Ashmore

Ashmore, at 700 ft above sea level, is the highest village in Dorset. It is situated on the county border with Wiltshire about six miles south east of Shaftesbury. The village is built around a large pond that was probably artificially enlarged during Roman times and which is likely the reason a settlement grew up here. The existence of this village is recorded in Domesday Book as Aismere with its great dew pond or mere.

In times past the pond would dry-up about once in every twenty years. On these occasions the villagers would follow ancient customs and hold a feast. The mud would be removed from the bed, a fire lit while “figgy pudding” was eaten. Local cattle owners who depended on the pond for water used to supply the puddings. Following a feast in 1921 a new water suppply was provided in 1923 so it is likely this tradition has died out.

There is mention of Round Barrows in the parish and RCHM reports that bones were recovered from a barrow when it was removed in the 19th century. The Roman road from Badbury Rings to Bath passes through the east of the parish.

Our Victorian ancestors were busy all over the country restoring or rebuilding the churches and Ashmore gained a new church, but before we look at that let us see what we know about the earlier church.

First thing to say is it was not the first rebuild; that was in 1423 and the Chancel was reconstructed again in 1692.  The old Church of St. Nicholas was a small structure of stone and flint, consisting of a Chancel, Nave, porch and a small wooden tower housing two bells. The west end was an example of Early English work, with side buttresses and two narrow windows. The solid projecting piers of the Chancel arch were Norman. It is thought the single window in the Nave was from the 15th century rebuild. Important items disappeared during the 1874 rebuild: the font, probably Georgian was dumped in the churchyard and monuments to several Rectors as well as two floor monuments bearing coats-of-arms were lost.

The old church featured a gallery at the west end where the singers and musicians would sit and the pews on paved slabs over the vaults had been known to collapse, falling into graves below – an unseemly business that hastened the need for a new church.

Church accounts back to 1755 record the continuing deterioration of the church. £37 was spent on repairs during 1768-9 and a further £23 expended in 1773. In 1801 there was a succession of vestry meetings to discuss the roof that had become dangerous to worshippers. Also cause for concern were the rotting pulpit and altar rails and the gallery and seats in it as well as the steps  into it, along with seating in the body of the church were all in need of repair. In 1813-14 the church was re-roofed and tiled at a cost of £80 and in 1831 there was a carpenter’s bill for £33. Nothing further seems to have been done until 1873 when preparations got underway for the building of the new church.

The present church, the work of Charles Edwards of Exeter, was dedicated on the 20th of October 1874, the service being conducted by the Ven. the Archdeacon of Dorset, the Revd. T. Davidson and the two Churchwardens, Mr G. Rabbets and Mr G. Hare. There was by all accounts a large congregation.

Hanging above the entrance is the Royal coat of Arms, dated 1816 and signed by K. Wilmot. The Royal Arms at St. Peter’s Church in nearby Shaftesbury is dated 1780 and signed by M. Wilmot.

Not much from the old church survived. The Chancel arch is now used as the entrance from the vestry into the Church; the stone step at this entrance is part of a monument to John Carver. A blue slab formerly in the Chancel of the old church was laid in the new porch but many years ago it was removed and joined the old font in the churchyard. Most of the memorials from the old church were installed in the new building including the oldest surviving one dated 1652, which is damaged and defaced and remembers John Mullen, a man who “feared God and loved peace.” The bible from the old church was given to Mr G. Hare who was a churchwarden in the 19th century and in 1960 the Hare family, who have been in the village since the 16th century, returned it to the church.

The present church consists of nave, chancel and side chapel. In 1933 John Skeaping, an animal sculptor whose work was not well known then but who went on to become a Professor at the Royal College of Arts, was commissioned to carve some hunting scenes on the corbels of the chancel to illustrate the parish’s connection with Cranborne Chase. Carvings of St. Nicholas, St. Anthony, St Denis and St. Michael were also added.

In the nave is a window of two lights on the south side illustrating Christ feeding His sheep on one side, and restoring sight to the blind on the other. The font used in the new church is believed to be Norman and it is mounted on an 18th century pedestal. It has a carved mahogany cover edged with gilt and surmounted by a gilt dove.

In the churchyard there is a monumental slab dated 1662 with a shield of arms to George Barber, who purchased Ashmore in 1634. Two members of the family were High Sheriffs of Dorsetshire: Robert Barber in 1670 and his great grandson of the same name in 1742. The Revd. James Ivie was Rector of Ashmore from 1682. He was responsible for the 1692 restorations and married Elizabeth Barber.  James Ivie died in 1710 and his son of the same name became Rector in 1711. Charles Barber, the Rector, was the last member of that family to live or be buried at Ashmore. His brother Robert Barber sold the estate in 1765.

The purchaser was John Eliot, a London merchant whose daughter Mariabella married Luke Howard, well known in his day as a chemist and meteorologist. Following the death of Mariabella’s unmarried brother the estate passed to the Howard family and remained in possession of that family for over two centuries.