally a chapel, or chapels, stood here. A curious stone, carved with the figure of a floating angel, probably taken from the interior, was at some time built into the exterior of the south wall of the nave. It has by this means escaped destruction, but the damp has caused lichen to grow on it. It bears a strong resemblance to the angel to be seen over the chancel arch of St. Lawrence’s Church at Bradford-on-Avon. It is not unlikely that the corresponding angel is on a stone that has been used in blocking one of the arches mentioned before. They possibly date from pre-Conquest days, or, at any rate, from a time before the pre-Conquest style had died out in this remote village, and may have formed part of a representation of the Ascension. The western stone may possibly date from the fourteenth century, as a window in its east face, now covered by the raised roof, shows geometrical tracery; the windows in the other faces are much later—probably they have been altered. The main octagonal spire that rises from the tower does not seem to have been part of the original design. On the four spaces between the corners of the tower and the spire are four spirelets; these do not stand as pinnacles of the tower, nor are they used, as sometimes spirelets were used, to hide the awkward junction of a broad spire with a square tower, for this is not a broad, but rises, as fourteenth century spires generally do, from the tower roof, though here a parapet hardly exists.

Trent Steeple, standing midway on the south side of the church, is a very beautiful one; the tower has double-light windows, with geometrical tracery, and a pierced parapet, with pinnacles, from which rises a very graceful spire, the edges of which have a circular moulding. The spire is slightly twisted from some subsidence, and cracks have occurred in the tower. The church has no aisles, but the projecting tower, the lower part of which serves as an entrance porch, on the south, and the chapel and organ chamber on the north, give it a very picturesque appearance. A modern addition is a distinctly pleasant feature, namely, an octagonal baptistery, which stands beyond the church at the west end of the nave. The interior is also pleasing. There are bench ends of oak, black with age, a reading desk on the north side, of like material, and a fine oak chancel screen. The carved wooden pulpit, if not entirely modern, is very largely so. In the churchyard are the steps and base of a churchyard cross. It is an exceedingly beautiful church, and the few houses in its immediate neighbourhood, with stone mullioned windows, are all in keeping with the church. The straggling cottages, the winding lanes, render it one of the most picturesque villages in the county. It was a distinct loss to Somerset and gain to Dorset when this parish was transferred from the former to the latter county.

This sketch of the Dorset churches would be incomplete without reference to some of the noteworthy features to be met with in the fittings of some of them. The cast-lead font of St. Mary’s, Wareham, on which figures of the Apostles are still distinguishable from each other, despite the rough usage to which they have been subjected, may possibly date from Saxon days, and from the resemblance it bears to the font in Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire, they may well have been contemporaneous. If so, it gives countenance to the belief that this font dates from the time when, as yet, the whole Wessex kingdom was one diocese with its Bishop-stool at the Oxfordshire Dorchester—that is, sometime between the conversion of Cynegils by St. Birinus in 635 and the division of the diocese into the two separate sees of Winchester and Sherborne in 705; as after this event the Oxfordshire Dorchester would have little to do with Dorset.

The church at Piddletown has escaped the drastic restoration that has destroyed the interest of so many of our Dorset churches. Archæologists may well rejoice that the gallery and pews have not been swept away with ruthless zeal, and will pray that they may, for many years to come, stand as witnesses of what was being done in Dorset at a time when the storm was gathering that was destined for a while to overthrow the power of king and priest.

In Bloxworth Church there still remains in its stand the hour-glass by which the preacher regulated the length of his sermon. This probably was placed in its position about the middle of the seventeenth century. The people in those days liked sermons, and expected to be able to listen to one for at least an hour, though sometimes the preacher, when all the sand had run into the lower half of the hour-glass, would give his congregation another hour, turning the glass; and sometimes yet once again the glass was turned. As we look on this relic of sermon loving days, we cannot help thinking of the eyes of the weary children, doomed to sit under these long-winded preachers, turned on the slowly trickling sand, and the sense of relief they must have felt when the last grain had run down, and the hour of their enforced listening was at an end.

