2010:

In purely archaeological terms the Prehistoric constitutes the period un-represented by any written record, from when the country was first occupied by man right up to the Roman invasion. Dorset is especially well endowed in this regard. It is as if its topography, climate and geographical position were most highly coveted by the earliest settlers of southern England, and the concentration of their activities and monuments here attains a density unparalleled anywhere in the country. This understandably makes the workload of the county’s archaeology department particularly challenging, for most fieldwork today is salvage or “rescue” archaeology in the vanguard of development.

As elsewhere the prehistoric in Dorset had been organised into five distinct periods on the basis of the type of monument, pottery and other artefacts. Chronologically there were the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, collectively spanning the period from before 500 thousand years ago to 43 AD. Of these the first two periods alone covered approximately 496 thousand years, or 99% of the time Britain has been inhabited. These were illiterate periods of hard and short hunter-gatherer living almost entirely represented today by flint tools, bones, or cave art. One site in Dorset above all others, which has yielded evidence of flint working, has been Hengistbury Head.

About 4000 BC a possible dissemination of ideas and practices through contact with the continent brought agriculture to the inhabitants of Britain. This brought with it a more settled way of life, which in turn led to the first appearance of earthworks to define the areas of places established for religion, trade, tribal meeting or even settlement. Several distinct kinds of earthwork make their appearance in Dorset, namely Causewayed Enclosures, Long Barrows and Henges.

Causewayed enclosures are circular or irregularly oval areas defined by up to three ring-ditches accompanied by low banks or ramparts built up using spoil from the ditches. The banks are discontinuous in one or more places to allow access into the enclosure. The ditches have yielded most of the period’s flint tools, bones and sherds of the earliest pottery to be made in England, clearly indicating that the people were habitually using ditches as middens for the refuse from their settlements, whether these were situated within the enclosures or outside them. Elsewhere excavation of some ditches has yielded only human remains, suggesting that at these enclosures only funeral rites were practised.

Causewayed enclosures are mainly distributed on the hilltops of the chalk downland, though some may have been constructed in the wider valleys. Two notable examples are at Dorchester: Flagstones was a causewayed enclosure partly destroyed by the construction of the town’s bypass; the remainder actually lies beneath Maxgate, the home of Thomas Hardy. This site revealed the marks of the antler picks used to dig it, and some burials took place in and around the enclosure. The hillforts of Maiden Castle near Dorchester and Hambledon Hill began their prehistoric record as causewayed enclosures before these were abandoned or superseded by later earthworks.

Long Barrows were or are the earthen prehistoric equivalent to mausolea for communal burial. They can be over 90 metres (300 feet) long, and usually taper towards the end, both in plan and elevation. The majority had a wooden mortuary enclosure and ditches usually flanked the sides. They are generally a feature of the chalk uplands, with two major groupings around and to the west of Dorchester. There are also groups on Pimperne and Thickthorn Downs near Cranbourne, close to the south west end of the special contemporary earthwork known as the Dorset Cursus. The Hell Stone near Portesham is the stone cairn of a long barrow now worn away.

A special class of barrow (and one found nowhere else outside Dorset) is the Bank Barrow, a much elongated variant of the long barrow, but which did not usually enclose a burial. There are three of these earthworks: at Maiden Castle and Came Down near Dorchester and at Martins Down near Long Bredy.

The Dorset Cursus itself was a linear enclosure almost 7 miles long, defined by two sets of parallel banks and ditches. It runs from Thickthorn Down to Pentridge, though only at the later does any part of the earthwork survive today. Its function is a matter of some controversy, though the monument probably reflects an aspect of tribal ritual. Associated long barrows cut the cursus at two points, showing that the burials were later, from a time when the cursus had passed out of use.

The transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age was not a sudden event, but a slow process of social and demographic change, which went on roughly between 2,500 and 1,500 BC. Over this period the causewayed camps were abandoned and the long barrows were sealed. During this phase also, the exclusively British innovation of the Henge makes its appearance.

