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May, 2010:

Winterborne Stickland – St. Mary’s Church

May 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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One of the more historic churches in Dorset, St. Mary’s parish church in Winterborne Stickland occupies a central position in the village and dates from the 13th century. Built using a fabric of alternating flint and stone courses, the roof is partly tiled and partly slated. The church is on the usual east-west axis and features a Perpendicular 15th century tower on the west side constructed of banded flint and ashlar.

150 yards south east of the church stands the Rectory. It is recorded that in 1291 a portion of eight marks was paid out of the Rectory to the Chapter of Coutance in Normandy; a further four shillings was paid annually to Milton Abbey, and a pension of forty shillings annually to the Rector of Durweston. The west part of the Rectory was built in 1685 on the waste of the Manor, the Rector paying 20 shillings for “acknowledgement yearly to the Lord.” The earliest incumbent of Stickland for whom a record survives was Simon Avenel, who became vicar of St. Mary’s in 1312. During his ministry he held the living from the Chapter of Courtances after the purchase of Milton Abbey in 1336. About this time also the Manor of Stickland was granted to the Bishopric of Coutances.

The present Rectory is of two storeys with dormer attics and constructed of banded brick and flint with a tile and slate roof. An extension was added to the east end of the range in 1768 and to the west end in the mid 19th century. A stone cross formerly stood opposite the entrance to the churchyard.

The tower of the church is of moderate height in two stages and embattled with pinnacles. In the south wall of the tower there is a blocked door and the upper stage has belfry windows with cinquefoil leaded lights on the east, north and south faces. The belfry houses four bells inscribed thus: a tenor “Give Thanks to God ID RT 1626”; “Serve the Lord IW 1622” and a treble “John Stevens, Henry Wooleryes, Wardens RA TB 1670” plus another treble of 1905. Internally the tower has 18th century panelling with an oak dado.

The porch is of banded flint and ashlar. It dates from the 16th century but bears a rough 15th century sculpture of the Holy Rood on a wall. This rood was discovered during restoration work in 1890. Ashlar quoins above the porch door suggest that its walls were once higher. Above the gable there is an 18th century sundial with Roman numerals on its south east and south west faces. When passing through the outer doors into the porch the visitor should note the small tympanum above the door with its carved 14th century crucifixion; this is suspected of being originally Norman in origin, with the crucifix itself being a later imposition.

The nave of St. Mary’s is mainly 13th century work but with the imprint of a restoration in 1716. It is 20’ x 40’ with a south wall generally similar to the north wall, but buttressed only at the east and west ends. The east end is 13th century, while the west end is the same age as the tower (15th century). The south door from the porch is probably 18th century. More impressive is the wagon roof, which is in 24 compartments defined by lengthwise and semi-circular ribs. The compartments are whitewashed plaster representing restored portions of the 16th century original, while the partitioning has been re-painted in the medieval colours of bright blue with gilded bosses.

Like the nave, the chancel is contemporary 13th century, with an extension of the 16th century wagon roof. It is 20’ x 13.5’ with a gabled east wall in which there are three widely-spaced and deeply chamfered graduated lancet windows possibly adapted from an Early English triplet. On the north side is a bracketed monument of an ionic capital surmounted by a large oval shield. In the south wall there are two casement-moulded windows of 1500 AD and a priests doorway of about the same age, with a 13th century piscina nearby, and possibly another altar. The west shows traces of an earlier 13th century window. There is an elegant candelabrum of the late 17th or early 18th century purchased with money raised from fines imposed on truant choirboys.

A tomb-chamber (otherwise known as the Skinner Aisle) was added to the north side of the chancel in the later 18th century to accommodate the burial of Thomas and Barbara Skinner in 1756. The centrepiece of this chamber, which belonged to Quarrelston Farm, is the Skinner tomb itself, of classic design raised on a single step and covered by a polished black marble slab. The inscription in Roman capitals states it is the tomb of Thomas Skinner of Dewlish, who died October 5th, 1756, and his wife Barbara (died December 13th, 1769.) Thomas Skinner was the son of Thomas Skinner senior, builder of the present Dewlish House, and a grandson on his mother’s side of John Bingham of Melcombe. The Bingham family is also commemorated in a shield, which further bears the arms of the Turbervilles, Chaldecots and Trenchards.

