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2010:

The Redundant Church at Whitcombe

Apr 11th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The word of God is not preached here anymore. Whitcombe Church is redundant: stripped of its furniture including the pews, although it retains the pulpit from which William Barnes preached his first and his last sermons, it is unlikely ever again to hear voices raised in songs of praise.

Humbled by the nearby magnificent 17th century barn and a farmhouse largely rebuilt in the early 19th century, the Grade I listed church sits in a quiet hollow and has settled on its ancient foundations. Memorials surround it to persons from past congregations who regularly came here to worship. A church has stood on this site since King Athelstan (circa 934) made Whitcombe part of the endowment of Milton Abbey. Seen from the busy road the visitor, after climbing over the stile, will be pleased to find this Norman church open.

Whitcombe is a parish of about 750 acres of largely agricultural land to the south-east of Dorchester and stretching for just two and a half miles along the Dorchester to Wareham road. It is the advance of mechanisation in farming that has been responsible for the declining population. In 1851 there were 61 inhabitants and by the end of the 19th century that number had declined by a third. It is easy to see why the church is redundant: the first census of the 21st century revealed just 10 people living in the parish.

Its fate could also have something to do with the shaky foundations, a problem commented upon in a description of the church written by Mr C.E. Ponting F.S.A., in 1892. He tells us “The building has suffered much from insufficient foundations, there can be no doubt that the rebuilding of parts of the walls were necessitated by this” and he noted that even some of the rebuilt parts were surrendering to the same cause.

Built in squared Portland rubble with dressing of Portland ashlar and some Ham Hill stone, the church consists of a nave and chancel, a west tower and south porch. The nave is 12th century and there are traces of pre Conquest masonry at the west-end. The chancel and south porch were added in the late 15th century and a start was made at the same time on the west tower with the upper stage completed later, about 1596. The roof is modern and covered with tiles and stone slates.

The church retains fragments of two pre Conquest cross-shafts and on the north wall of the nave is a wall painting of St. Christopher carrying Christ, thought to be 15th century and the other is early 14th century arcading. The early 13th century font is of Purbeck marble. Two bells both by John Wallis remain in the church but are no longer hung, both are dated 1610 one inscribed HOPE WELL IW and the other LOVE GOD IW,

The churchyard is partly surrounded by an 18th century brick boundary wall inside of which are 32 monuments the oldest to Melchisadeck Gillet and dated 1680 and there are 18th century memorials to several members of the Spratt family. The most recent burial was in July 1983 and after the church had been declared redundant when 91 year-old Elsie Barnes was laid to rest with her husband James who had died in December 1957.

The church at Whitcombe retired since 1971 is nowadays in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust.

Wordsworth at Racedown

Apr 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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For most people, it may come as a surprise to learn that William Wordsworth passed two years of his life in a Dorset manor, for he is inexorably associated with the Lake District. Indeed, the poet was a native, having been born in Cockermouth, Cumbria in 1770, the son of a solicitor. However, between September 1795 and June 1797 Wordsworth tenanted Racedown, a country house standing at the foot of Pilsdon Pen, an Iron Age hill fort in the extreme west of Dorset.

The circumstances leading to William’s occupation of Racedown owe much to the poet’s embrace of and involvement in radicalism. Through earlier sympathies he fell in with Francis Wrangham a Yorkshire-born curate of Cobham, Surrey and Basil Montagu, said to have been the illegitimate son of the 4th Earl of Sandwich. These men were engaged as tutors to John and Azariah Pinney, sons of John Praetor Pinney, an affluent Bristol Merchant member of the Bristol West Indies Trading Company.

Some years before, John P Pinney had built Racedown for his elder son John, either to occupy himself or to rent out. John Jr opted for the latter alternative and offered the home to Wordsworth fully furnished, yet rent-free. At this time the poet’s fortunes in London were severely depressed, but tenancy of Racedown seemed to hold the prospect of a literally creative diversion for himself, in company with his sister Dorothy. William had also recently inherited a legacy of £900, so in the autumn of 1795 the Wordsworths moved in with Montagu’s son – also called Basil – who they had to raise and educate for a fee of £50 per annum. The three had to make the 50-mile journey from Pinney’s Bristol home, where they had been staying, through Somerset and Dorset – a journey that at that time took almost all day.

However, the Wordsworths were not taken with the country house, which they considered an affront to their aesthetic senses. Pinney had built Racedown as an austere edifice of dark red brick with an “ugly and forbidding exterior.” A grey slate roof pitched at an unusually high angle tops its three storeys, and the squat, solid appearance is further accentuated by a large chimney block at each end. Nor is there enough area of window to relieve or break up the continuity of the brickwork. Yet there are, or were, two outside privies, a brew-house, a washhouse, a coach-house and a four-horse stable. The interior of the house however, better met the Wordsworth’s expectations, having an Axminster-carpeted dining room, a breakfast room and library, and four bedrooms on the first and second floors.

The residence was built just off a bend in a narrow lane under the lee of a steep hill rising above the valley of the river Synderford, with a view towards Taunton Deane. The nearest villages were Blackdown, where unsociable cousins of the Pinneys lived, and Birdsmoorgate, neither of which at the time consisted of more than two or three flint cottages.

Two weeks after moving in, William and Dorothy secured the services of a servant called Peggy Marsh, who Dorothy described as “one of the nicest girls I ever saw.” She was joined by Joseph Gill, a cousin of the Pinneys who served as both house and estate manager and gardener, and an unknown washerwoman who came just once a month for a wage of nine pence. This staff of three, apart from the occasional encounter with peasantry in the lane, were the only other people the Wordsworths had contact with. William could not afford a London paper, the only paper he was able to obtain being the provincial Weekly Entertainer. The isolation the 25-year-old poet felt deeply affected him and compounded his chronic insolvency. Nor could he take part in the radical events then unfolding upon the world stage or even read about them.

