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January, 2010:

The Fifth of November and Christmas in the Workhouse 1860

Jan 19th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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A report in the Dorset County Chronicle of 8th November 1860 comments “Just as the legislature appears determined to suppress the commemoration of ‘The Gunpowder Plot’ the custom has revived in spirit so far as Dorchester is concerned.”

Under the dateline “The Fifth of November” readers were told that “not for some time have the streets of Dorchester witnessed such scenes” squibs and crackers flying about in all directions, and several large tar-barrels and fireballs being rolled along amidst crowds of small boys and “children of larger growth.”

The main event, however, was a torchlight procession, in the midst of which a large effigy of the Pope was borne along, suspended from a gallows. The scene reminded the Chronicle’s reporter of Carnival: people dressed in a variety of “outlandish” costumes including representations of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi escorting a youth in women’s attire as “Young Italy,” at the head of the procession.

The large crowd paraded along High West Street and South Street during which the liberator of Italy was loudly cheered. Then onto the Maumbury Rings where the effigy was burnt surrounded by the revellers whose faces were eerily lit by the light of the torches and all the while squibs were being thrown about.

“Young Italy” was borne triumphantly back into the town “the streets of which resumed their ordinary quiet aspect after the assemblage had exhausted their store of fireworks.”

Around the 19th December 1860 the weather turned: promising Dorset a white Christmas, heralded by a severe frost. ‘The Chronicle’ reported that a gentleman had written to ‘The Times’ telling that the temperature in his garden had reached 8 degrees below freezing.

The cold spell ended over the New Year. “There was a heavy fall of rain and the snow, which had covered the ground to a depth of several inches, disappeared on Sunday with a rapidity that was truly astonishing and must have caused considerable inconvenience by flooding the land in various localities.”

At Wool the pressure of water was so great it damaged a culvert near the railway station making the line dangerous to trains. A telegraph message was sent to Dorchester and a “body of men were set to work so as to temporarily make the line good.” The newspaper’s report continued “W.Meare, Esq., the able superintendent, made arrangements for engines to meet at the spot, so that the traffic was conducted with only a short delay, and the trains were able to run as usual on Monday.”

At Bridport a building that was being erected was blown down. The building some 400-feet in length had been constructed to a height of two storeys and roofed, but the “ends were open and thus the wind found play and the place was rendered a complete wreck.”

The unusually severe weather brought plenty of wild fowl into the extensive waters between Wareham and Poole and many fell to the guns of the locals living along the shore.

The weather did not stop those more fortunate from providing some Christmas cheer for their poorer neighbours. On Christmas Day all the inmates of the Dorchester Union workhouse had roast beef, plum pudding, with beer and tobacco for the men. A round of festivities continued ’till New Years day.

Mrs. Herbert Williams of Stinsford who was of the habit of having the children from the Dorchester Union house visit her residence at Stinsford for a feast had instead to take liberal amounts of plum pudding, sweet cakes and tea to the workhouse.

The old folk of the union house were entertained to dinner by the Rev. T. R. Maskew where they “thoroughly enjoyed themselves over plenty of roast beef and plum pudding with plenty of other delicacies.” The following day it was the turn of Captain and Mrs. Kindersley, of Syward Lodge who treated all the inmates with cakes, the women with tea and sugar, the men with tobacco and a variety of toys for the children. On the Monday after Christmas the Misses Campbell gave the children cakes and toys and the women tea and cake.

On New Years day Dorchester’s mayor J. F. Hodges Esq., provided a substantial dinner and tea for the workhouse inmates. He granted the women a store of tea and the men a quantity of tobacco. He also gave to the residents of the Almshouses tea, sugar and a quantity of beef, “with which to enjoy themselves at this festive season.” The Chronicle commented “The care shown by Mr Hodges for the poor, and his solicitude for their comfort and welfare, are most praiseworthy…”

Elsewhere around the county there were similar acts of kindness. At Gussage All Saints the better off parishioners, at their own expense, provided for the carriage from Poole of coal for the poor. The coal paid for by The Earl of Shaftesbury and The Provost and Fellows of Queen’s College, Oxford.

On Christmas Eve, Colonel Lutterell, “the proprietor of the valuable and much admired Wootton Manor” gave to the deserving poor of the parish of Wootton Fitzpaine, a large quantity of good beef.

At Wimborne Minster a Special Offertory was given on Christmas Day for distribution amongst the poor. At Charmouth after Christmas a large quantity of bread was given to the poor families of the parish and this was made possible by means of a bequest by the late John Bullen Esq. Good warm clothing was distributed to the poor by the charity of the late Mrs Marker.

A “notorious” poacher named Dicker who lived at Milborne St. Andrew was arrested and taken before magistrates at Blandford charged with shooting at one of the county police while in the execution of his duty.

Mary Anning – Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis

Jan 19th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Visitors to the Dorset resort of Lyme Regis in the 1820’s would most likely have noticed a diminutive brunette in a dark dress with cloak and bonnet, holding a basket in one hand and a claw-hammer in the other, picking her way over loose boulders wasted from the cliff. Probably they little realised that they were watching Mary Anning, and her business on the shore in those distant days was more than just a past time. The girl was out beach combing – not for the man made artefacts of her own time, but the astonishing profusion of fossils being weathered out by wind and waves from the wasting cliffs.

The girl began in a small way, collecting the numerous bivalves locally known as “Devil’s Toenails” (Gryphaea) and the bullet-shaped shells now known as belemnites (the skeleton of an early form of squid) but popularly called “Devil’s Thunderbolts.” Other popular names for the various fossils were “Ladies Fingers” “John Dories” or “Crocodile Bones.”

Mary was born in the town in 1799, the daughter of Richard Anning, a man living a lowly existence as Lyme’s carpenter and cabinetmaker. The family was not wealthy, and Richard and his wife (also called Mary) and their two children spent much of the time living on parish relief. Looking for a means to supplement his income, Anning conceived the bright idea of collecting and washing the myriad fossils to be found along the beach, to sell to tourists. Daughter Mary was a bright girl who took an intense interest in her father’s collecting. Before she was ten years old, she too was going out onto the beach with hammer and basket, the intention being to increase her father’s sale stock displayed outside his shop. In these forays her brother Joseph was often to be seen at her side.

