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February, 2014:

Owermoigne

The  parish of Owermoigne amounts to a little over four thousand acres in a strip of land stretching from the sea at Ringstead Bay, where the cliffs tower up to 200ft. To the north of the coast the land rises to over 400ft above sea level and then drops into the valley of the Upton Brook, before rising again on Moigne Down and then slopes down to areas of heathland. Originally the area comprised a number of small settlements but the greater part of the parish north of Moigne Down was divided between Owermoigne and Galton, both at the edge of the heathland and today north of the main Dorchester to Wareham road.

Early in the 20th century Sir Frederick Treves in his book Highways and Byways in Dorset described Owermoigne as a “shy, old fashioned hamlet” and goes on to say it is “one of those hamlets that has no apparent object in life.” The hamlet that Treves saw is still here, hidden behind a camouflage of modern local authority housing. In earlier times the village was on the smugglers route and many a keg of the finest brandy would have been hidden away here.  In the 18th century William Wake sold the manor of Owermoigne to Sir Theodore Janssen. His son Sir Stephen Janssen was a Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London in 1755. Possibly drawing on his local knowledge of the Dorset coast Sir Stephen published a pamphlet entitled Smuggling Laid Open.

The Rectory is mostly from the 16th century and it is thought the beams in the drawing room came from a Spanish galleon which was lured to the coast and wrecked. In the front wall of the older wing is a trap door through which brandy casks were pushed (reputedly the Rector was one of the smuggler’s best customers!). When the Enclosure Act became law in 1829 the Rector was granted the right to cut fifteen hundred furze faggots a year and as many turfs as a man could cut in a day with three spades! He was allowed to keep two cows in a field known as  Cowleaze and two horses in a field called Skidmore. The Rectory passed into private ownership during the early part of the 20th century.

A short distance from the Church heading towards Crossways is Castle Lane, which leads to the ancient Manor House of Moignes Court, built in the 13th century and which had its own chapel before the present church was built.

Standing in the middle of the village is the church dedicated to St. Michael. Built from local rubble its 15th century west tower houses three bells that date from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; the rest  was rebuilt in 1883 to the designs of S. Jackson of Weymouth.

The Parish Registers record events from 1569, but the most interesting entries are to be found between 1624 and 1800 when events in the lives of many of Thomas Hardy’s ancestors are recorded.

William Knapp 1698-1768

William Knapp was born in 1698 at Wareham and died at Poole, where he was buried on September 26th 1768. He was a shoemaker and for 39 years he was the Parish Clerk for Poole, where he is known to have played an instrument and been a member of the Church Choir. In 1753 he published a book of hymn and psalm tunes titled Church Melody, that included the tune “Wareham“, which has been included in many hymn books over the years and is his most recognisable work.

Church Melody was reprinted several times and included a reprinting of An Imploration to the King of Kings, written by Charles I while a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle in 1648. The book is beautifully engraved.   He also published another book containing a set of new psalms and anthems for church occasions, including one that commemorates the fire that engulfed Blandford in 1731. This book is dedicated to John Saintloe Esq., of Little Fontmill who is addressed as one who appreciated and practised divine music.  In this second book Knapp includes the tune ‘Langton’, which he claims as his own work but which was written some 180 years earlier by Tallis, who contributed it to Archbishop Parker’s Psalmster.

In the index we find that our Dorset-bred composer dedicated almost all his hymn and psalm tunes to the towns and villages of his native county.