To this same seventeenth century may be ascribed many of the elaborately carved oaken pulpits which are to be found in Dorset, as, for instance, those at Beaminster, Netherbury, Charminster, Iwerne Minster, and Abbotsbury. In the last may still be seen two holes caused by bullets fired by Cromwell’s soldiers when the church was garrisoned by Royalists under General Strangways.

At Frampton a stone pulpit, of fifteenth century date, much restored, still exists. At Corton Chapel a fine pre-Reformation stone altar stands, which escaped destruction when the order for the removal of stone altars was issued in 1550, because Corton was one of those free chapels which had been suppressed and deprived of its revenue three years before by the Chantry Act of 1 Edward VI.

In the neighbouring church at Portesham a window on the north side of the nave shews signs of the influence which on the Continent led to the Flamboyant style. A fine Jacobean screen may be seen at West Stafford Church, which was removed from its original position and put further to the east when the church was lengthened a few years ago.

In Hilton Church there are twelve noteworthy mediæval panel paintings, each more than six feet high, representing the Apostles. These once belonged to Milton Abbey.

When Tarrant Rushton Church was restored, on the eastern face of the chancel arch were found two earthenware vases. Their use is a matter of doubt, but an idea formerly prevailed that such vessels gave richness to the voice, and from this idea they were sometimes let into the walls, and were known as acoustic vases.

Dorset is fairly rich in monumental effigies in stone and alabaster. One of the most beautiful and best preserved of the latter is that erected in Wimborne Minster by the Lady Margaret, in memory of her father and mother, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his wife. Cross-legged effigies are to be seen in Wareham, Bridport, Piddletown, Wimborne Minster, Dorchester, Trent, Horton, Wimborne St. Giles, and Stock Gaylard. The first four bear a close resemblance to one another. The knight wears a sleeved tunic or hauberk of mail, a hooded coif, and over this a helmet. This costume indicates a date before the middle of the twelfth century. The feet rest upon an animal. At one time the fact that the legs were crossed was held to indicate that the person represented was a Crusader; if the legs were crossed at the ankles it was supposed that he had made one pilgrimage to the East; if at the knees, two; if higher up, three. But all this is probably erroneous, for on the one hand some known Crusaders are not represented with their legs crossed, while others who are known not to have gone to the Holy Land are so represented. And even a stronger proof may be adduced, namely, that some of the crossed-legged effigies represent knights who lived after the Crusades were over; for example, that found on the tomb of Sir Peter Carew at Exeter, who died in 1571. In Mappowder Church there is a miniature cross-legged effigy, about two feet long. This is often spoken of as a “boy crusader”—a child who is supposed to have gone with his father to the Holy Land, and to have died there. But this is probably a mistake. Similar diminutive effigies are found in divers places; for instance, that at Salisbury which goes by the name of the “Boy Bishop,” and Bishop Ethelmer’s (1260) at Winchester. Many authorities think that, as it was customary in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to bury different parts of the body in different places, these effigies mark the spot where the heart was buried. The figure at Mappowder holds a heart in its hands, and this certainly lends countenance to this theory. A similar monument formerly existed at Frampton, but it has disappeared. At Trent is a crossed-legged effigy of a “franklin”—a civilian who was allowed to wear a sword. There are two figures in St. Peter’s, Dorchester, laid on the sills of windows; it is said they were removed from the old Priory Church. These are of later date, namely, the end of the fourteenth century. They wear plate armour, and on their heads pointed bassinets, while the great helms that were worn over these serve as pillows for their heads to rest on.

