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G.R. Crickmay

The Parish Church of St. Mary’s – Glanville’s Wootton

Feb 22nd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Elsewhere we have looked at the history of Glanville’s Wootton, a parish in “the Vale of the Little Dairies” as Hardy called the Blackmore Vale. Today the tradition of dairy farming continues in the parish, carried on at Round Chimneys Farm by Mr Rich. I went to see the Church, which is to the east of the village and approached by the narrow Church Farm Lane. You can park opposite the church in an area provided; I was greeted from an adjacent paddock by a friendly and inquisitive mare and her foal.

St. Mary’s is surrounded by a well kept churchyard in an attractive setting bounded by stone walls. Built from course rubble with ashlar dressings and roofed with stone slates, the south chapel, the oldest part of this house of God, has walls of knapped flint with Ham Hill ashlar dressings and bonded courses.

Entered through the 15th century south porch St. Mary’s comprises a west tower, nave, chancel and south chapel. The short west tower is 14th century and embattled having two stages outside and three storeys inside with a lancet window in each side of the upper storey. The belfry is home to six bells. The nave is 15th century; subsidence of the north wall due to it having been built over a line of ancient coffins resulted in it being re-built under the supervision of G. R. Crickmay in 1875-1876. The Norman font is of Purbeck marble.

It seems the only part of the chancel not re-built during the restoration by Crickmay is the very large hagioscope or squint. There are two modern clergy stalls by Robert Thompson of Kilbury, York, known as the “Mouseman,” because all the work produced by this firm of craftsmen is decorated with a carved mouse.

The gem of this place is the Chantry south chapel of 1344, separated from the nave by a wide spanning arch. It is a well preserved example of 14th century architecture about which the experts say “it has not greatly altered from its original form.” This was endowed by Sybil de Glanvyll so a priest would say Mass for the departed every day for ever. The beautiful stained glass east window is pointed with three lights with tracery. The chapel has two bays and two windows in the south wall, each are of three lights with tracery. All the chapel windows are 14th century. In the south east corner of the chapel is a piscina (there is another in the chancel) and directly under the windows in the south wall are two tomb recesses; the one to the east with an effigy of a man clad in a military style cloak. The chapel is furnished with high Victorian benches.

Inside St. Mary’s are monuments to Rev. Humphrey Evans (1813); Thomas Mew (1672) rector; members of the Williams and Henley families; John Every (1679) and his mother Anne (Williams) Hurding (1670; James Dale (1833); John and Elizabeth Leigh (1752 and 1783). There are floor slabs in the chancel of Margaret Allen (1662) and Nicholas Rickard, rector, (1707.) In the tower of John Pine (1643) and Ursula Pine (1639).

The church registers date from 1546. Available at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester are the registers of baptisms 1549-1886; marriages 1546-1997; banns 1754-1908 and burials 1578-2000.

You will find a selection of photographs of St. Mary’s in the photo gallery.

The Parish of Glanvilles Wootton

Dec 30th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Formerly known as Wootton Glanville, the name of this small village community in north-central Dorset preferentially became Glanvilles Wootton in conjunction with boundary changes that took place in 1985. A former parochial division of Cerne, the parish now comes under the North Dorset Local Authority, and commonly shares boundaries with the parishes of Buckland Newton, Pulham, Holwell, Holnest and Minterne.

Wootton is situated on the B3146, approximately 12 miles north of Dorchester and 7 miles south east of Sherborne in the Cerne valley area, where the rich clay pastureland of the Blackmore Vale grades south-eastwards into the chalk downland of the Dorset Heights.

The earliest visible relic of human occupation of any magnitude within the parish is Dungeon Hill, an Iron Age fort and later Roman camp lying south east of the village.A Bronze Age Celt (axe or palstave) has been unearthed on Newland Common and also a very long iron spur as well as some Spanish and monastic coins, though prehistoric burials may be present.

Before the Norman Conquest Wootton was a possession of the Abbot of Middletun,then having 16 acres of meadow and four of pasture, but at Domesday it was held by William de Braiose. The earliest Lords of the Manor were the Mauger family.

Before the time of Henry 111, Henry de Glanvyll held two virgates of land as a free tenant of the Abbot. The name of Wootton appears to derive from the“Wideton(e)” of Domeday, meaning a woody place, whilst “Glanville” is the modern form of de Glanvyll or Glanvill, the name of the manorial family who held the parish in the 14th century.