But Wordsworth could find solace in his well-known passion for hill walking. It was not long before he was striding up Pilsdon Pen behind the house, where he found the summit – the prehistoric enclose, at 980 feet the highest point in Dorset – commanded breathtaking views into Somerset and around Lyme Bay from Lyme to as far west as Torbay. But Wordsworth also loved the sea, and would sometimes walk from Racedown to Lyme, saying that he could hear the sea from three miles away. One memorable occasion for William was seeing the great West Indies fleet sailing by “in all its glory” only to be dashed to pieces on the Chesil during a storm. Coincidentally, though he couldn’t have known it at the time, his sea captain brother John was to perish when, as master of the Earl of Abergavenny, that ship was wrecked not far to the east in 1805.

But these ramblings were pleasant interludes during a stay at a home that was otherwise a miserable affair. Some alleviation from the gloom was provided when John and Azariah came to stay throughout February 1796 and joined William in hare coursing. But once they had left the poet suffered virtual writer’s block, only penning his Argument for Suicide. He broke off for a stay in London from June 1st to July 9th 1796 where his spirits were revived in the company of fellow radicals. Back at Racedown, Wordsworth threw himself into work on the theme of guilt, crime and punishment in his verse drama The Borderers.

Then that November Mary Hutchinson, whom William had first met at Penrith some years earlier, came for a six-month stay at Racedown. While undertaking the work of transcribing her friend’s poems a bond of love blossomed; the couple would eventually marry in 1802.

For Wordworth the Dorset peasantry now came to embody all or most of the virtues he had noticed long ago in their Cumbrian counterparts: courage, endurance, faith, compassion and love. Then it seemed that the country around Racedown burst into beauty.

Mary’s stay ended on June 5th 1797; on the 30th, William and Dorothy were picked up by William’s friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge for the 40-mile journey to Coleridge’s cottage at Nether Stowey. As they drew away from the house brother and sister may have glanced back, but they would never see Racedown or cross its threshold again. Soon after, Wordsworth left to spend several years with radicals on the continent. On his return to England he made a new home with Mary and Dorothy in a cottage at Grasmere by Derwent Water. In 1843 Wordsworth succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate, dying aged 80 in 1850. Dorothy died in 1855; Mary in 1859.

The Mystery of Candida

Apr 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Sometimes referred to as the capital of the Marshwood Vale, the village of Whitchurch Canonicorum in West Dorset has a parish church with an appropriately grandiose exterior like a mini cathedral. The church dates from before the 13th century and is dedicated to a most unusual and obscure patron in a county in which so many churches are dedicated simply to Mary or John.

This account is not however concerned with a general history of the church, but specifically on an enigmatic patron saint and a unique monument within its walls. The ecclesiastical figure in question is St. Wyte – (or Wite, Witta, Blance, Albinus, Candida or Candidus,) a saint of several alternative names and almost as many theories about her identity.

One of these is that she was a Saxon princess or recluse, possibly companion of Boniface, who was martyred by invading Danes coming ashore at Charmouth. It is known that St. Boniface was born in the Marshwood district, but it is uncertain whether Witta was a local figure or not. Here arises the possibility that the dedication became confused or altered to Candida under foreign influence, for Candida is said to have been a Roman or Spanish virgin martyr. A second myth maintains that she was actually a Welsh saint called Gwen, while yet another holds that “she” is to be identified as Albinus, Bishop of Buraburg. Fourthly, Blanche is the native French name for a Norman saint who has been put forward as another claimant on her identity.

As these various appellations mean ‘white’ it is thought that this adjective also lies behind the origin of the parochial name “Whitchurch.” Several small manors comprise the parish, but none of these has given its name to the whole. Therefore it has been suggested that it was the church itself, possibly known by the Latin name of Ecclesia Candida, which later became Angliased to Whitchurch. Whatever the truth however, there is no doubt that a burial or inhumation took place above the monument in the parish church of St. Candida & Holy Cross at Whitchurch, today known as the Shrine of St. Candida.

The shrine is a 13th century roughly cast stone monument showing clear indications of having been added to at various stages or being a composite from various sources. It stands on a base in an alcove against the north wall of the church’s north transept. The west end of this base can be seen to be contiguous with the transept wall, but projecting some three inches beyond at the east end, so that the structure is not entirely parallel to the wall. Furthermore, there is a disparity of about three inches in the height of the shrine at each end of the church as there is a slight gradient in the pavement of the transept from west to east.

The lower part of the monument gives the appearance of having been a 13th century altar tomb reset into its present position at an unknown date. This repositioning was crudely carried out, so that it interferes with the engaged pilasters at each end. Three evenly-spaced elliptical apertures are set into the monument from front to back, their purpose apparently being the cavities into which people placed their diseased limbs while they prayed for the saint to restore them to health. Above, the structure is surmounted by an unadorned 14th century stone reliquary resting upon an earlier slab and sealed with a hollow-chamfered slab of partially eroded Purbeck marble. The coffin was found to contain the bones of a small woman when, it is said, it was opened around 1850 by the incumbent of Whitchurch at the time, the Revd. William Palmer.