At West Chelborough there is a curious monument without date or name: a lady lies asleep on a bed with a child enveloped in the folds of her drapery; probably this indicates that she died in giving birth to the infant. Another curious monument is met with in Sandford Orcas Church, whereon may be seen William Knoyle kneeling with one of his wives in front, and one behind him, and behind the latter, four corpses of children; the knight and first wife have skulls in their hands, to indicate that they were dead when the monument (1607) was erected; the second wife is dressed in black to show her widowhood; her seven children are also represented, the four girls by her, and the three boys behind the father. It will be noticed that the recumbent figures of earlier time gave place to kneeling figures in the sixteenth century, when the husband and wife were often represented opposite to each other, with their children behind them in graduated sizes. These are far less pleasing than the monuments of earlier date; but worse was to come, an example of which may be seen at St. Peter’s Church, Dorchester, in the monument of Denzil, Lord Holles, so well known in the history of the reign of Charles I.

A bare mention must suffice for other monuments. In Marnhull, Thomas Howard (1582), a man of huge stature, lies between his two wives, small delicate women, who are absolutely alike in person and dress. It would seem as if their effigies were mere conventional representations. In the neighbouring church of Stalbridge lies an emaciated corpse in a shroud without date or name.

In Netherbury is a mutilated alabaster figure with “S.S.” on the collar; at Melbury Sampford the alabaster effigy of William Brounyng, who died 1467, wears plate armour and the Yorkist collar. At Charminster are several canopied tombs of the Trenchards, in Purbeck marble, of a form found in many Wessex churches, and the figure of a daughter of Sir Thomas Trenchard, wife of Sir William Pole, who died in 1636. She kneels before a book lying open on a desk, and wears a fur tippet. In Chideock Chapel may be seen a knight in plate armour, possibly Sir John Chideock, who died in 1450. In Came Church are the recumbent figures of Sir John Miller and his wife Anna (1610).

In Farnham, over the altar, is a plain stone in memory of one Alexander Bower, a preacher of God’s Word, who is said to have died “in the year of Christes incarnation (1616).” This is interesting as showing the unabridged form of the possessive case.

Built in the wall over the door of Durweston Church is a piece of carving, which originally was above the altar and beneath the east window, representing a blacksmith shoeing a horse; and over the west door of Hinton Parva is a carving of an angel, a cross, and a butterfly.

The finest timber roof in the county is undoubtedly that of Bere Regis nave. It is said that Cardinal Morton placed this roof upon the church when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born near, or in, this village, and after the battle of Towton was attainted. In the central shield on the roof the arms of Morton are impaled with the arms of the See of Canterbury; this gives the date of the erection somewhere between 1486 and 1500, but a Cardinal’s hat on one of the figures limits the date still further, as it was not until 1493 that Morton became a Cardinal. The figures, which project from the hammer beams and look downwards, are popularly known as the Apostles, but the dress precludes this idea, as one is habited as a Deacon, and one, as said above, wears a Cardinal’s hat. The painting of the roof is modern, done when the roof was restored.

One of the most remarkable buildings of the fifteenth century is St. Catherine’s Chapel, on the lofty hill which overlooks the sea near Abbotsbury. In the construction of this, wood plays no part—all is solid stone. The roof is formed of transverse ribs, richly bossed where ridge and purloin ribs intersect them, and each of the two rectangular compartments between every pair of ribs on either side thus formed is simply foliated like blank window lights. There is not a thin stone vault below a stone outer roof above with a space between them, but it is stone throughout, and on St. Catherine’s wind-swept hill the chapel has stood uninjured since the Benedictine Monks of Abbotsbury built this chantry nearly five hundred years ago. The massive buttresses, from which no pinnacles rise, the parapet pierced by holes for letting out the water, the turret with its flat cap, in which once the beacon fire used to be lighted in its iron cresset, render the chapel still more unique. Nowhere else in England, save on St. Ealdhelm’s Head, can such a solidly-built structure be found. The simple tracery of the windows remains, but the glass has disappeared. The windows are boarded up to keep out the rain and the interior is bare. Resting on a hill top, washed by the pure breezes, such a chapel is fitly dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria.