The nave and chancel of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin were re-ordered in 1876 by G.R.Crickmay with assistance from Thomas Hardy. During this restoration it was found that subsidence of the north wall of the nave was due to it having been built over a line of ancient coffins.

Today the parish has an area of 1,705 acres (690 hectares), but in 1865 its area was 1,665 acres (674 ha). It is sub-divided into the two tythings of Wootton and Newland; a number of hamlets or farmsteads lie within its borders as possible former manors of the mother church. These include Newlands, Osehill Green and – most famously – Round Chimneys, the farmhouse of which became the later home of the first Winston Churchill and the birthplace of his son, John, first Duke of Marlborough.

The area’s soil is noted for being very favourable for growing timber, and many of the hedges have been thickly planted with oak and elm. Near Wootton Manor house there is also a fine grove of tall mature elms. By the time of the historian John Hutchins in the 18th century the village had a dispersed settlement pattern with cottages and houses occupied mainly by farmers and labourers. Only a few cottages remained as leasehold. The main agricultural activity of the parish has traditionally been sheep and dairying on rich pastureland divided into several dairy farms. In the 19th century the villagers were sending butter produced from milk to market in London via Sherborne.

Other notable early buildings are the Elizabethan manor houses of Wootton and Round Chimneys. The latter underwent a period of dereliction, but has more recently been restored in a more truncated form. Most homes in the village today are either recent or 19th century; there is a farm with a barn and a cottage with a half-hatch door called “The Smithy”, both dating from 1874.

Wootton formerly possessed two public houses: The New Inn and The Pure Drop Inn, but both of these ceased trading and have since been converted into private residences. The Post Office also has been closed and is now a private cottage. There is however a small public hall still in use near the centre of the village.

As originally planned, the laying of the Yeovil – Dorchester branch railway line was to have passed through the village, but a local landowner forcefully persuaded the planners to lay the line five miles to the west. He did however,plant several Douglas Firs in his wood.

Glanvilles Wootton and in particular the Churchill’s manor house, Round Chimneys, is of significance as it later became the home of James Charles Dale and his son Charles William Dale, noted entomologists who recorded the history and insect life of the parish. In addition James Charles Dale was the first to describe the Lulworth Skipper butterly from a specimen captured at Durdle Door in 1832.

The village is also thehome of former Country Life magazine columnist David Edelsten, author of Dorset Diaries, and landscape architect Amanda Patton, who beat 3,500 other competitors to first prize in a National Horticultural Society garden photography competition.

Changes were made to this article on 12th April 2013 Ed.

Weymouth’s Wonderful Wealth of Authors

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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If you have ever wondered what it is about Liverpool that has bred so many actors, entertainers and popular music bands, then spare a thought for the extraordinarily rich heritage of women and men-of-the-pen associated either by birth or adoption with a town much further south.

That town is Weymouth, Dorset’s mid-coastal port-cum-resort, with its spacious marina and harbour. And while the Lancastrian port can lay claim to the Beatles, the Scaffold, Ken Dodd and others, Weymouth can boast at least twenty-two authors and journalists who have left their marks in the great litany of letters handed down to our time. While some of these writers were quite prolific, others were one-title authors or newspaper columnists who have not left behind a name to be remembered by anyone other than lifelong Weymouth residents.

As to what in their environment inspired these writers to put pen – or typewriter – to paper, we can make some fairly educated guesses. Likely it was simply the boundless open sea before them, or the busy harbour. Even those not blessed with a spectacular view of the Chesil from a window at home would have been in easy reach of a viewpoint of the great shingle spit. Then of course there is the chequered history of the town and coast to lend substance to the visual aspects.

Of the earliest of these writers in comparatively modern time, i.e. from the mid-19th century onwards, the name John Falkner (1858-1932) ranks first. Under the better-known name of J. Meade Falkner he penned the smuggling adventure ‘Moonfleet,’ one of the most famous novels ever to be inspired by and written in Dorset. Though born in neighbouring Wiltshire, Falkner wasn’t yet nine-years old when he walked from Dorchester to Weymouth to visit three aunts who lived in a house in the town’s Brunswick Buildings, while the rest of the family travelled by train. When John was twelve his father, an Anglican curate, accepted the living at the Rectory