It is said that in the Skinner vault beneath is the effigy – if not the burial – of the Bishop of Coutance who was on the business of the Dean and Chapter. Described as being the stone figure of a man with a shaven head, holding a book in his left hand and a crozier in his right hand, this is the effigy already stated as having originally been placed in the Churchyard, but recorded in 1790 as being set into the floor of the church before its transfer to the vault.

The church also contains a number of other memorials. These are to the memory of John Richardson, clerk and formerly fellow of King’s College Cambridge, who was a former Rector of 30 years standing, and who died on November 27th 1795 aged 67; Mary Beale, sister of Admiral Beale of Upway, died in the Rectory on April 19th 1822, aged 84; The Revd. Samuel How of Corpus Christie College, Oxford, died in Zurich on July 4th 1825, with his wife Sarah, who died on the 14th of January, and Julia Charlotte Mackenzie, wife of the Revd. William Churchill (died 10th August 1857) with two of her children who died in infancy.

There is also a black column with a capital and entablature on a bracket. The Latin inscription running round the front of the column commemorates Rachel Sutton (died 1653), wife of the Revd. William Sutton, a former vicar of Stickland. This memorial is also to two of her children – William (1645) and Barbara (1652) who died in infancy. A little to the north of the nave can be seen the sculptured memorials of Elizabeth Hall (died 1711) and George Lillington (died 1782).

The font of St. Mary’s is early 18th century work in Portland stone in the form of a square-sectioned ballaster surmounted by an octagonal bowl. The present pulpit is also 18th century, but is only the top section of an earlier three-tier one; St. Mary’s plate is a 16th century cup and cover.

The church registers began in 1615 and include affidavits for burial in Wool. Registers held at the Dorset Record Office in Dorchester: Baptisms (1615-1883) Marriages (1616-1837) Burials (1615-1969) and Banns (1754-1893)

St. Mary’s underwent a restoration in 1892.

Lewis Tregonwell – the soldier who ‘invented’ Bournemouth

May 21st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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As may be surmised the name of Tregonwell is of Cornish origin, though it is a moniker that has come to have a singularly significant resonance for east Dorset. By the 16th century this noble family was in possession of the Milton Abbey estate after having been granted to Sir John Tregonwell by Henry Vlll in 1539. Nearly a century later a scion or branch of the family arose which came into possession of the Anderson estate near Winterbourne Zelston when that estate passed to Sir John from Sir George Morton of Milbourne St Andrew in 1620. Tregonwell then built Anderson Manor on the site of a former Turberville residence in 1622.

It was at Anderson that Lewis was born in 1758 and given the full baptismal name of Lewis (alternatively spelt Louis) Dymoke Grosvenor Tregonwell, the son of Thomas Tregonwell of Anderson. As a young man Lewis enlisted in the Dorset Yeomanry and soon rose to the rank of Captain. His first wife, Katherine, was the daughter and heiress of St. Barbe Sydenham of the Devon/Somerset Sydenhams. By her Lewis had a grown-up son called St Barbe, who followed his father into the army and became a lieutenant. After the early death of Katherine on February 14th 1794, Lewis married Henrietta Portman, the wealthy daughter of Henry William Portman of Bryanstone House near Blandford.

By 1796 concern over the possibility of an invasion from Napoleon had become a major preoccupation in southern England. The Tregonwells were then living in Cranborne when, accompanied by his son Lieutenant Tregonwell, Captain Tregonwell was assigned the task of leading a detachment – the Dorset Rangers Coastal Division – to patrol and guard the coastline in the area of Poole Bay until 1802. This however was an early warning measure against an invasion that never materialised. In 1807 Henrietta gave birth to a son the couple decided to name Grosvenor, but the baby suffered a sudden tragic death on the very day he was to be baptised.

At this point the story goes that the distraught mother became ill from grief. On retiring from the Army in 1810 Tregonwell took his wife with him on the 14th of July that year for a stay by the sea at Mudeford, partly in the hope that she might regain some measure of health and contentment but also from nostalgia for the area he had come to love when guarding this part of the coast just a few years earlier. While there Lewis took Henrietta for a ride across Bourne Heath for a view of the sea. The couple stayed at the only inn then existing in the area, which may be identified as The Tapps Arms (later The Tregonwell Arms) completed just a year earlier. It was this nostalgia sojourn by the sea that would have far-reaching consequences in the years to come.