THE MEMORIAL BRASSES OF DORSET

By W. de C. Prideaux

ORSET is by no means rich in the number of its monumental brasses. Haines, in his list (1861), gives their number as thirty-three, distributed over twenty-four churches; but recent researches and alterations in the county boundaries have rendered his list no longer strictly accurate. Yet only about one hundredth of the brasses to be found in England are preserved in Dorset, though its area is about one fiftieth of the area of England; and so it will be seen that the number of its brasses is considerably below the average, although it must be remembered that brasses are very unequally divided, the Eastern counties having by far the largest proportion.

The earliest known brasses in England date from the latter part of the thirteenth century; and for three centuries this form of memorial was in great favour. Brasses had many advantages over carved effigies in stone; they occupied less space, formed no obstruction in the churches, were more easily executed, and possibly cheaper. Fortunately, also, they have lasted longer, and have preserved a wealth of valuable detail relating to costume and heraldry far in excess of any other form of monument.

Monumental brasses may be divided roughly into two classes: those in which the figure is engraved on a rectangular plate, the background being plain or filled in with diapered or scroll work, which is seen to such great advantage on many Continental brasses, and those in which there is no background, the plate being cut around the outline of the figure, and fastened down into a similarly shaped shallow matrix or casement in the stone slab. Examples of both kinds are found in Dorset; but none of our examples are of very early date. One of the oldest, commemorating Joan de St. Omer, dated 1436 (an engraving of which may be seen in Hutchins’ Dorset, vol. ii., p. 380, and a rubbing by the late Mr. Henry Moule in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, London[18]), has disappeared from St. Peter’s Church, Dorchester, although the matrix still remains. The Oke brass at Shapwick, if of contemporary workmanship, may be older.

Sometimes brasses were pulled out and sold by the churchwardens for the value of the metal.[19] Sometimes, indeed, brasses which had commemorated some warrior, priest, or worthy of former times were taken up, turned over, re-engraved, and made to do duty in honour of someone else, as may be seen in the retroscript brasses at Litton Cheney; but in several cases the brass, after weathering the stormy times of the civil wars, and escaping the greed of those whose business it was to guard their church from the mutilation, were lost through the gross neglect of the nineteenth century restorer. The writer knows of several specimens now loose and in danger.

The following is a list of all the known brasses in Dorset:—

Beaminster.—Ann, the wife of Henry Hillary, of Meerhay, 1653.

Elizabeth, the wife of William Milles, and daughter of John Hillary, of Meerhay, 1674.

Mrs. Ann Hillary, died 1700.

William Milles, Esq., of Meerhay, and Mary, his wife. He died 1760, aged 82; she died 1771, aged 95.

And outside the wall of south aisle, inscriptions to—

Elizabeth Smitham, 1773, aged 61.

Rev. Edmund Lewis, 1766, aged 40.

Joseph Symes, gent., 1776, aged 75; also Frances, his wife, 1737, aged 47.

And on a large slab in the floor of south aisle, formerly on an altar tomb—

Pray for the soule of S^r John Tone,[20]

Whose bodye lyeth berid under this tombe,

On whos soule J’hu have mercy A Pat’nost’ & Ave.

All small inscriptions only.

Bere Regis.—J. Skerne and Margaret, his wife, 1596. Kneeling figures, with heraldic shield and an eight-line engraved verse, on altar tomb.

Robert Turberville, 1559. Inscription only.

Bryanston.—John Rogers and Elizabeth, his wife, 1528. Inscription below matrices of their effigies and heraldic shields.

Cecilia Rogers, wife of Sir Richard Rogers, of Bryanston. A ten-line verse below matrices of her effigy and heraldic shields, 1566.

Bridport.—Edward Coker, gent. Inscription only, 1685.

Caundle Purse.—William Longe, 1500; Elizabeth Longe, 1527; Richard Brodewey, rector, 1536. All small effigies, the two latter with inscriptions; and all loose when seen by the writer, with the exception of a small plate to Peter Hoskyns, 1682, above Longe altar tomb.

Compton Valence.—Thomas Maldon, rector, rebuilder of church, 1440. Half effigy, from which issue two scrolls, with words from Ps. li. 1.