The outer coffin bears no inscription, but when it was later opened again during repairs to the church wall in 1900, the reliquary was found to bear the inscription ‘Hic. Requesct. See Wite’ (here lie the remains of St. Wite.) No one quite knows the whereabouts of these remains today. Presumably the bones and the small casket containing them were returned to the coffin. However, during the original disturbance by Reverend Palmer in the 19th century the side of the coffin was fractured, leaving a crack in the side that can still be seen today. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that St. Candida & Holy Cross is the only church in England to traditionally contain the tomb of its own patron saint.

Not far from Whitchurch there is a well also dedicated to St. Candida, but before describing this there are two other notables connected with the church that deserve a mention.

Sir George Somers was a contemporary and fellow mariner of Sir Walter Raleigh, a sometime mayor of his birthplace Lyme Regis and an MP largely responsible for the colonisation of Virginia. During a storm a fleet of nine of his ships carrying settlers was grounded on one of Bermuda’s coral islands, which Somers took possession of. The settlers later completed the voyage to Virginia by building new boats, but after word of the castaways reached England, the venture inspired Shakespeare to write ‘The Tempest.’
Somers died in 1610 on a voyage back to Bermuda. His heart was buried there, but his body was brought home and buried in St. Candida & Holy Cross.

In the churchyard there is a memorial stone marking a grave, inscribed in English on one side and in Bulgarian on the other. The Bulgarian inscription is there because this is the grave of the dissident BBC World Service broadcaster and journalist Georgi Markov, who died after being injected with a lethal ricin pellet by a regime-hired Communist assassin on Waterloo Bridge in London during September 1978.

The well of Candida, known under the name of St. Wyte’s Well, is to be found at nearby Morcombelake on the further side of the Chardown Hill. It is situated at the extreme western end of the village, near to where the A35 takes a double bend southwards over the hills and leads to a narrow lane between farm buildings. Here a painted sign will direct you to the well about 300 yards up a muddy track (OS Sheet 193; GR398937.) Here, fenced off in its own enclosure is the well, which takes the form of a square stone-lined basin measuring about 1 foot by 1 foot five inches. The water level is about 8 inches below the kerb, and the water is typically well-colonised by algae. A modern plaque explains that this water has been blessed with the ability to cure eye diseases since the 16th century, but it is not above being able to cure other maladies.

Milton Abbas

Apr 2nd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The Milton Abbas Street Fair is a huge event that takes place every two years along the famous and much photographed village street and the next fair will be held on July 27th 2013. Always well attended the event is as authentic an eighteenth century fair as the organisers can make it. Bunting is hung up and down and across the street; residents and stall holders dress in period costume and visitors are encouraged to join in.

But there is a lot more to see and learn about the parish of Milton Abbas to provide even the most experienced tourist with an interest-packed day: the Abbey Church and St Catherine’s Chapel, not to mention the village street with its uniform housing, almshouses and St. James’ Church all in a beautiful setting.

The original church was founded by King Athelstan of Wessex in 933 AD, to commemorate the death of his brother Edwin who died at sea. In 964 King Edgar turned-out the priests and replaced them with Benedictine monks from Glastonbury. Around the monastery a thriving town grew to over 100 houses and several taverns but it was demolished and replaced by the model village we see today.

Middleton as it was known until 1753 was a prosperous market town sitting in the valley between the present day Milton Abbas and the Abbey. What became of Middleton? Joseph Damer, later to become Lord Milton, the first Earl of Dorchester, tore down the old abbey buildings and built himself a mansion in the Gothic style next to the Abbey Church calling on the services of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown the leading landscape designer and gardener of the day to improve his view.

Brown had a reputation for not letting anything stand in the way of the successful execution of his plans and elsewhere had moved whole communities to ensure that his grand designs were fully realised. Middleton was no exception; it was in the way so it had to go.

In 1780 Joseph Damer built Milton Abbas to house the residents of Middleton. The new village was built over the hill where it would not spoil his view. When the last resident at Middleton, a lawyer, refused to be evicted Damer opened the sluice gates to the new dam and flooded him out. That last man later had his day in court with Damer – and won.

Milton Abbas is considered to be the first planned town or village in Britain. After visiting the village in 1791 Frances “Fanny” Burney (1752-1840) a leading woman author and contemporary of Mary Wollstonecraft noted in her diary that she admired the new village “built by his Lordship, very regularly of white plaster, cut stone fashion and thatched” but she thought the houses too good for “the Poor.”

The village is about half-a-mile south east of the original town and comprises two rows of cottages all set out on either side of a broad and gently winding road. The cottages are two-storied and have cob walls and thatched roofs. Originally each cottage would have comprised two homes but most are now single dwellings and all benefit from a generous area of lawn at the front. On one side and mid way down the street are the almshouses and the parish church of St. James.

After the dissolution of the monastery in 1539 it was sold the following year to Sir John Tregonwell for £1,000. He made the abbey church into the parish church and used the abbots lodging as his own private residence. The estate was bought by Joseph Damer in 1752 and he employed John Vardy to build a new mansion next to the Abbey Church.  Following Vardy’s death in 1765 Sir William Chambers was commissioned but he resigned in 1774 after frequent arguments with “this unmannerly imperious lord.”  The project was taken over by James Wyatt.

The Abbey Church of St. Mary, St. Sampson and St. Branwalader is the largest mediaeval building in central Dorset and commands a spectacular landscape in a deep valley surrounded by wooded hills. Comprising a chancel, tower and transepts; the nave was never built and the chapels have been demolished. If completed as originally intended it would be a huge structure. What we see here is of the 14th and 15th centuries and much of the work was undertaken by Abbot William Middleton; the original buildings were destroyed by fire in 1309 after lightning struck the spire.

Joseph Damer married Caroline Sackville, daughter of the first Duke of Dorset. After her death the Italian sculptor, Carlini, was commissioned to make a monument to her and this stands in the north transept of the Abbey.