Her first big break however, came in 1810 when she was eleven. In that year Richard Anning and Joseph discovered what seemed to them to be the head of a crocodile, worked loose from a recent cliff-fall. The carpenter felt certain the rest of the skeleton must have been left behind in the cliff, so he advised Mary to watch out for it when out on her regular collecting forays. But only a few months later her father was dead. In the meantime Mary continued to collect from Black Ven and Charmouth beaches. Then four months after her father’s death a violent storm caused a landslide, and the much prized “crocodile” skeleton was revealed. Mary skilfully traced out the fossil, hiring help to transport it, but it was several years before the 30-foot long creature was reconstructed.

What Mary had found was the first in a series of marine vertebrate finds which would make her name. It was in fact an Ichthyosaur, a now extinct marine reptile of the Jurassic period. Mary sold the Ichthyosaur to a Mr Henley for £23, a man who in turn would later sell it to the British Museum for twice as much. The specimen is now in the Natural History Museum. Ichthyosaurs were reptiles with a dolphin-like body, paddles, a fish-like tail and large eyes, but without a neck.

The next big find came in 1811, when Mary and Joseph unearthed the first Plesiosaur, a creature broadly similar to Ichthyosaurs, but having a long flexible neck and larger rear paddles. It could reach up to 40 feet in length. This skeleton first went to a natural history museum in Piccadilly before being purchased by the British Museum in 1819. In 1824 Mary made the discovery of the first Plesiosaur in perfect condition, though this specimen was much smaller than 40 feet. She sold this specimen for £120 guineas.

But there was to be another remarkable find in 1828; not a sea reptile this time, but a flying one. With a wingspan of 4 feet (up to 26 feet in an adult) this was the first Pterosaur, a creature called Dimorphodon, to be discovered virtually in tact. The fourth finger of each hand was elongated and supported a flight membrane. Dimorphodon probably flew by gliding.

Mary made the last important discovery in 1832, when another fine specimen of a 30-foot Ichthyosaur emerged from the Jurassic clay on the shore. On this occasion an amateur was accompanying her. This is now in the Natural History Museum, Kensington.

The fulcrum of Mary Anning’s collecting and discoveries was principally the need to make a living in hard times. As she searched Mary encountered many other people higher up the social scale than herself, who were nevertheless interested in her work. The Annings were poor, but on one occasion they did have a lucky break when Lt.Col. Birch of Thorpe Hall in Lincolnshire, hearing of Mary’s work and the family’s plight, gave the Annings £400 from the sale of his own fossil collection. She made the friendship of two sisters called Philpott, who often came to Lyme Regis to collect fossils themselves. Two men in particular, Sir Henry De la Beche, who founded the Geological Museum and School of Mines, and William Buckland, a clerical West Country geologist were influential in winning for Mary her enduring reputation and success.

In Mary’s day Lyme was becoming a popular resort and collectors were finding rare curiosities. The Anning fossils were regularly being bought by visitors arriving off the horse-coaches at the Pilot Inn. But the growing interest in the ancient animal remains was at a time when geological knowledge was in its infancy and very much framed within literal interpretation of the Bible and Creationist orthodoxy. The fossils being collected by Mary Anning and others were considered to represent thousands rather than millions of years, or were perhaps the remains of creatures, which perished in Noah’s Flood. Over the course of her short life, Mary’s work would make her well known and respected by many famous geologists of the day. She was aware – possibly ahead of her time – that fossils were not just curiosities, but were things of greater significance in the understanding of life on earth in its remoter antiquity.

Mary’s later years were spent in relative comfort. But she had never been robust, and by 1845 she had become morose and ill tempered, a trait which may have led to her becoming a lone beachcomber. The underlying cause of her disagreeable nature was probably the cancer, which was eventually to kill her. Nevertheless, this did not prevent her worth being appreciated by the scientific establishment, and she was elected a member of the Geological Society in recognition of her help to geologists of her day.

After her death in 1847 a stained glass window was dedicated to her memory in Lyme Church.

Swyre and Holy Trinity Church

Jan 18th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“A small grey village rather like Cornwall” is how some writers have described Swyre, in its picturesque and rather privileged position near the coast in West Dorset. Swyre in fact lies about half a mile inland from the coast path just beyond the western end of Chesil beach, on the B3157 roughly midway between Bridport and Abbotsbury. It is a settlement of the distinctly linear type, which has grown up along a narrow unclassified lane linking the coast road with the main A35 road to Bridport from Dorchester.

The allusion of Cornwall probably arises from the colour and texture of the cottages and houses which, unusually are confined to the west side of the main street and are a curious mix of the old, modernised old, and the modern. At the southern end are situated the Manor Farm and Holy Trinity Church.

This building is of stone in the Early English style. Holy Trinity was originally built in 1505, and is therefore Tudor and around 200 years later than many other churches in the county. It is rather plain and unadorned building of which only the tower and the chancel arch survive from the 16th century. However, the entire remainder of the church was re-built in 1863, a time when many other parish churches were rebuilt.

The Dorset History Centre holds the baptism registers from 1587/8 to 1998, marriage registers from 1588 to 1926, burial registers 1588 to 2001 (there is a gap in the records between 1812-1814) and the register of banns 1754 to 1915. The Bishop’s transcripts date from 1732 and there are overseer’s accounts 1601 to 1667 and from 1722 to 1837. The Parish of Swyre covers an area of 1081 acres, and had a population of 154 in 1891. The area around the church is a conservation area and some adjoining agricultural land was allotted to the churchyard in 2002.

Of the Church’s Rectors, there are no surviving records before 1297. It was at this time that one John de Candel was the incumbent, but the most distinguished Rector of Swyre was probably the noted Dorset historian John Hutchins. Hutchins was instituted to the living in 1729, and is noted for having repaired the chancel at his own expense during the period of his ministry.

Inside the church can be seen some early 16th century brasses commemorating the Russells, a Dorset merchant family and the principal land owning family associated with Swyre. John Russell rose to be a courtier in an unusual way. In 1506 a ship bearing the daughter of the king and queen of Castille ran aground at Weymouth in a storm. As John Russell could speak Spanish, he was called upon to act as interpreter for the Princess and her husband, Archduke Phillip of Austria. He then accompanied the royal couple to the court of Henry VII at Windsor, where he came to the notice of the king. Henry made Russell a courtier, from where he rose to other positions of high standing over the next thirty years.