Chesilborne.—A small inscribed brass to John Keate, 1552, and Margaret, his wife, 1554.

Corfe Mullen.—A small effigy of Richard Birt. Below this there is a mutilated inscription to Ricardus Birt and Alicia, his wife, 1437.

Crichel, Moor.—Isabel Uvedale, 1572. An effigy with a ten-line engraved verse.

William Cyfrewast, Esquyer, 1581. Inscription and two six-line verses.

Crichel, Long.—Johan’ Gouys. A small inscription only.

Cranborne.—Margaret, daughter of Henry Ashelie, the wife of William Wallop, 1582. Inscription only. There is another inscribed plate bearing date 1631; otherwise illegible.

Dorchester, St. Peter.—Inscription and scroll to the lost figure of Joan de St. Omer, widow of Robert More, 1436.

William and Johanna Sillon. Part of inscription.
Inscription to John Gollop.

Evershot.—William Grey, rector, 1524, with chalice and host. Inscription below effigy composed of quite a different alloy.

Fleet Old Church.—Robert and Margaret Mohun, with seventeen children, 1603.

Maximillian Mohun, his son, showing his wife and thirteen children.

Holme Priory.—Richard Sidwaye, gent., 1612.

Knowle.—John Clavell, 1572, and two wives; the first with three sons and one daughter; the second wife, Susan, daughter of Robert Coker, of Mappowder, is kneeling alone.

Litton Cheney.—Ralph Henvil, of Looke, 1644. Anne Henvill, daughter of Richard Henvill, of Looke, 1681. Inscriptions only.

There is also an interesting retroscript brass, in two pieces, having three inscriptions:—

• 1.—Johes Chapman, ffysch mōger, 1471.
• 2.—Alexandriam (?) Warnby, 1486.
• 3.—Johis Newpton et Thome Neupto.

Lytchett Matravers.—Thomas Pethyn (als. Talpathyn), rector, in shroud, c. 1470.

Margaret Clement, “generosa, specialis benefactrix reedificacionis huius ecclesie,” 1505.

A matrix of a very large fret (the arms of Matravers), with marginal inscription, to Sir John Matravers, 1365.

Langton.—John Whitewod, gent., and his two wives, Johanna and Alicia; three effigies, with inscription, bearing dates 1457, 1467, and portion of scrolls.

Melbury Sampford.—Sir Gyles Strangwayes, 1562, in tabard. Two shields, with thirteen and fourteen quarterings respectively, and inscriptions to Henry Strangwayes, Esq., who “died at the syege of Bolleyne,” and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Lord George Rosse; and to Sir Gyles Strangwayes and his wife, Joan, eldest daughter of John Wadham, Esq. There are also strip brasses around recumbent marble effigies of Sir Gyles Strangwayes the elder, and William Brunyng, and a rectangular brass plate to Laurencius Sampford, miles, and another to John and Alicia Brounyng, with three coats of arms.

Milton Abbey.—Sir John Tregonwell, D.C.L., 1565, in tabard, with heraldic shields and inscription.

John Artur, a monk of the Abbey. A small brass of about the middle of the fifteenth century.

Milborne St. Andrew.—John Morton, Esq., 1521, son of Richard Morton, and nephew of John Morton, Cardinal. Brass plate on altar tomb, below matrix of a knight in armour.

Moreton.—James Frampton, 1523. He is shown kneeling, with text on scrolls.

Owermoigne.—John Sturton, Esq., 1506. Inscription, “causyd this wyndowe to be made.”

On a loose plate, now lost, Nicholas Cheverel, Esq., and Jane, his wife, who both died in the year 1548.

Piddlehinton.—Thomas Browne, parson for 27 years, in hat and clerical habit, having staff and book, with a twelve-line verse and inscription, 1617.

There was formerly a brass inscription to John Chapman, 1494, in the north aisle.

Piddletown.—Roger Cheverell, 1517. Half effigy, with inscription and two shields of arms.