Henges differed from the causewayed enclosures in usually having only one bank with entrances and the ditch usually, though not invariably, on the inside. The interiors were often left without other structures, though some had pits, posts, or standing stones. Mount Pleasant and Maumbury Rings near Dorchester and Eggardon Hill near Winterbourne Abbas being the best examples. Mount Pleasant was 400 metres (450 yards) across and was a major tribal centre with rings of timber uprights inside, though today it is only visible as an earth mark in the chalk soil. Henges usually occur singularly, but at Knowlton near Gussage St. Michael there is a cluster of three or four in close association.

Close to the henges in time were un-enclosed Stone Circles, which may reflect on a smaller scale the function of the more complex monument. There are two examples of these in Dorset, at Kingston Russell near Abbotsbury and Nine Stones near Winterbourne Abbas.

By far the most prolific (and most important) source of the information and artefacts of the Bronze Age Beaker and Wessex Cultures are the Round Barrows. There were six variants on the basic plan, Bell and Bowl Barrows being the most common. Wessex was the heartland of barrow building and there are still some 400 surviving examples to be seen along the South Dorset Ridgeway. They were graves of a rich chiefdom society and have yielded rich hoards of pottery, brooches, and gold and bronze objects, as at Clandon near Martinstown. There are large cemeteries at Oakley Down near Sixpenny Handley and at Poor Lot near Winterbourne Abbas. Further clusters occur around the Dorset Cursus, in Came Wood and around the Knowlton henges.

After 1000 BC there were permanent fields and settlement sites. Around 700 BC the Iron Age in Britain began, when population pressure and increasing inter-tribal warfare may have been the impetus for the appearance of the great revetted and defended hillforts. The earliest in Dorset may be Chalbury near Weymouth (c.600 BC.) Between 200 and 100 BC many of these forts were much enlarged, as at Maiden Castle, Eggardon Hill, Hod Hill, Hambledon Hill, Badbury Rings, Abbotsbury Castle, Pilsden Pen and Rawlesbury.

But the present distribution of these monuments can be misleading as to the pattern of settlement in prehistoric Dorset. Because the monuments and settlements are today found only on the uplands it has been thought that the people of the time only settled and farmed here. But later people have not used the higher ground intensively. It has now been realised that the valleys were settled in prehistoric times also, but here the evidence of activity has largely been destroyed by post-Roman settlement and farming.

The history of clock-making or horology is one of a constant battle to improve the means of timekeeping. Craftsmen in Dorset no less reflected that in their work from the earliest beginnings in the 11th and 12th centuries to the decline of hand-made clocks in the 19th century.

The earliest clocks ever made in Dorset (as probably elsewhere) were those made for churches. During medieval times smaller versions of church clocks were being hand-made for the home elsewhere in the country, but this type was unknown in Dorset. However these clocks would have been very poor timekeepers until technical advances such as the pendulum in the 17th century enabled timepieces to become reliable enough for use in the home.

By the end of the 18th century and from then until the mid-19th century technical refinement and reliability in hand-made clocks reached as far as it would ever go. Henceforth a steady decline in standards set in with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and mass production.

Dorset exactly reflected this pattern. Its earliest known clock is that residing in Wimborne Minster, dating from 1409, though it is quite possible that this clock or another was in use well before this date. But the earliest sources of our knowledge of clocks in the county come from Churchwarden’s records. These list the names of the clockmakers and repairers – or blacksmiths or whitesmiths – who maintained church turret clocks for over 100 years.

As to when horology became clearly defined as an industry in Dorset, this is difficult to place. For example, when the borough of Dorchester organised its trades into guilds some clock-makers, though included, elected to be registered as braziers or ironmongers as late as the 19th century.

One place where the clock-maker/blacksmith connection can most clearly be seen is in Stourton Caundle parish church. A funerary hatchment of John Biddlecombe bearing the arms of the Worshipful Company of blacksmiths hangs in this church and states “With hammer in hand all artes do stand.” The blacksmith and clock-maker records were lost in World War II but an earlier John Biddlecombe left his blacksmith and clock-working tools to his son upon his death in 1741. The hatchment therefore probably commemorates John junior, who in fact made the church clock still in use today. Indeed, Biddlecombe was just the first in a long succession of smiths to style themselves as clock-makers as well.