Today Holy Trinity Church stands within a broad rectangular churchyard, bordered and well enclosed by mature trees. Access from the road is via either of two gates in the stone wall at the tower (west) end of the church. The visitor will notice that the majority of headstones date from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and in most instances their inscriptions are entirely obliterated by lichen. One very curious feature of these headstones is that there are two to be seen broken clean in two, as if deliberately struck with a sledgehammer in an act of desecration. Many of the grave-slabs too, are in a ruinous and pitted condition.

Unusually, the church has on display inside a ground plan showing the positions of the graves, which are numbered to correspond with a list of names of people buried in the ground. This document is kept on a lectern near the tower, a copy of which is also held by the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester.

A Day Out at Lyme Regis

Jan 18th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“Lyme doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a quiet seaside resort with a small fishing and pleasure boat harbour. The hilly countryside above it is like parts of the Cotswolds. In many ways the place hasn’t changed in 1,200 years.”

The speaker grew up in Lyme Regis, which is nearly in Devon, and often does a three hours drive to get there for a week in a hotel. He reminded me that ships sailed to meet the Spanish Armada from Lyme, where a stone rampart sticks far out to sea at the Cobb.

So I had to see Lyme Regis.

Starting from the church, I walked down the hill and found myself outside the Pilot Boat Inn, where once the landlord’s dog gained fame by licking the face of an apparently drowned sailor and brought him back to life. The sailor was from the torpedoed battleship “Formidable,” which went down in the bay in 1915. It is a friendly place, but the bartender I spoke to knew nothing about the dog or the battleship, although the walls were lined with pictures of ships and even the tablemats have a nautical theme.

Outside again, among painted houses and too much traffic for comfort, I could tell where the beach was from the smell of the salt-laden air. So I strode out across the sand and shingle for the Cobb, to the west, the tiny port with a forest of masts and stout walls of Portland stone.

It is too shallow for larger shipping, but once it saw a trader loose her ropes and set sail for nearby Charmouth, anchoring in the bay to await King Charles II who was fleeing to France. The next part of the story may have originated in a local bar-room, but it is said the skipper’s wife, fearful of revenge by the Roundheads (for sympathies were with them here) locked him in his cabin so that he could not get to either anchor or wheel.

On the way to the Cobb I passed a few gay awnings, rows of electric bulbs, the odd hot-dog and ice-cream stalls, but nothing more ostentatious that that. Fifteen castles, mermaids and other marvellous creations from sand awaited the competition judges and people gingerly picked their way around them to admire.

Hereabouts are cannons pointing out to sea and a 10-foot anchor given by the former Portland Navy Base “in memory of Lyme Regis men and women who made their living from the sea.”

People were fishing off the sea wall for “flatties” and two boys from Seaton and Axminster emerged from the falling tide in wetsuits, intending to do some snorkelling on a full tide. And all the time a sea mist hung over the town above the beach – an indication, I was told, that Lyme was in for a hot period. “It always happens,” said the ice-cream lady. And so it was to prove.

Beyond the Cobb is a beach where the Duke of Monmouth came ashore with his men in 1685 to lead a revolt against King James on religious grounds, only to be defeated at the Battle of Sedgmoor in Somerset. A dozen of those men from Lyme who joined him were hanged where the inhabitants of the town could see their bodies. Very ugly. Worth comparing with violent times today.

The Old Watch House looks out over Lyme Bay – and now the mist lifted, revealing dramatically high cliffs along the coast to the east. Upper and lower promenades lead back to the town centre three quarters of a mile away. Once there, a little way back up the hill is the parish church of St.Michael the Archangel, with its centuries-old-Flemish-woven tapestry and its three-foot model of a lifeboat with sails and oars, circa 1925.

Only 20 yards beyond the east wall are the Church Cliffs, where the sea has eroded the land over the centuries. The cliffs have to be stabilised from time to time: the church itself goes back to Saxon times, when the building must have been far from the sea. The view on a fine day stretches from the Cobb to Golden Cap Cliff, and the Isle of Portland, a lady in the churchyard told me.

In the museum at the bottom of the hill I learned of the town’s decline as a port in the 19th and 20th centuries, after 600 years, as ships became larger. Yet even today it has a boat building yard. Passing through the town names like Marine Parade are seen, continuing the maritime theme.

Back on the beach I went for my second ice-cream, while people changed in tiny plastic beach tents to go into the sea, most only paddling. I saw no more than 30 people paddling and swimming at once along the whole beach. Then the sun came out again.

As it happened, it was Lifeboat Week, and parachute, helicopter, lifeboat and coastguard displays had been set out, with some spectacular flying by the RAF Red Arrows and even a tug o’war between coastguards and life boatmen. A smugglers tour, fireworks at sea, illuminated boats and a Yetties concert were designed to keep up the interest. The stage sound system belted out the decibels, and Lyme let its hair down.

“The Pearl of Dorset,” they call Lyme Regis. It hasn’t been commercialised as larger resorts have, yet it is not under-developed as a coast attraction like the neighbouring seaside place of Bridport’s West Bay is. Lyme was on a major Roman road, was a besieged Roundhead fortress, and 50 years ago was described as “a quaint old-world place nestling at the foot of the hills.” I don’t think my friend from the Cotswolds would disagree with a word of that.

Here we are on the Jurassic Coast, with outstanding geology attracting people with hammers: world famous fossil-hunting country and the South West Coast Path. Here is a fully restored working water-mill, and Gun Cliff, where artillery once sent away a raiding ship with a single shot.

Besieged in 1644, it is peaceful today with galleries, cafes, craft and antiques shops. Yes, the “Pearl of Dorset,” everyone seems to agree.

The Sea Fencibles

Jan 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Sea Fencibles? If you have never before heard of them, you are not alone. I was in the same position until recently when the subject cropped up during investigations into other matters, but once it is realised that the Fencibles were a short-lived kind of coastguard force of the Napoleonic period, this general ignorance is perhaps not surprising.

The “fencible” is an elision of “defensible” and the Sea Fencibles could be regarded in their day as the maritime equivalent of the Home Guard of the world wars, though formed in response to a threat of invasion by Napoleon some one-and-a-half centuries earlier than the formation of Dads Army. The Sea Fencibles were mostly volunteers living close to the coast who, we may imagine, were only too glad to accept a pay of a shilling a day in return for immunity from service in the militia or else being press-ganged into the navy. However the relative usefulness of the Fencible force has divided opinion among naval personnel and historians.