The Chapel of St. Catherine is set on a hill overlooking the Abbey Church, about 300 yards from it, and stands on the lowest of a series of artificial terraces inside its own enclosure. It comprises a nave and chancel both of the late 12th century and benefits from restoration work carried out in the late 15th or early 16th century when some of the windows were enlarged. Further works were carried out in the 18th century. The chapel was converted to secular use during the 19th century but restored as a place of worship in 1901.

There is a story concerning the son of Sir John Tregonwell who at the age of 5 is said to have fallen 60 feet from the top of the church tower. Apparently he was dressed in the style of the day and his petticoats acted like a parachute and he touched down none the worse for the fall and went on to live for another 77 years. An unlikely tale and one that is repeated in some impeccable sources.

Milton Abbas is about eight miles to the south west of Blandford, between the villages of Milbourne St. Andrew and Hilton, in the heart of Dorset.

The Murderess and the Mosaic

Mar 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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It is rare for a woman condemned to death for murder to leave behind any permanent mark in the form of a work of art. However, for about 130 years St Peter’s Church on the Isle of Portland has been the home of just such a labour of devotion to the Christian faith – or to atonement for a cardinal sin.

Set into the floor of the chancel in St Peters there is a mosaic pavement. Like all other parts of the building it is the work of a felon, a convict from the island’s prison, but one who’s criminal circumstances are more unusual than most others. For there has been a long-held tradition that the mosaic was laid by Constance Kent, who when just sixteen years of age stabbed her step-brother to death in a toilet at the family’s home at Rode, Wiltshire.

Constance Kent was born in 1846. Her father was Samuel Kent, said to have been an illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, while her mother was the Duke’s first wife. On her mother’s death in 1854 Kent married Miss Pratt, governess to both Constance and her younger brother William. By 1860 another five children had arrived, and a sixth was expected.

When she was sixteen Constance told school-friends she was constantly unhappy at home. On the night of 29th to 30th of June 1860 Constance’s four-and-a-half year old brother was taken from his bed in the nursery to an outside privy, where he was stabbed in the back and had his throat cut. A blooded nightdress belonging to Constance was found and despite no apparent motive she was arrested, but later released due to lack of evidence.

When the Kents moved to Wales Constance entered a convent in France for three years, and then moved to another convent in Brighton. Voluntarily she approached Bow Street magistrates to confess to the murder, but it is suggested that a minister, a Reverend Wagner at the convent, put pressure on her to confess. As a doctor had judged her mental state to be normal, it is likely that Constance’s motive for the murder was jealousy of the children of her father’s second marriage.

Constance was tried at the assizes at Salisbury, found guilty and initially sentenced to death, though this was commuted to life imprisonment on Portland. Between her arrival in 1864 and her release in 1885, she laid the mosaic to be seen in St Peters Church.

John Pouncy

Mar 23rd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Although beginning his working life as a house decorator, John Pouncy became a pioneer in the development of photography, a creative but somewhat immodest genius who had to contend with rivalry over the inventor-ship of the process he was convinced he could rightly lay claim to. He also had a sympathetic and philanthropic side to his character that was once put to good use when he lent nursing assistance at the local hospital during an epidemic of cholera. John Pouncy’s was a fascinating and innovative nature, at first somewhat restrained in the full potential of its expression by his first mundane occupation, but the course of his life was first to take a drastic turn.

Pouncy was born in Dorchester on July 16th 1818, the son of William Pouncy, a Piddletrenthide labourer and his wife Mary. In 1843 he married Mary Ann Sprackley, the mother of his first child Walter, though she died in 1846. Just four years later Pouncy met and married Mary Catherine Wills, who presented him with another son and four daughters who all apparently died young or before reaching adulthood.

Until 1854 Pouncy was painting and decorating houses, glazing windows, gilding and carving, but then the new science of photography so gripped his imagination that he resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to it. From then on, and for the next four years, he had to support his new occupation with the earnings from his first one. As late as 1859 the Dorset County Chronicle carried a report “…Mr Pouncy’s proper profession is that of a house painter.”  Three years earlier Pouncy announced through the Chronicle that he intended to publish a photo-illustrated gazetteer of Dorset featuring pictures captioned with historic commentaries.

But John Pouncy had another aim: to resolve through experimentation a major drawback of early photography: that of fading. At the time photographic prints were produced by the salts of silver process, an emulsion notoriously susceptible to fading, and which would hinder Pouncy’s intention to produce permanent visual records of Dorset. To circumvent the shortcoming, Pouncy resorted to photo-lithography, itself a still very imperfect process. Yet Pouncy’s attempt to unite lithography with photography met with some success with the publication in 1857 of his book “Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated” – the first English publication ever to feature photo litho-graphic illustrations.

Dorset Photographically Illustrated is a remarkable achievement for the time. It is original in technique and so not at all what would be expected from one who semi-abandoned the painting and decorating trade for a discipline in which he had no prior training. The book features 80 illustrations, each with two or more pages of historical narrative and 200 double-panel 8” x 11” pages. The text is peppered with erudite classical quotations from nature poets such as Cowper, Thomson and Wordsworth, and the writing is that of one trying to impress the reader with his learning. What comes across is the mind of an intelligent, practical autodidact who clearly shows an overriding preoccupation with landscapes. Indeed, Pouncy was only concerned with photography for professional reasons; he nurtured no desire to undertake commissioned work for illustrating the publications of others.