One interesting instance of wounded pride has survived showing how clock-makers would consider themselves a cut above other trades. In a letter written in 1772 James Norman, a Poole-clock maker, replies to a complaining minister or churchwarden about his charge for installing a church clock that includes this line: “You may get bunglers or white or blacksmiths to work at a cheaper rate!” Early turret clocks needed constant attention and repair, and as public clocks the cost of their purchase and maintenance was accountable.

A little later than the earliest Wimborne record, accounts of churchwardens in Bridport record a clock in 1425 and in Corfe Castle one is recorded in 1570. It is further noted that Weymouth and Melcombe Regis bought a new clock for St. Mary’s church in 1619. In this instance the maker kept the old clock’s movements in part exchange, indicating that the church’s first clock went back at least 70 years before the replacement. It is not known whether or not these clocks were made in Dorset.

By the 18th century church clocks were being signed and dated. The earliest known signed and dated clock is that set into the tower of Sydling St. Nicholas Church and is inscribed “1593 E.T.C.”

There is no record of a domestic clock in Dorset until the 16th century, but by 1620 records show that the county clearly had clock-makers, and from then a comprehensive list of makers can begin. The earliest records are in the Dorchester Domesday Book at the time of Henry V till Elizabeth I, and the first mention of a clock-maker in the borough records minute of 15th September 1625. As expected the principle-line of clock-makers was centred on Dorchester, though Poole and Weymouth were also centres of some importance by the late 18th century.  Bridport, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Blandford and Wimborne had a less significant, but strong and continuous tradition of clock-making, while Stalbridge, Puddletown and Bere Regis were home to minor cottage horologists. Shaftesbury and Sherborne were the earliest producers of 17th century lantern clocks.

Most domestic clocks made in Dorset were 30-hour long-case clocks fashioned to suit the lifestyle of the county, and these were the cheapest. By the 1760’s clocks powered by falling weights had appeared and the most common type after LCC’s were the so-called “classroom” or wall clocks which could indicate the time for a large number of people at once without the disadvantage of the long-case clock. Early wall clocks of the late 18th century generally had large dials, well-cast brass bezels and factory movements mass-produced in Birmingham, Germany or the US.

An Act of Parliament in 1797 taxing the possession of all clocks (and watches) – though repealed after just one year – effectively halved the number of makers as public clocks became more important. These were the “Act of Parliament Clocks” which James Kenway of Bridport and Thomas Wood of Dorchester specialised in making.

In Dorchester the earliest recorded clock-maker seems to have been Richard How, who had relations and apprentices with connections to many other makers. Also of importance in the 19th century was James Bunn, who’s clocks retained typical features of the late 17th or very early 18th centuries. However, James Wood of Dorchester (1741-1803) relied on quality of engraving for effect and specialised in making clocks of exceptionally high quality. These were probably the last of an era of true hand-made clocks before the custom of buying in more finished parts made clock-making less exacting.

But probably the county’s most innovative clock maker was Henry Ward of Blandford, who even has timepieces exhibited at the British Museum and in Rockford, Illinois. Another horologist in Blandford was Sam Pegler, who was predominantly a maker of bracket clocks that superceded long-case clocks in popularity during the 19th century, and the town’s Charles Baker made three noteworthy long-case clocks with fine marquetry casings. Members of the Bastard family were also involved in horology.

In Bridport a little-known horologist called Lovelace made a particularly unusual long-case clock in a “black-japanned” case about 1700 that was eventually sold at Sotheby’s. Also in Bridport, a maker called Daniel Freke made a clock equipped with a primitive “half-lantern” pinion drive to the count-wheel.

Weymouth’s John Harvey produced the first fine wall clock between 1790 and 1800. In the 18th century Lawrence Boyce of Puddletown was a quite prolific maker of long-case clocks, while Ralph Norman, an apprentice of Richard How, left Dorchester in the 1720’s to make timepieces in Poole of very grand styles and equal in quality to those being made in London.

There is a record of one William Clark, then clock-making in Stalbridge, but originally from Cerne Abbas or Frome, producing some 28-day clocks, while Simon Aish (1690-1735) made some clocks in Sherborne.

Finally, I can note that much more recently Geoffrey Booth of Bere Regis produced a clock for which the case was made by master carpenter and craftsman John Makepeace of Parnham House near Beaminster.