Christopher Martyn, Esq., 1524. Kneeling effigy, in tabard, with shield of arms and partial representation of the Trinity.

Nicholas Martyn, Esq., and wife, 1595, with three sons and seven daughters, with armorial brass and inscription between effigies, on back of altar tomb.

Pimperne.—Mrs. Dorothy Williams, wife of John Williams, curate, 1694. A very curious effigy, with skeleton below. “Edmund Colepeper fecit.”

Puncknowle.—William Napper, Esq., brother of Sir Robert Napper, in armour; by his wife, Anne, daughter of Wm. Shelton, Esq., of Onger Park, he had six sons. Brass engraved c. 1600, before his death.

Rampisham.—Thomas Dygenys and his wife Isabel. Two figures, with inscription at their feet, “gud benefactors to this churche.” Both died in 1523.

Shaftesbury, St. Peter.—Inscription to Stephen, son and heir of Nicholas Payne, steward of the Monastery, 1508. On the slab are matrices of four brass shields. This was removed from the Abbey.

In Holy Trinity churchyard is half a large blue slab, having thereon the matrix of a large brass which local tradition says was to King Edward the Martyr.

Shapwick.—Inscription to Richard Chernok, als. Hogeson, vicar, 1538.

A fine effigy of Maria, heiress of Lord de Champneys, and wife of John Oke. The inscription is to the latter; the former has a dog at her feet. Her first husband was Sir William Tourney, and she married William Oke in the reign of Richard II.; so it is quite likely that this brass is of the fourteenth century.

Sturminster Marshall.—An effigy of Henry Helme, vicar, in gown, with moustache and pointed beard. He was the founder of Baylye House (the vicarage), 1581. The inscription is a ten-line verse. The brass is fastened on a black marble slab.

Also, “Here lyeth Wylla’ Benett, on whose sowle Gode have merci.” (No date.)

Swanage, als. Swanwich.—William Clavell (effigy lost), with Margaret and Alicia, his wives, c. 1470.

John Harve, 1510. Inscription only:—

Suche as I was, so be you, and as I am, so shall you be,

And of the soule of John Harve God have mercy.

Henry Welles, of Godlinstone, 1607, and Marie, his first wife, 1560. Inscriptions only.

Susan Cockram, wife of Brune Cockram, parson of Swanw^ch, 1641.

Thomas Serrell, the sonn of Anthony Serrell, of Swanwhich, 1639.

Swyre.—John Russell, Esq., and Elizabeth, his wife, daughter of John Frocksmer, Esq., 1505. Inscription, with arms.

James Russell, Esq. (son of John Russell), and Alys, his wife,, daughter of John Wise, Esq., 1510. Inscription, with arms.[21]

George Gollop, of Berwick, tenth son of Thomas Gollop, of Strode, Dorset; brass, c. 1787. Long inscription only, to many of this family.

Tincleton.—Inscription to Thomas Faryngdon, armiger, 1404.

Tarrant Crawford.—In the year 1862, a small brass plate was found on the Abbey site in memory of “d’ns Joh’es Karrant.”

Thorncombe.—Sir Thomas and Lady Brook. Two fine effigies, with long inscription. Sir Thomas died 1419; Lady Brook, 1437; “on whose soules God have mercy and pite that for us dyed on the rode tree. Ame’.”

Upwey.—William Gould, 1681. Inscription only, on outer side of north wall of chancel, opposite altar tomb.

West Stafford.—Inscription to Giles Long, 1592, “then Lord of Frome Bellett and patrone of the parsonage and Stafford.”

Wimborne Minster.—St. Ethelred, King of the West Saxons, martyr, “Anno Domini 873 (871?) 23 die Aprilis per manus dacorum paganorum occubuit.” Half effigy, engraved c. 1440; inscription restored c. 1600.

Woolland.—Mary, daughter of Robert Williams, of Herringston, and wife of Robert Thornhull, and then of Lewis Argenton, 1616. The inscription of twelve lines is curious and descriptive, beginning:—

Here lyeth our landladie loved of all,

Whom Mary Argenton last wee did call.