Despite the success of the book Pouncy was sufficiently dissatisfied with the quality of the prints to attempt further improvement through experimentation. Spurned on by the offer of an award from the Photographic Society of London to anyone who could solve the problem of fading. Pouncy worked on a process, the basic principle of which had been discovered by Mungo Ponton in 1839. Ponton had noticed that paper coated with potassium bichromate became photo-reactive. Pouncy then coated paper with bichromate, but added gum Arabic and vegetable carbon to it. Having reported his results to the Photographic society in 1858, Pouncy then patented his process. He then continued to perfect the process over the next four or five years, and in 1863 he took out another patent, though acrimony was following not far behind as the question of who had truly been the inventor of carbon printing arose.

Pouncy did however receive some recognition for his pains from Thomas Sutton, editor of the journal “Photographic Notes,” and in 1859 he was finally awarded the French silver Duc de Luynes Medal. It is probable that John Pouncy did have a legitimate claim as the inventor of carbon printing, and he himself certainly thought so, even believing that he could rightly lay claim to the gold Duc de Luynes medal, awarded to a French rival, Alphonse Poitevin eight years later.

Besides the Duc de Luynes prize Pouncy was awarded medals from Scotland (1863), Prussia (1865) and Edinburgh (1867); furthermore his studio received patronage from the Prince Consort, Albert, and the Prince of Wales. It is widely suspected that a photograph of Thomas Hardy as a boy of 16 in the author’s archive was taken by Pouncy – not by any means the sole connection between the two men, as will presently be noted.

But the dispute over rival claims of inventor-ship and bickering within the profession that Pouncy experienced, diminished his ardour for the new art soon after the 1863 patent was granted. Throughout the 1860’s he was still ‘moonlighting’ as a decorator, but the premature deaths of his sons by his second wife left Pouncy with only Walter to inherit his photography business. And in September 1872 the transition from father to son was done and dusted.

What Hardy did in writing to exteriorise Dorset, Pouncy did likewise in his photographs. And it is through this common life-mission that the two men’s paths inevitably converged. Consequently there exist several firm pieces of evidence that Hardy knew of Pouncy’s work and book, even if the latter had never taken that teenage portrait of the famous writer. These points can be summarised as follows:

(1) In Hardy’s novel “A Laodicean,” the central character William Dare is a photographic inventor seemingly modelled directly upon John Pouncy. In his carrying about of camera, tripod and equipment, Dare appears to be doing precisely what Pouncy would have done in preparing for his book on Dorset.

(2) When compiling Dorsetshire, Pouncy was in consultation with the architect John Hicks over matters of style and restoration. At exactly this time (July 1856) Hardy became apprenticed to Hicks for his architectural training.

(3) In 1881 Hardy was contemplating producing a book of his own on Dorset, very much along the lines of Pouncy’s, though in collaboration with Henry Moule.

(4) Even more compelling evidence that Dorsetshire was known to Hardy comes from the book itself. In its description of Kingston House, Pouncy explains how the brick building came to be faced in Portland stone: “…on one occasion before the notion had even entered the worthy owner’s head that Portland stone might be used advantageously to veil the brick walls of his mansion he was conversing with his illustrious visitor about the house.. The King [George III] however, did nothing but utter the words “Brick Mr Pitt, Brick…..” Hardy appears to be reproducing the same incident in almost identical wording in “The Hand of Ethelbert:”  “…to a stone mask worn by a brick face a story naturally appertained…one which has since done service in other quarters. When the vast addition [i.e. the modern manor house]…had just been completed, King George visited Enchworth. The owner pointed out the features of his grand architectural attempt and waited for commendation. “Brick, brick, brick, said the King…Thin freestone slabs were affixed to the whole series of fronts by copper cramps and dowels.”

John Pouncy died in March 1894, aged 75, after contracting a cold that developed into bronchitis. In its obituary the Dorset Chronicle & Somerset Gazette stated that he was a successful worker whose long study of his subject and its intricacies imparted much valuable information to the younger generation. Even in his last weeks of illness he was not content to stay indoors but would set out in the winter cold that probably hastened his untimely end.

Walter Pouncy, John Pouncy’s only surviving son and business heir, was born in Fordington in 1845. The 1891 census for Dorchester records that he married Eliza Rudduck, a Reading woman, at Leeds in December 1881, and lists his occupation as that of “Photographic Artist.” By the time of the census Walter would have had full control of his father’s business (thereafter renamed W. Pouncy’s Photographic Institution) for 19 years.

Walter seems not to have possessed either his father’s inventiveness or his flair for controversy; he therefore did not cut a noticeable dash in Dorchester society. Nevertheless he maintained and built upon John’s archive of Dorset landscapes over another four decades and, perhaps like his father, personally knew and took studio portraits of Hardy.

Pouncy also made slides for illustrated lectures given by Harry Pouncy, a distant relative and namesake, on the subject of Wessex. When in 1914 the Dorset County Chronicle published a large landscape panorama of Maiden Castle taken by Walter (his chef d’oeuvre) it credited him with being simply “the doyen of Dorchester photographers.” A large collection of his pictures is in the possession of the County Museum. Walter Pouncy died in 1918, exactly a century after the birth of his father.

The Shaftesbury Byzant

Mar 16th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The military significance of Shaston would not have been lost on Alfred the Great when he built the town in 880 AD; perched on a hilltop 700 feet above the plain approaching enemies could be seen while they were still miles away. There was, however, one major drawback: Shaston had no natural water supply.

Alfred was king of Wessex from 871 to 899 but no record exists of how this problem was overcome in the early days of the town. The existing wells were not adequate for the task and the sandstone rock being very porous possibly rainwater would have been collected and stored. Shaston’s demand for water increased as it grew in importance and became a place of pilgrimage attracting medieval tourists from far and wide. At some point the Corporation came to an agreement with the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham to draw water from the springs at Enmore Green, and carting water up to the town became a source of employment for many people.