In the first decade of the 19th century the future site of Bournemouth was known as Poole Heath, an area of acid sandy soil and gorse criss-crossed by tracks, with a stream called the Bourne draining into the sea and wooded dells (chines) cut by other streams. The only settlement of the area was by cows, gypsies, and a few fishermen living in rickety timber-framed cottages. Much of the land was in the possession of Sir George Iveson Tapps-Gervis, Lord of Christchurch Manor, who acquired 445 acres after the passing of a local Inclosure Act in 1802 and an inclosure Commissioners Award in 1805 transferred the land into private ownership. Tapps-Gervis was responsible for the landscaping of some public gardens, but the only other home of any size recorded nearby by 1762 was Decoy House, a haunt for smugglers.

As it happened Henrietta was so captivated by the area that Tregonwell readily acceded to her suggestion that they should make a second home there. He duly set his sights upon an eight-and-a-half acre parcel of land overlooking the Bourne, situated between Decoy House and the sea, which he purchased from Lord Tapps-Gervis for £179. On this plot Tregonwell built a house which, when completed in 1812 he named The Mansion or Bourne Cliff. This was effectively the earliest building in the future Bournemouth. Although it is known from Henrietta’s diary that they did not occupy the house until 24th April 1812, her sister Charlotte recorded in May 1811 that: “a party of pleasure to Bourne Cliff…dined on cold meat in the house.”

Tregonwell also built a number of smaller homes in the grounds for his staff; one of these, called Portman Lodge, built for his butler, was destroyed by fire in 1912. Inspired by a popular Regency notion that the turpentine scent of pines had health-restoring powers, the captain planted a number of these stately conifers in the area. It was these trees, salt water and a balmy climate that in the 20th century would establish Bournemouth as a fashionable health resort.

The first eight years from 1812 saw Tregonwell inviting several high society figures to Bourne Cliff including the Prince Regent, later George lV, with whom Lewis apparently became acquainted. The Tregonwells would be living alternatively at Bourne Cliff and Cranborne Lodge for some years to come, the former serving as the family’s summer retreat. Later Tregonwell leased the home to the Marchioness of Exeter, whereupon it became known as Exeter House. Further extensions were added over the years so that today it is fully developed as the Royal Exeter Hotel.

In 1820 Prince George became King and from that year on Tregonwell bought up more land from Tapps-Gervis for building a number of cottages and stylish villas set along newly-laid streets for leasing to holiday-makers. These holiday retreats of course would establish the core function of the developing resort. By this time Captain Tregonwell was a JP, Squire of Cranborne Lodge and had been made Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset.

Development of the resort was continuing apace when in 1832 Capt. Lewis D.G. Tregonwell died, leaving his sons to carry the landlord-ship and property development process forward. Yet growth was initially slow. In 1836 George Tapps-Gervis Jr, who by then had successes his father, commenced the building of a row of villas on the east side of the Bourne. By the mid-1840’s most of the land west of the Bourne was in the possession of the Tregonwells, but by the end of the decade Bournemouth was still little more than a community of cottage-homes and villas which had not exceeded the status of a village. At the time of the 1851 census the resident population of the heath was still under 700, yet ten years later it had tripled!

Tregonwell was at first buried at Anderson but his widow later arranged to have him exhumed and re-interred in a vault in St. Peter’s Churchyard in Bournemouth. Evidently this move did not come a moment too soon, for just three weeks later Henrietta herself was dead.

Francis Glisson

May 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Dorset has given birth to several prominent men in the world of medicine, but probably the earliest of these was Francis Glisson, born the second son of William Glisson at Little Rampisham in 1597. Although it is known that his early education was at Mr Allot’s school in Rampisham, the family history and early life of Francis Glisson is otherwise obscure. However when he was twenty in 1617 he entered Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1621 with a BA, and then proceeding to take an MA in 1624. His academic study was further advanced with his incorporation as MA at Oxford in 1627, going on to take an MD at Cambridge in 1636.