Yetminster.—John Horsey, Esquire, 1531, Lord of the Manor of Clifton, and Elizabeth, his wife, Lady of the Manor of Turges Melcombe. Two fine effigies, with scrolls at sides and inscription at foot.

Of the foregoing brasses, the following deserve a longer notice:—

Bere Regis.—J. Skerne and Margaret, his wife. This monument consists of two kneeling figures, fourteen inches high, cut round the outline, and represented as kneeling on the pavement; between them is a rectangular plate, with coat of arms (Skerne impaling Thornhull), and an inscription on another plate below. Skerne wears a long gown, with sleeves nearly touching the ground; his wife, a dress, with ruff and a widow’s wimple. The inscription states that the memorial was erected by the aforesaid Margaret in 1596.

In the same church there is an inscription to Sir Robert Turberville, 1559. There are also remains of three altar tombs, all with empty matrices; two in the south aisle probably mark the last resting-places of members of the Turberville family. It is of these that John Durbeyfield, in Thomas Hardy’s Tess, boasted, “I’ve got a gr’t family vault at Kingsbere and knighted forefathers in lead coffins there.”

William Grey, 1524. Rector of Evershot.

Caundle Purse.—The brass of W. Longe, 26 ins. high, represents a man in armour, with long flowing hair; the head is inclined to the right. Its matrix was found by the writer in the North, or Longe, Chantry. The brass is heavy, being ⅜-in. thick; it is poor in execution, and is, unfortunately, away from its slab.

The monument of Richard Brodewey, rector, is far more interesting. The head has been broken off; the figure, only ten inches high, represents the priest as laid out for burial, clad in eucharistic vestments. This brass is specially noteworthy, because it is the only known memorial in England in which the maniple is represented as buttoned or sewn, so as to form a loop to prevent it from slipping off the wrist. This was the final form that the maniple assumed; in earlier times it simply hung over the arm without attachment.

Evershot.—The brass commemorating William Grey is rather larger than that at Caundle Purse, and is in better condition. Like Brodewey, Grey is represented as laid out in his eucharistic vestments—amice, alb, maniple, stole, and chasuble; between his raised hands he holds a chalice, with the host (similar to Henry Denton, priest, Higham Ferrers, 1498). There are only about a dozen representations of chaliced priests in England, so that this memorial may be classed among rare examples. It was customary to bury a chalice (usually of some secondary metal) with all ecclesiastics in priests’ orders.[22]

Fleet.—The two brasses in this church are engraved on rectangular plates. In each, the husband kneels on the opposite side to the wife (he dexter, she sinister), with a prie Dieu between them. Their many sons and daughters kneel behind the father and mother respectively.

Milton Abbey.—Sir John Tregonwell is represented, kneeling, in a tabard; and this is the latest tabard brass in England.

Another very interesting and almost unique brass in the Abbey is that to John Artur, of this place “monachus.” Brasses to monks are exceedingly rare.

Moreton.—The inscription on the monument of James Frampton is unusual; the letters are raised above the background, instead of being sunk in it.

Piddletown.—The effigy of Roger Cheverell has only the upper part left—10½ in. by 6 in. in size. The dress is that of a civilian of good standing, for the cloak is lined with fur; the head is bare and the hair long.

Christopher Martyn’s brass is engraved on a rectangular plate. The lower half is occupied by the inscription; above it kneels the figure in conventional armour, with a tabard bearing arms over. A scroll comes from the mouth, bearing, in abbreviated form, the prayer, “Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis, et omnes iniquitates meas dele.” Two shields, one low on the right side of the figure, another high above the left shoulder, bear the well-known Martyn arms; and above the former, the All Father sits on a throne, with two fingers of the right hand raised in blessing, and the left hand holds between the knees a Tau-shaped cross, on which the Son is nailed. There is, however, no dove, so that it cannot be regarded as a complete representation of the Trinity. At Bere Regis there is a matrix of an enthroned figure of almost identical outline.