Records dating back to 1518 tell how it was the custom on the Sunday after Holy Roode Day in May for the Mayor and Burgesses to lead the people of every parish within the borough of Shaston down to Enmore Green at one o’clock in the afternoon. There followed an hour of dancing led by a couple married during the year who were born and had lived all their days in the borough of Shaston.

At 2 o’clock the dancing ceased and the serious business of the afternoon got under way. Shaston’s greatest treasure in those days was its prize Besom, the Byzant. Made by a craftsman the Byzant looked somewhat like an umbrella gilded and mounted on a tall pedestal and decorated in the style of a May garland with valuable jewels lent for the occasion by some of Shaston’s better off citizens.

The precious Byzant was offered by the Mayor to the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham who accepted it as payment for the right to draw water from the spring. So valuable was the Byzant to the people of Shaston they had no intention of giving it away even for the right to draw water and they would take with them gifts with which to buy it back.

Tradition has it that the Mayor presented the Lord of the Manor with a pair of white gloves, two wheaten loaves, a calf’s head and a gallon of ale all for his own use. The Lord of the Manor would then hand the treasured Byzant back to the Mayor and invite him and all the people of Shaston to stay awhile. There followed a further hour of dancing before the Mayor and Burgesses led a procession of townsfolk back up Tout Hill to the town where the rest of the day was spent dancing and making merry.

After over four hundred years the ceremony ceased in May 1830, a time when many of the townsfolk were living in poverty and it was felt the considerable cost of staging the ceremony, with large sums being spent on feasting and drinking could not be justified. The minutes of a meeting on the 3rd of May 1830 read, “The Corporation resolved to approach Lord Grosvenor to dispense with the ceremony.” Lord Grosvenor (created Marquess of Westminster in 1831) was then the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham and he agreed to abolish the ceremony but he kept the borough’s Byzant.

The ceremony was briefly re-introduced in 1972 and by all accounts was an attraction that was a great success.

The Byzant found its way back to Shaston (nowadays known as Shaftesbury) in 1924 after the death of Lady Theodora Guest, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Westminster. Her daughter, Miss Augusta Guest, presented it to the Shaftesbury Town Council. For many years it resided in the Mayor’s parlour but more recently its home has been the Shaftesbury Town Museum where it is on permanent display.

All Saints – Hilton

Mar 12th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The heart of this place is a quintessential sleepy Dorset village tucked up on all sides by surrounding hills. Arthur Mee spoke of it “gladdening the traveller’s heart,” but that was long before the local authority built an estate of modern housing here in the seventies. Nevertheless this is a quiet and peaceful part of the county and the surrounding woodland is an ideal setting for the nearby Nature Reserve run by the Dorset Wildlife Trust.

What we see today of All Saints Church at Hilton is of the 15th and 16th century but the 12th century font, fragments of 12th century architectural ornament and the quirky position of the south porch reveal that there was an earlier church on the site.
 
The church is built of partly squared rubble and flint, the roofs covered with slate and lead. Consisting of west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles to the east of each and structurally undivided from the aisles are north and south chapels entered from the chancel through side arches; to the north of the tower is the vestry.

The west tower and the south porch are of the 15th century and the anomalous position of the south porch extending more than four feet into the south aisle suggests that at some time the aisle has been widened, probably when the nave, with its north and south arcades, and chancel were rebuilt and the north aisle added: the north arcade probably rests on the foundations of the original north wall. The windows in the north wall are from nearby Milton Abbey as are some of the gargoyles found on the north wall including one of a man playing the bagpipes.

The tower has three stages topped off with an embattled parapet and pinnacles rising from gargoyles at the corners. The top stage has a belfry window on each side and there is a smaller similar east window in the second stage. There are six bells dating from 1626 to 1684.

More hand-me-downs from Milton Abbey can be found hanging on the north and south walls of the lower stage of the tower just above the 12th century font. The two large modern frames each carrying six 15th century panels depicting the apostles. Each panel is 7’3” x 1’3” and they come from a screen in Milton Abbey. About these Pevsner brusquely comments “badly done” but the parishioners of Hilton seem to like them well enough and prominently display them.

Chesil Churches

Mar 3rd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Dorset’s Chesil Bank is a 15-mile (25-km) shingle bar, which has impounded a coastal lagoon, The Fleet. This geographical feature has a long tradition as a beachhead for smuggling and as a danger to walkers and shipping. The belt of coastal country up to about 5km inland encompasses a number of parishes, which have been protected from the sea by the Chesil. The churches of five of these parishes are described here. From north-west to south-east these are Puncknowle, Abbotsbury, Portesham, Langton Herring and Fleet.

Puncknowle lies about 1km east of Swyre and possesses a predominantly Norman parish church dedicated to St. Mary. The church stands on raised ground beside the manor overlooking the one-sided Village Street and the Crown Inn. St. Mary’s incorporates the Bexington Chapel in the south aisle. This commemorates St. Giles, the original chapel of the Saxon village, which was sacked and raised to the ground by French pirates in 1440.

Since the 8th of September 1451, Puncknowle has been unified with neighbouring Bexington, a move carried out by the Bishop at the behest of patrons. The chapel was built for the use of visitors and for some time before the Dissolution it had been in the possession of Bindon Abbey. Following unification with Bexington it was decreed that the Rectors should celebrate in the chancel of Bexington once a week and on St. Giles Day. The chapel was restored in 1660 and later presented to Puncknowle as the Bexington Chapel (or Aisle.) Since 1966 it has been in use as the church’s vestry.