The Sea Fencibles were formed on May 14th, 1798 at the instigation of King George III. By 1801 Sea Fencible units had been established all along the coast from Whitby right into Cornwall, so Dorset would have had its own units by then. Across the county there were three units, the most easterly covering the length of coast from Calshot in Hampshire to St. Aldhelm’s Head in Purbeck, with one captain, four lieutenants and 482 men. The central unit extended from St. Aldhelm’s Head to Puncknowle, with seven officers and 284 men; the most westerly unit then extended from Puncknowle to Teignmouth in Devon, having eight officers and 331men.

There was no problem in obtaining volunteers, and Sea Fencibles could be recruited from fishermen, bargemen, farm labourers etc; many naval officers were also involved, since the navy had a surplus with no concept of retirement. These included Nelson himself, who briefly took command of a unit when in charge of the coastal defences. The recruits were trained in the use of cannon and pike.

A prior responsibility for these units was to signal the arrival of an enemy force approaching from the Channel, and to this end the most complicated and painstaking arrangements were worked out. If the alarm was raised the coast would have to be evacuated, with people, cattle, valuable goods and anything else of value to the enemy being moved inland. To ensure that this operation was carried out smoothly and that everyone knew where to go and by which route, very elaborate and detailed plans were drawn up. Interestingly Thomas Hardy describes just such an operation in his novel “The Trumpet Major.”

During the thaw in Anglo-French hostilities leading to the treaty of Amiens in 1802, a feeling among the high command that perhaps the Fencibles had outlived their purpose led to units being disbanded, though the annulment was destined to be short lived. The following year war broke out again, and a resumption of an invasion threat from Napoleon promptly brought the Fencible units back into service again once the press gangs had “re-stocked” the Navy with new personnel. The move was also to satisfy popular feeling, though many placed no confidence in the units. From 1803 the Fencibles were also given a more important offshore duty as enforcers of blockades on the English side of the Channel, using gunboats.

However, the resumption of the coastguard watch was not without its crop of bogus alerts. In May 1804 at the height of the invasion scare, the signal station on the Verne at Portland raised a false alarm during a blanket of thick fog that caused a wave of serious panic throughout the county. Serious, because none other than the king happened to be staying at Weymouth at the time! There was consequently serious concern for his safety, though of course this was unfounded.

About this time there was a return to the use of fire beacons, and it is noted that these warnings were set up on Ballard Down, Round Down, St. Aldhelm’s Head, Hamborough Hill, and the Verne. Nothe Fort, a circular brick-built redoubt at Weymouth, housed two traversing guns with platforms on either flank carrying two guns each (this artillery was removed in 1821.) Bridport possessed two batteries of two guns each, for which the emplacements had been built by the county. A magazine was constructed at Dorchester in 1809.

Other than this, information on the Dorset units during the second operational period is woefully lacking. There is also some discrepancy across various sources as to the actual year the Sea Fencibles were disbanded for the second and last time. One source states they were disbanded as early as 1810 which, exactly half-way between the time of Trafalgar and Waterloo, may be considered rather premature, even though the former victory put paid to any possibility of an invasion of England. The next date given is 1812 (the year of Napoleon’s rout at the Battle of Borodino in the Russian campaign,) which perhaps is more tenable, though the 1815 of a third reference, when Napoleon was forced into exile, would have to be the very latest date that a coast watch force would likely have been needed. Alternatively these differences could be explained if the disbanding was not a single event, but an incremental process in which individual units were simply disbanded at local level between the earliest and latest dates.

Love Lane – Weymouth

Jan 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Weymouth is one of the UK’s premier holiday resorts. Its grand promenade and sandy beach attract people to the town in their thousands and every summer the hotels and bed and breakfast places that line the sea front are full to overflowing. This is the area where you will find the ice cream and candyfloss vendors; it’s the place to go for sticks of rock, kiss-me-quick hats and other souvenirs.  Here and in the back streets you will find fish and chip shops, inexpensive restaurants, and fast food outlets. But this is not the real Weymouth: that is on the other side of the estuary of the river Wey and to get there now that Mr Lee’s ferry is no longer available (actually, it hasn’t been available since 1695) you must go across the bridge by Holy Trinity Church.

Here we turn left and follow the river a short distance upstream until we reach the marina area, just past the modern council offices we turn left up the hill beside the famous Boot Inn and there in front of us is Love Lane a pedestrian thorough-fare linking High West Street and Franchise Street.

At this end of Love Lane are two stages of steps with a scaffold like hand rail to help us old-timers get a start up the incline. The first thing that strikes you is how narrow the lane is, three strides from the front door of a house on one side will see you in the hallway of the opposite dwelling. Hutchin’s 1774 map shows houses on both sides of the lane at the north end and a terrace at the south end; little has changed.

I was surprised to find the buildings in Love Lane are not listed. Listing is the process protecting and controlling the way buildings of special architectural or historic interest may be altered or improved. Here we have examples of houses from the early 18th century apparently unprotected and open to be abused with stone cladding, UPV double glazing and worse. A Grade II listing would warrant every effort being taken to preserve them. They escaped listing in 1974 and again in the review of 1994-5.

Artisans and labourers traditionally occupied the dwellings in Love Lane and that was certainly the case in the 1860’s when it was a busy area and home to cordwainers (shoemakers,) plumbers, butchers, carpenters and cabinet – makers and their families with some wives and daughters making a second income from dressmaking.

 In 1861 at No.1. Love Lane lived Samuel Scott a 50 year-old Wheelwright, his wife Ann, 48, and their daughter Elizabeth who was a tailoress, probably working with their lodger Ann Chaddick (20). Next door at No.2. it would have been a bit of a squeeze for fifty-year-old agricultural labourer Matthew Pitcher and his thirty six-year-old wife Eliza with their five year-old son Edward J. Spracklin, possibly Matthews step-son, and two lodgers Susanna Chick who was (81) and Diana Spracklin (56) described in the census as a Nurse Professor.

At No.3 were four bread winners. Charlie Woodland (46) was a butcher, his wife Elizabeth (44), a laundress; it looks as if Charlie had two step-sons, William and Thomas Roper, respectively 17 and 14. These lads worked as a mason’s labourer and plumber’s apprentice. The boys had a 14 year-old sister, Elizabeth, who was at school. Also in the household and of school age the couple’s two sons C. Alfred Woodland (8) and Alfred Woodland (6).