The memorial to Nicholas Martyn and his wife belongs to the other type of brass. In the centre, indeed, are two rectangular plates, one bearing the heraldic shield (Martyn impaling Wadham), the other the inscription; but the other plates are cut round the figures, and have little background. On the right or dexter side, the husband, clad in armour, but not wearing a helmet, kneels, with hands clasped in prayer, before an altar covered with a fringed cloth, on which lies an open book; behind him kneel his three sons, wearing cloaks, with ruffs around their necks. On the left-hand side, Margaret, his wife, kneels before a similar altar and book; behind her are her seven daughters, all engaged in prayer. They all wear Elizabethan costume—hoods, large ruffs, long bodied peaked stomachers and skirts, extended by farthingales of whalebone.

Thorncombe.—The brasses to Sir Thomas and Lady Brooke, of Holditch and Weycroft, are two of the most distinguished to be found of the fourteenth century. He was sheriff of Somerset, 1389, and of Devon, 1394, and is shown clad in a long gown with deep dependent sleeves, guarded with fur around the skirt, and pulled in at the waist by a belt studded with roses; within the gown a second garment appears, with four rows of fur around the skirt. His hair is short, and his feet rest on a greyhound couchant, collared. Lady Brooke wears a long robe, fastened across the breast by a cordon with tassels, over a plain gown; her hair is dressed in semi-mitre shape, and confined by a richly jewelled net, over which is placed the cover-chief, edged with embroidery and dependent to the shoulders. At her feet is a little dog, collared and belled. Sir Thomas and his wife each wear the collar of SS.; their arms are in tightly-fitting sleeves, and the hands are raised in prayer. The inscription around the effigies has been restored, and plain shields inserted in place of originals, which would have shown Gules on a chevron argent a lion rampant sable; Brooke with, among others, Cheddar, Mayor of Bristol, 1360-1, and Hanham.

Wimborne Minster.—The Ethelred effigy here is only half length. The king is represented, in part, in priestly vestments. (“As kings by their coronation are admitted into a sacred as well as a civil character, the former of these is particularly manifested in the investiture with clerical garments.”) Though the brass commemorates a king of the West Saxons, it dates only from 1440. The inscription is on a copper plate, and the king’s death is said thereon to have occurred in 873, two years too late. A brass plate on which the date is correctly given is preserved in the Minster Library. It is supposed that the figure and the plate bearing the inscription were removed from the matrix and hidden for safety in the time of the Civil Wars, and that the plate could not be found when the figure was replaced, so that the copper one now on the slab was engraved to take the place of the one lost, which, however, was afterwards found, but not laid on the stone. It is a noteworthy fact that the effigy is fastened to the stone with nails of copper, not of brass; doubtless these are contemporary with the copper plate which bears the inscription. The Ethelred brass is the only brass commemorating a king that is to be found in England, and is so illustrated in Haines’ Manual, p. 74.

Wraxall.—Elizabeth Lawrence, wife of Mr. William Lawrence, 1672. A six-line verse and an impaled coat of arms.

Yetminster.—This brass, one of the finest in Dorset, was at one time loose at East Chelborough Rectory, but it has now been fixed to a slab on the south wall of the church. It was originally laid on a large stone in the floor of the chancel. John Horsey is represented in full and very richly ornamented armour; his wife is in a graceful gown and mantle, with dependent pomander, and fine head-dress.

SHERBORNE

By W. B. Wildman, M.A.

HERBORNE, as far as we can tell, owes its existence as a town to the fact that it was chosen in 705 to be the site where the bishop-stool was fixed of St. Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Western or Newer Wessex. Sherborne, like its daughter-towns Wells and Salisbury, is a Bishop’s town; but, unlike them, it was also, from 998 to 1539, the seat of a Benedictine Monastery. Thus Sherborne has suffered two distinct shocks in its career; the first came upon it when it lost its bishop in 1075; the second, when its Abbey was dissolved in 1539.