The nave of St. Mary’s is modern, and the memorials to be seen here and elsewhere are mainly those of the local manorial family. The north aisle in particular features many Napier memorials, such as a helmet, gauntlet and spurs of the early 17th century, and tablets dated to 1616 and 1620. There is also an undated tablet, which is thought by some to date from when Sir Robert Napier, a former High Sheriff of Dorset, died in 1615. An unusual feature of this inscription is that it consists only of initials in English, Latin and Greek. It could refer to Robert Napier of Puncknoll (1617-1686,) Sir Robert’s grandson, or his son Robert Napier (1642-1700.) There is a further undated memorial to William Napier in the Bexington Aisle. The north aisle of St. Mary’s was added in 1891. Outside, there is a moss-covered slab at the foot of the tower, believed to be the lid of a stone coffin dating from the 14th century. Near the back of the burial ground an iron gate leads to a turreted and gabled early Jacobean manor in grey weathered stone, widely regarded, as the county’s most charming. Chestnuts; popular with rooks enclose the churchyard.

The village of Abbotsbury is noted for the large swannery, which the Fleet lagoon has naturally created, and is the largest of the five occupying the coastal hinterland described here. The Church of St. Nicholas is built of local buff sandstone with Portland dressings. It is mainly 15th century, but was rebuilt in Perpendicular style in the 16th century with portions of the older building incorporated. The church was restored in 1885. There is a fine embattled tower with six bells. The lintel of the west tower doorway bears an emblem of the Trinity.

On the hill to the south west and situated 700 yards seaward of the church is the chapel of St.Catherine. St. Nicholas was defended for the King during the Civil War, and to this day the fine panelled Jacobean pulpit bears two bullet holes it sustained during the conflict. Standing in the porch is an effigy in Purbeck marble, (actually a grave slab from the earlier Abbey church) of a late 12th century abbot, possibly a general representation of the ecclesiastical figure after whose title the village takes its name. Two stone coffins can be seen against the wall opposite the north porch. The 15th century stained-glasswork is a notable feature of this church and the panes in the north and south aisle windows are noted for their subtlety of colour. Of special interest is the second window in the south aisle which shows the delicate face of a woman thought by some to represent St. Catherine, but is more likely to be the Virgin Mary from a Crucifixion window. The Chapel of St. Catherine, although it is only 45 feet by 15 feet, has walls 4 feet thick. Every part, including the panelled ceiling and roof, is of stone.

Portesham is a parish with a rich historical background, and further has responsibility for the hamlets and manors of Corton, Shilvinghampton and the Waddons. The Church of St. Peter already existed at the time of Domesday, though the Norman structure dates from the 12th century. Originally the chancel and nave may have been shorter, and the aisles further west than today. The chancel is 13th century and these are two blocked 12th century windows above the chancel arch. St. Peters was largely re-built in the 15th century. Indeed, it is the oldest building in the village. The lower part of the tower is Saxon, though traces of Norman work remain to be seen in the north wall of the nave and in the 13th century font. There is a 13th century piscina in the south aisle. The church is built in a limestone reflecting almost white in sunlight, with a well built, typically ‘Dorset’ tower incorporating the remains of an earlier tower on the north side.

As at Abbotsbury, the church and village suffered skirmishing during the Civil War, when some musket balls were discharged into the door of St. Peter’s, though these have since been removed. The interior is mainly re-ordered Victorian work. It displays the hatchment of Sir Andrew Riccard, a Portesham-born seaman and squire who was Lord of the Manor following the Restoration in 1660, and who granted many of his tenants 999 year leases. The inscription reads ‘Possum’ (I am able.) His father Walter Riccard is commemorated by a slab in the floor of the nave near the font. There are also memorial hatchments or plaques to members of the Mansfield and Thresher families, and to a former vicar, John Charles Molyneux.

Probably the most curious feature of the church is the grave of a local farmer, William Weare. Weare had the outlandish death wish of not wanting to be buried inside or outside the church. Accordingly he was buried beneath the wall of the south aisle in 1675, where a table-tomb and plaque mark the spot. The plaque bears an 8-line epitaph, which begins: “William Weare lies here in dust as thou and I and all men must…” There is a monument to Mary Weare inside the south aisle, abutting that of William. There is also a rough-hewn rock grave memorial to John Galpin, a former vicar, in the churchyard.

The principal commercial activity of the village of Langton Herring has been the production of lime, and the buildings are mainly constructed in the local yellow stone. The manor owns (or owned) a one-mile stretch of Chesil Beach. The Church of St. Peter is a building of local rubble with freestone dressings, possibly built or rebuilt in the 14th century. It is said to have been severely damaged in a fire in the 17th century, after which the west tower – one of the country’s smallest – was added in the 18th century. Major restoration also took place in 1827 & 1858. On these occasions the vestry and south aisle were added, and the nave was largely rebuilt with an arcade or two bays. The floor of the chancel features slab memorials to John Hazelwood, rector 1670 and his son Francis and William Sanford, rector in 1627. The font is an octagonal bowl with quatrefoil panel in each face, a stem with trefoil-headed panel in each face, and a stepped square base. In the chancel there is a stained glass window inscribed “In the Resurrection they are as the Angels of God.” There are memorials to Edward Cox Trenow (1851,) the son of a former rector who is buried with his wife in the churchyard, and to William Sparks who died in 1829 aged 70. The churchyard also contains the communal grave of four boys who were overcome by the fumes of a lime kiln they were playing near.