Next door was a Devon born shoemaker, 50 year-old Francis Lee, his Weymouth born wife 55 year-old Ellen. According to the census the couple had rather late in life or more likely Ellen has exaggerated her age, a 14 year-old daughter Jane. Room was found to accommodate Robert Long an unmarried 28 year-old Butcher from Devon.

Moving on down the Lane to No.5 we find agricultural labourer William Goddard (53) and his wife Maria (50), their son Thomas (16) was employed as a brewer’s labourer. Also at home another son 21 year-old John and his wife Frances (24). John Goddard was a road labourer.

At No 6 we find Henry and Ruth Hawkins (48 and 42,) Henry is a coal porter and their two twin daughters Martha and Jane (10) go to school. No 7 is home to Elizabeth Ford (26) who is a single woman and living with her are her two younger brothers Francis (21) and William (19). The two lads work on the roads and their sister earns a living taking in laundry.

Robert Gray (45) who comes from Puncknowle and gives his occupation as Gardener Professor lives with his wife Virtue (46), a Weymouth girl, and their daughter, Elizabeth (20) a dressmaker, and their son William (9) who goes to school, all live at No 8.

 At No 9 the shoemaker, Ambrose White (52) lives with his spinster sister Ann (49) and their 78 year-old mother, Susanna who is described as a pauper. Also in the household are William and Sarah White (8 and 6) Ambrose’s nephew and niece.

The Butcher, John Hatton (61) and his wife Mary (62) lived at No 10 and 11 with their unmarried daughter, Louisa (21) who made shirts. Lodging with them, a Somerset man and master plumber, James Lesley (27) and his wife Mary (26) and their 4 year-old-son Harold.

The census is difficult to interpret but it may be that Jane Winter (50) who lived at No 12 with her daughter, also Jane (20), and described as a Proprietor of Houses was the landlord of the people living at No 10, 11,13 and 14.

And at No.14 lived William Watts (49) who was born at Bere Regis, living with his wife, Weymouth born Frances (51). William was a grocer and his wife a tailoress and with them are Sarah their 26 year-old daughter and dressmaker; sons Joseph (18) a cabinet maker’s apprentice and Alfred (16) who worked for a Brick Merchant.

A widowed carpenter, Morgan Symes (49) lived at No 15 with his 19 year-old daughter, no occupation is shown for her but she was probably busy keeping the house in order and looking after her younger brother 8 year-old John. Next door at No 16 lived William Symes (54) unmarried and in business as a Brick Merchant. His sister, Sarah (47) lived with him.

At this point in the lane there was an area known as Love Lane Court that comprised three houses the first was occupied by a mariner 36 year-old Daniel Besant and his wife Mary. The second house was home to Edward and Elizabeth Tulledge respectively 56 and 50 and described in the census as Paupers and in the third house was Elizabeth Cook (22) a mariner’s wife.

Back in Love Lane proper the widow and dressmaker Betsy Nudge (49) lived at No 17 with her 18 year-old son George who was a cordwainer’s apprentice. Also at No 17 but in separate accommodation was a retired mariner 80 year-old Robert Collins and his 53 year-old wife and nurse, Hannah.

No 18 was home to Emma Bold (37) another mariner’s wife who had with her two sons and two daughters: Jonathan (10); Samuel (8); Emma (5) and Ann (2).
And in the last house, No 19, Joseph Webb (23) a blacksmith’s labourer lived with his wife, Hannah 21.

While I was in the lane I didn’t see a soul but a century and a half ago Love Lane would have been a very busy place by day and by evening many of those listed above would be found in the Boot Inn, and on Sunday most of the residents would don their Sunday best and make their way to Holy Trinity Church.

Henry Moule

Jan 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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With their accustomed inertia officials of the Duchy of Cornwall were unmoved by the letter of desperation they had just received, highlighting squalid living conditions in Fordington near Dorchester. The correspondent described how, in places, the floors of cottages lay beneath the level of the pond, how waste was being cast into drains or into the open street, and the fact that the population density in places was higher than that in Manchester.

The letter however, was not from a desperate councillor or villager, but from Fordington’s vicar, the Revd. Henry Moule, though his plea for action was never heeded. The Duchy had imposed a ban on development, so allowing the community to degenerate into a rural slum. But although he failed on this occasion many more examples of the energy and vision of this remarkable cleric have stood the test of time. But it was one innovation in particular, arising partially by accident in 1859, which made Moule’s name more widely known.

In the summer of that year something inspired Moule to fill his cesspool and instruct his family to use buckets instead. At first he buried the sewage in trenches but then noticed that after about a month no trace of the excrement remained. So he built a shed, sifted the dry earth beneath it and mixed the bucket waste with the dry earth. After ten minutes nothing offensive remained, and furthermore Moule found that the earth could be recycled about five times.

Equally interested in the composted waste’s effect on plant nutrition Moule, in collaboration with a farmer, fertilised one-half of a field with his closet earth while the other half was fertilised with conventional super-phosphate. Swedes planted in the manure grew a third larger than those grown in the phosphate. It was later said that Moule’s invention could be more effective in disease prevention than vaccination.

Such dynamism and passionate evangelical conviction on Henry Moule’s part was legendary. Born in Melksham, Wiltshire, on January 27th 1801, the sixth son of a solicitor, Henry attended Marlborough Grammar School then entered St. Johns College, Cambridge in 1817 to read classics, physics, astronomy and mathematics. After graduating with a BA in 1821 he accepted a position as a peripatetic tutor to the children of Admiral Sir William Hotham. In 1824 he was ordained a deacon, becoming a priest the following year. Appointed vicar of his native Melksham for some years he then took up the living at Gillingham in Dorset, where he was obliged to tighten up a lapse in discipline and standards found to be prevalent and in the conducting of services.

Just before his entry into St. Johns in 1817 Moule had been warned not to enter Trinity Church because of the tainted reputation of its fanatical minister. Theologically Moule was a follower of Charles Simeon, the Cambridge evangelical bulwark against liberal theology in the Church, and wrote several letters to The Times on theology. But Moule was also a great patriot and conservative in politics. In 1824, the year of his deaconcy, he married Mary Evans, a woman related to a London publisher.

Moule moved to Fordington in 1829 to take up his ministry there, though at first he was met by considerable hostility. His deliverance of feisty sermons denouncing local morality and the grievous structural and spiritual state of the church brought him into conflict with locals, who even jeered at his children in the street. Furthermore, Moule’s acceptance into the community was not helped by his demolition of the church’s musicians gallery on deciding to dispense with the orchestra, and by persuading the Morton-Pitt family to end the Dorchester Races on ethical grounds in the early 1830’s.

But on an initial stipend of £225 per annum the new minister made the vicarage a success and in 1840 he purchased adjoining land to create a garden. The year before he had sponsored winter relief work on a major archaeological excavation of over 50 complete skeletons from a Roman cemetery underlying Fordington High Street, even forensically examining some of the bones himself. For some years too, he served as Chaplain to Dorset Barracks, a position that inspired him to write his Barrack Sermons. From the royalties he received from the publication of this book Moule built the church at West Fordington.

In the autumn of 1862 Henry Moule was faced with perhaps the greatest of his pastorship when he undertook the religious counselling of Edwin Preedy, a 21-year-old man being held in Dorchester jail awaiting trial and execution for murder. During the final weeks of the prisoner’s life Moule struggled to force Preedy into an eleventh hour repentance in the face of the condemned man’s fits of despair and physical violence. Moule’s death-cell consultations with Preedy are recounted in his rare 94-page booklet Hope Against Hope*

Henry Moule finally won some approval from his parishioners when he brought their lamentable living standards to the notice of the Duchy of Cornwall. Though he was not successful, in 1861 he produced National Health & Wealth, a twenty-page pamphlet in response to the disease, nuisance, waste and expense caused by cesspools and water drainage. Following his development of the earth closet Moule took out a patent for it in partnership with James Bannehr, thus forming the Moule Patent Earth Closet Company, which made and sold earth closets in oak and mahogany.

In The Field of the 21st November 1868 it was said “…in towns and villages not exceeding 2000 or 3000, we believe the earth closet will be found not only more effective but far more economical than water drainage.” The August 1st 1868 edition of The Lancet reported that 148 dry earth closets were in use at the Volunteer encampment at Wimbledon by 2000 men without any odour being produced. At his death, Moule was still trying to persuade the government that the earth closet was the sanitation of the future. He wrote pamphlets including The Advantage of the Dry Earth System; The Science of Manure as the Food of Plants; Manure for the Million: a Letter to the Cottage Gardeners of England, and a paper on town refuse in 1872. In this paper Moule argued on the three principles of (1) “There can never be a National Sanitation Reform without active intervention by central government” (2) That active intervention can never take place under the water sewerage system without a large increase of local taxation (3) Let the dry-earth system be enforced, and with a vast improvement in health and comfort, local taxation may be entirely relieved.

One of Henry Moule’s proudest friends and admirers was Thomas Hardy, who recognised his worth and even considered himself one of the minister’s parishioners even though he (Hardy) had reverted to agnosticism. Moule was no less active in the affairs of Dorchester and was fervently involved with William Barnes and Canon Charles Bingham in founding the Dorset Museum in 1845, the forerunner of today’s County Museum in the High Street. Moule also founded, in 1850, the Institute of Adult Education and was involved in the foundation of the Dorchester Mutual Improvement Society.

The Revd. Henry Moule BA died in 1880, but five of Henry and Mary’s six children became eminent figures in their own right. Handley Carr Moule became Bishop of Durham and wrote a treatise on Simeon. George Moule became Bishop of mid-China and Arthur E Moule also served as a missionary in that country. Charles became President of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Henry J. Moule became an archaeologist and Dorset Museum’s first curator. But a sixth son, Horace, slit his throat in a fit of depression in Cambridge in 1871. Though gifted musically and academically, his life was blighted by depressive and alcoholic tendencies. But the most tragic aspect of Horace Moule’s wasted life and death was that he, like his father, was a friend and mentor to Hardy, his demise having a significant impact on Dorset literature, for through Hardy it inspired the author’s intemperate and failing hero Jude in Jude the Obscure. A grandson of one of these siblings occupied a chair as Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.

*available for examination only by special request at the County Museum (handling fee £10). We will be publishing an article about Edwin Preedy’s short life soon – it will be posted in Real Lives.

The Family of Frances Davis

Jan 16th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Frances’ death at her home in Poole on the 17th of June 1856 was not unexpected. It marked the end of a two year battle with cancer, which had attacked her womb. She was the daughter of James and Frances (nee Besant) Davis; the sister of Rachel, Elizabeth, Thomas and Leah; the wife of James; the mother of Rachel, Emily, Henrietta and Tom and a grandmother as well.

Until the cancer came her last twenty years had been settled and comfortable but it had not always been so. Frances Davis, sometimes known as Fanny, attracted men who lacked commitment. Her husband of 22-years was not her first and he was the father of only one of her children; Henrietta, who was baptised on the 17th of November 1824 at St. Mary’s church, Sturminster Marshall; her mother had been baptised there 26-years earlier on the 4th of February 1798.

Frances got James Boyt to the altar of the village church on the 3rd of August 1834, 10-years after the birth of their daughter. The Sturminster Marshall Overseers had issued a bastardy order against James and at the time of their marriage he knew the village constable held a warrant for his arrest for not supporting his child. James Boyt may have concluded it would be cheaper to make an honest woman of Frances rather than pay 10-years arrears of child support or spend a term in jail. However, from this distance it would be unfair to label this a marriage of convenience for James Boyt was taking on rather more than a wife and a daughter.

By now Frances was the mother of three other children. Rachel baptised on the 2nd of March 1818, just eight months after the marriage of her mother to James Ford on the 3rd of August 1817. Emily, baptised on the 4th of March 1821, “the daughter of Fanny Ford” after James Ford had run away from his responsibilities. Then there was Tom Ford born in 1829; he was the subject of a bastardy order against a William Medway of Wimborne.

In 1841 James Boyt was living with his wife and step-son, at King Street, Sturminster Marshall; their daughter Henrietta was with her grandparents (Davis) in the High Street. Frances’ eldest girl, Rachel, was working as a servant at West Brooks Farm, Shapwick, which is about two miles away from her home village. Emily was at Poole where she was working as a servant for hotel-keeper William Furmage. Similarly employed at the hotel was Ann Davis; Emily and Ann were probably cousins.

A decade later the family moved to Poole and with help from the 1851 census we can drop in on the family to see how they are all getting on. James and Frances have moved to West Quay, Poole and Tom Ford is still with them. James and Tom are both working as farm labourers.  Their daughter, Henrietta, is in Poole and described as a Cook’s Shopkeeper. She is unmarried and has a one-year-old daughter. On the day of the census she had the company of two visitors Eliza Smith (18) and Julia Peiler (16), both shirt makers.