The original church of the small community of Fleet, only half a kilometre from The Fleet, is only one of the five to have just the chancel remaining after the rest of the church was severely damaged in a great storm in 1824. The manorial Lords were the Mohun’s, a family who came to England with William the Conqueror, and who are remembered in two brass plates in the chancel.

However, a new Holy Trinity with chancel, nave and west tower, was built a quarter of a mile further up the valley at the expense of the vicar George Gould, in memory of his son John who died in 1818. This church is built in the style of the 18th century Gothic Revival, though today the ashlars are reddened by lichen. In the tower there is a wall plaque recording the destruction of the first church and the building of the new. Its first stone was laid on the 25th of April 1827, and the Rev Robert Gray, the Bishop of Bristol consecrated the church, on the 25th of August 1829. Several beech trees grow in the grounds, which are fenced off by railings.

In the old church there is a brass memorial to John Meade Falkner, the author of Moonfleet. But it was in this churchyard, not Holy Trinity, that the John Trenchard of the story sat on a tombstone above the Mohun vault, where the smugglers hid their contraband.

John Gould – Dorset Birdman With a Dark Secret

Mar 3rd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Dorset can number many noted figures among its sons and daughters. Perhaps the most extraordinary character to emerge from the county in the 19th century was John Gould, though many would not have heard of him. Gould made a name for himself as an ornithologist of undeniable ability, and apparently he was also a gifted illustrator, who rose to become the toast of Victorian society.

John Gould was borne in Lyme Regis in 1804, the son of an estate gardener. Of his earliest years and education little or nothing is known, though his schooling appears to have been very elementary. His father’s own talents however, led him to secure a position as a gardener in a country estate and, ultimately, to a position of head gardener at the Royal Gardens at Windsor. But his son John’s real educator was the natural world. In the gardens, woods and fields of Dorset the boy’s future passion for ornithology was fostered.

This led young Gould onto an almost obsessive desire to preserve birds and animals for posterity. From another gardener who was skilled in the practise he learnt taxidermy, and discovered in himself an ability to preserve birds using only their dehydrated skins and feathers. With this newly acquired skill John Gould set up a taxidermy business in Windsor, where his unusual eye for the natural stance of birds and animals won for him the recognition of many clients and even the patronage of George IV.

When in 1827 the newly formed London Zoological Society held a competition to fill the position of its first director and curator, Gould entered and won the competition. Three years later, following the acquisition by the Society of a large collection of Himalayan exotic bird skins, the first curator was fired with the desire to bring the specimens to life in a lavishly illustrated book. The subsequent publication proved to be the turning point in Gould’s life. It won such great acclaim from the scientific world that it was said of John Gould that his expertise even surpassed that of the great French artist Audubon. Other books of exotic bird illustrations followed including ‘Birds of Europe’ and the seven-volume ‘Birds of Australia,’ which has an estimated value of over £150,000 at auction today.

But Gould’s reputation didn’t stop at being a master-ornithologist and illustrator. He was also a producer, director, publishing magnate, and entrepreneur – even a bit-player in the emergence of evolutionary theory. For it was John Gould to whom Charles Darwin entrusted for identification the bird-skins he had collected in the Galapagos Islands during the famous voyage of The Beagle. He was able to classify the specimens as eleven new species of finch – the very birds, which through the subtle changes or adaptations to different niches they displayed, Darwin would later use as a pivotal piece of evidence for evolution by natural selection. Darwin, on later reviewing his notes for ‘The Origin of Species’ realised that the birds had come from different islands in the archipelago, but it was Gould’s eye for detail which played an important part in the conclusion the naturalist came to concerning evolution.

Though his Victorian public were awe-struck by the apparent skill he showed in the reproductions in his bird books the underlying truth about John Gould was rather different. The buyers of his books were led to believe that he was a gifted ornithologist and illustrator, but Gould was no artist. He was actually perpetuating a caddish deception upon his readers when he had absolutely no need to mislead them.

The myth was perpetuated partly through a crafty captioning of the pictures in a way that suggested that he and his wife Eliza were the co-illustrators responsible for them. Certainly Eliza Gould was responsible for some of the lithographs in the books. But the truth is that the brilliant hand-coloured pictures were mainly the work of others, and the main illustrator was not mentioned at all. Some of the lithographs featured were even the work of Edward Lear! Gould is said to have worked these illustrators unreasonably hard, though he had no need to resort to the pretence of being a competent artist; his genuine reputation as an ornithologist would have stood by itself, as his knowledge of birds was second-to-none.

Furthermore, John Gould was far more a shrewd businessman than an accomplished draftsman and one with a very mean streak. His avian knowledge assisted Darwin in conceiving the theory of evolution, yet he would brazenly lie to dealers to save himself the expense of a new specimen, borrowing it instead for an artist to draw before returning it unvalued. Gould seems to have believed that his books would have greater appeal if they were considered the work of his genius alone. And almost certainly he intended that the general public and the scientific establishment would believe he was as much bird artist as bird expert.

But if Gould was miserly and deceitful in business he was a genteel and affectionate father in his family life. After Eliza’s early death he reveals in a surviving letter to another correspondent a heartfelt concern for his offspring’s welfare, writing that he “wanted to do the best for my dear little children.” But to Edward Lear, himself riddled with insecurity he was “a queer fellow who meant well, though a more singularly offensive-mannered man hardly can be.”

Gould’s life is now well told in a biography by travel writer Isabella Tree. In ‘The Bird Man: the Extraordinary Story of John Gould’ the author suggests that it was insecurity about his lack of education which lay at the root of Gould’s predisposition to deceive and plagiarise.

But bird fanciers have him to thank for one more legacy: he was responsible for introducing the budgerigar into Britain.

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