Emily married John Henry Chitty in the early part of 1843 in the Wimborne district and that includes Sturminster Marshall, which suggests her mother and step-father moved to Poole after that event. John Chitty came from Shaftesbury; in 1881 the couple had a nine-acre farm at South Stoneham, Hampshire.

Rachel was a green grocer at Thames Street, Poole. She had a two-year-old daughter, Georgina, born at Hamworthy. In the census she is listed as Rachel Ford and lets the enumerator believe she is a widow but there is no evidence to say she had been married.

On the 7th of February 1860, Rachel, then 42, married Samuel Betts, a master mariner of High Street, Poole; the marriage was witnessed by her sister Emily Chitty. In 1861 Rachel and Samuel Betts have Rachel’s twelve-year-old daughter Georgina with them and they are at Thames Street, carrying on business as grocers. Samuel came from Maldon in Essex and was six-years younger than his wife who was buried at Poole on the 1st of June 1896 and a year, almost to the day, later Samuel Betts was buried there on the 6th of June 1897. We loose track of Henrietta and her daughter.

In the summer of 1856 Tom marries Sarah Medway in the Poole district and by 1861 they have settled at Lytchett Minster. Interestingly, the bastardy order of which Tom was the subject cited William Medway as the father; Sarah’s father was a William Medway. The 1861 census has the couple at Sydney Place, Lytchett Minster, with two children, William and Emily, but from the 1871 census, when the couple are living at Poole Road, Lytchett Minster, we can see that both children died. By 1881 Tom and Sarah, then living at Yarrels Common, have six children: Sarah (19); William (16);
Mary (13); Bessie (11), and Harry (6). Also with them is Sarah’s mother, Eliza Medway (76); she receives a pension. Eliza Medway was buried on the 28th of January 1882 at Lytchett Minster.

Tom Ford died and was buried at Lytchett Minster on the 19th of August 1889; his widow continued to live with two of her sons, William and Harry, at Lytchett Minster. Living on her own means in 1901 at The Common, Lytchett Minster, her eldest and unmarried son William, then 37, is with her.

By 1891 Emily and her husband John Chitty had moved back to Dorset and in 1901 are living at 23 Church Street, Poole with Ann Dunford, a middle-aged spinster.

James and Frances stayed together for 22-years and for much of this time James’ step-son, Tom was living and working with him. The other children kept in touch. After Frances’ death, ten years passed before James married his second wife, 49-year-old widow Elizabeth Galton and by then James had taken to the sea for employment. James died at Poole in the first quarter of 1873 when his age was given as 68 but he would have been 71-years-of-age.

We shall never know how much James was influenced to marry Frances by the constable waving an arrest warrant but there is little doubt their marriage stood the test of time and all of Frances’ children prospered.

The Parish of Bere Regis

Jan 16th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“A half-dead townlet” was how Thomas Hardy once described Bere Regis. Perhaps this townlet, situated amid woodland and heath at the junction of the A31 and A35 may indeed have not changed much in the eyes of locals since Hardy expressed his opinion.

The ‘Bere’ part of the name derives from the river, and possibly the drink, while other authorities consider the origin to be Saxon byri, meaning a fortified place, or byre, the Norse word for a group of buildings. But most likely it derives from the Old English word for a wood or copse. It is said King John, who visited the estate several times, drank beer, suggesting the connection with name. The ‘Regis’ element simply indicates the royal connection.

Long before King John the area clearly saw intensive prehistoric settlement, for 50 Bronze Age round barrows have been recorded, including the un-excavated Hundred Barrow, 75 metres south of the church.  Nearby Woodbury Hill was early fortified with one rampart as an oppida during the Iron Age, and the area has further been identified with the site of the Roman Station of Ibernium, Wood Fort being the Castra or summer camp. The Hill still retains traces of the encampment, which on clear days commands strategic views of Purbeck and Poole.

Bere was anciently a Royal demesne. The Saxon Queen Elfrida had a seat here to which she retreated after the murder of her son-in-law Edward (the Martyr.) As Bere was already a Royal estate at the time of Domesday in 1086 it was not included in William 1’s famous land survey, but the manor remained a Royal possession until 1269. From the 13th century the Lords of the Manor were the Turbervilles, and Simon de Montfort, father of the English Parliament, made his home here.

There has been a stone church at Bere since the mid 11th century, but the present church of St. John Baptist was fully developed through additions and alterations by the 17th century. The two most notable features of the church are the Turberville Window in the south aisle and the “12-Apostle” hammer-beam roof, constructed by Cardinal John Morton about 1485. The village also has a Wesleyan chapel, a hall for the independents and two meeting houses for dissidents.

Bere Regis owes its first market to King John, who granted a charter in 1215, though today the market has fallen into disuse. At Woodbury a fair was held from 1267. By this century however the village had grown to town status, but at no time since has its development reached town status by modern standards. Today the parish incorporates Shitterton (a hamlet at the west end of Bere;) Roke (or Roake;) Hollow Oak and Bec Heath.

Cottages in the village are predominantly two story with thatch, and walls of cobb or flint and brick courses. Barns are of similar building materials. During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries some houses were built, but one 19th century thatched cottage survives. At the peak of its prosperity Bere once had twelve shops and six filling stations. Today there are just two general stores, two pubs (especially the Drax Arms, named after a land-owning family in the district;) one post office, and one filling station on the bypass; a health clinic, dentist and chiropodist. But the village was twice nearly consumed by fire, first in 1634 and again in 1788. Because of the fires the present centre of Bere mostly dates from the late 18th century, when the properties along the high street were re-built as terraces of plain Georgian cottages. Along the street at Shitterton, which was less affected by the fires, more of the original cottages survive. Thomas Williams founded a charity school for the education and clothing of eight boys.

The Royal Commission for Historic Monuments survey for Dorset records nine 17th century houses; nine 18th century houses/cottages, and eight houses of the 19th century, together with some 19th century barns. Roke Farm is a listed building on an L-shaped plan originally built in the 18th century, but altered in the 19th. Little evidence remains today of the influence of King John and the Turbervilles.

Other than agriculture, Bere’s traditional industries have been building, brick-making, cutting wood for faggots, and cress-growing in beds to the south fed by the Bere stream. In its demographics Bere reflected a national trend, with its greatest spurt of population growth occurring during the 19th century. The ten-yearly census records a rise from 936 in 1801 to 1,170 in 1831 and thence to a peak of 1,494 in 1851. But industrialisation of the north precipitated a rural decline thereafter. Indeed, rural riots which erupted in 1830 first broke out here (they were ruthlessly suppressed by James Frampton, who would be the chief prosecutor of the Tolpuddle Martyrs only four years later.) The decline did not begin to reverse until after World War 1, when the population began a steady rise, which continues today.

But over twenty years ago Bere’s then present and future development and housing needs were thrown open to public consultation. In May 1982 – incidentally the year the bypass was opened – the Parish Council set up a sub-committee to consider the development of the Regis in the closing decades of the 20th century. After consultation with Purbeck District Council, Dorset County Council, and COSIRA, the committee studied the Dorset Structure Plan and organised a survey of the villager’s opinions/ Sections on Environment, Housing, Public Services, Employment, Youth and Recreation were all included. Although the questionnaires were distributed to most homes, fewer than 50% of them were returned completed. This made the accuracy of the results which were obtained rather suspect.

The survey did find however, that over thirty buildings were listed. It appeared that many residents thought there were too many council houses and at too high a density, though most (90%) thought the newest housing was visually compatible with the older traditional buildings. An overwhelming demand for low-cost private homes (though not flats) also emerged from the survey, as did the opinion that there were too few shops. Building materials, the participants stated, generally harmonised with the vernacular building fabrics. Influenced by the results the survey committee aimed to site all future homes on brownfield land or inner waste ground to avoid village sprawl. Some lost shops have been restored. But today the bypass has gone some way to preserving Bere Regis as a quiet precinct relatively unflustered by tourists.

A Day Out at Wareham

Jan 15th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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To the family historian Wareham is a registration district, suggesting a largish centre for trade and commerce and as such deserving to keep its alphabetical position on your list of places to spend a day out. Perish that thought. Wareham, situated between the Rivers Frome and Piddle, is a low skyline town hindered by nothing remotely resembling the term high rise or concrete jungle. Even the town’s Italian restaurant on North Street shelters under an ancient thatch.

As anyone with roots in the town will know many of the milestones in the lives of their ancestors were probably marked by events at Lady St. Mary’s church. To get there from the centre of town proceed along East Street taking a right turn into Church Lane. On the left as you proceed along Church Lane to Lady St. Mary’s there is, set back a little, a building which may hold the key to overcoming many a family historians Wareham ‘brickwalls.’

In the 17th century Wareham was home to a large congregation of Dissenters and in 1689 they built the Presbyterian Meeting House and made it their spiritual home. Partly destroyed in the great fire of 1762 it was rebuilt later that year. If your ancestors disappeared from the parish records there is a strong possibility record of them will be here. More recently the church has been known as the Congregational Church and is now known as the United Reformed Church.

The faithful have been worshipping at the site of Lady St.Mary’s Church for at least 1300 years. The nearby 16th century priory is now a hotel. The present building dates mostly from 1842 but the St. Edwards Chapel of 1100 remains. We will look at the church and its history in more detail in a future article about the history of Wareham and its churches.

In the small square to the front of the church entrance there is a stone recording the planting of a tree to commemorate the wedding of HRH the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer on the 29th July 1981.

Walk through the small alleyway and you will be in the area known as the Quay where you can sit by the river and be served by pubs and restaurants. From the South Bridge you can look down over the Quay and upstream you will see moored many small sailing craft. The River Frome is tidal at this point. On the hard standing at the foot of the bridge there is a man who will hire you a small motor boat by the hour.

Near the bottom of South Street on your left and hidden away down a short alley is the entrance to Holy Trinity Church. On this site before the Norman Conquest there was a chapel dedicated to St. Andrew. Dorset historian John Hutchins was installed as rector in 1743. Nowadays the building is home to the Purbeck Information and Heritage Centre.

Continuing up South Street on your left is the Bear Inn and Hotel and across the road a fine three story Georgian property, The Manor House built in 1712. There is a small shopping development here on the site of the former church dedicated to St. John.

We are back at the cross roads at the centre of the town and what would have been the business heart of the place and rather confirms Wareham as a small town. Here on the corner of North and East Streets is the Town Hall in earlier days the site of St. Peter’s parish church dating from 1321. Damaged in the great fire of 1762 it was rebuilt as the Town Hall and jail in 1768. It was rebuilt again in 1870 and nowadays it is the town’s museum and also home to the local Tourist Information Centre.

Opposite the Town Hall in East Street is an interesting building with a bell tower. Actually the tower was part of the Town Hall until that building was rebuilt in 1870 and the tower moved across the street. John Streche an Essex man who had property in the town founded the Almshouses in 1418 and now they are private residences; new almshouses were built in 1908 at Westport. The building we see here today was re-built in 1741 by Henry Drax and John Pitt, Members of Parliament for the Borough.

Let us turn about and cross over into West Street and continue to Bloody Bank – the town’s place for executions in days past. The historian John Hutchins tells us the place got its name after five men involved in the Monmouth Rebellion were sent there in 1685 by Judge Jeffreys to be hung, drawn and quartered. But the place could have earned its name earlier as executions are believed to have been carried out here from as far back as 1213.

We can now walk along the bank up to the North Walls, from where there is an excellent view across to the River Piddle and the North Bridge. Continue round to the top of North Street and visit Wareham’s jewel: St. Martin’s Church.

The writer had mixed feelings towards the artist selling his pictures from inside the church and wondered what our Lord might have thought about it. On the other hand had he not been there it might not have been possible to gain access and his wildlife paintings were rather good.

The Saxon church is small and we are told St. Aldhelm founded a church here in 698. The present building dates from early in the 11th century and has a number of wall paintings and inscriptions the earliest said to date from the 12th century. After 1736 the church was only used for a brief period and then only for baptisms and marriages. It fell into disuse and was unused for about 200 years. In 1935 it was restored and at the request of his younger brother an effigy of T.E. Lawrence – “Lawrence of Arabia” – was placed in the north aisle.

As you leave St. Martin’s you can see straight down North Street to the cross roads at the centre of town and as you walk that way you will notice the Methodist church on your left.

A day well spent; St. Martin’s alone is worth the trip but do check first that it is open.

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