Having qualified as a physician, Glisson remained in Cambridge for the next four years, lecturing on comparative anatomy and physiology. During these years he was also elected to a lectureship on these subjects at the College of Physicians in London. About 1640 he moved to Colchester, but when Cromwell’s army besieged that town in 1648 during the Civil War, he was appointed as mediator to General Fairfax. This proved unsuccessful as a number of houses were burnt down, though Glisson’s was not among them. But with Colchester impoverished and in ruins, Glisson resolved to move to London. The capital would remain his home base for the rest of his life.

When he reached London, Glisson leased a house in the parish of St. Bride, Fleet Street. Here he had ample unhindered opportunity to devote his energies to epidemiological study, since he never married and so had no family commitments. He continued his active schedule of lectures often in other places around the country, including several visits to his native Dorset. It was in this county that he first became aware of the deformative condition known as rickets in the children of poor labourers, an observation which led him to devote much time to the study of this “new” disease, though it was known to a Roman Physician as early as 98AD.

Glisson had noticed that the main symptoms in children were misshapen bones and enlarged joints, but at that time no-one had any real idea of the cause. But Glisson may have been the first to suspect that rickets had something to do with a deficiency in the diet, although he thought that over-feeding was a likely cause. By this time Glisson had become respected and admired by his contemporaries as a writer on childhood diseases, and proposed that a greater consumption of milk and other dairy foods could prevent the condition, which it is now known is caused by lack of vitamin D.

In 1650, Glisson published ‘The Treatise on Rickets,’ his definitive work on the disease, based on the cumulative data of five years of study. This work, which ran to 416 pages of original observations, won great acclaim in the medical establishment. Even today, over three hundred years later, there is little to add about the disease.

By nature Glisson was a forceful character as well as a brilliant medical man. For example, it is recorded that he tenaciously demanded payment of arrears in his salary while Professor at Cambridge after he had not been paid for five years. He persisted until an order in council was issued in Whitehall ordering payment to be made.

At 53 Glisson had made a firm mark on the scientific establishment and his fame had spread widely. But his duties in Cambridge were becoming restricted by the widening scope of his interests. He therefore appointed, in 1675, the Master of Caius, Dr Brady, as deputy Professor of Physic. Glisson himself was deeply involved in the College of Physicians where, since 1656 he had been censor. This post was followed by a two-year term as President of the CoP from 1667. On leaving the Presidency Glisson donated £100 to the College Building Fund to help relieve a shortfall caused by the theft from the treasure chest in the plague year of 1665 and to restore the college building destroyed in the Great Fire the following year.

One way in which Francis Glisson showed that his interests were not confined to physiology was his membership of an elite band, which held meetings of enquiry into natural and experimental philosophy. From this sprang the foundation of the Royal Society, with Francis as one of its first fellows.

Francis Glisson was foremost a doctor and anatomist, turning his attention next to the physiology of the liver. ‘Anatomia Hepatis’ described in meticulous detail the normal and morbid structure of the liver, particularly its fibrous membrane, which was likened to a bag, and ever after known as ‘Glisson’s Capsule’ in his honour. Glisson was doctor and friend to Anthony Ashley, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, whose patronage and help at various times he appreciated. Dr. Glisson was also physician to the Earl’s family.

An entirely different work by Francis Glisson followed in 1672 with the publication of ‘Tractatus de Natura Energetics,’ a deeply erudite investigation into Aristotelian philosophy. The work was dedicated to Earl Ashley and reflects Glisson’s love of scholarship to a greater degree than his earlier writings. Ten years before its publication the London Society had been granted a charter by Charles II at its Gresham College home. Here, early fellow members included Thomas Willis, Robert Boyle, Sir Christopher Wren and first president, Lord Brouncker.

Even at the age of 75 Glisson was still writing. Drawing on a lifetime’s experience of lecturing, ‘Tractatus de Ventriculo et Intestinis’ was his last treatise, which he dedicated to Cambridge University and the CoP, with whom he had been associated for so long.

Francis Glisson died in October 1677 and was buried in St. Bride’s Church. Thus the man from such humble beginnings in a Dorset village became one of the country’s outstanding scientists of materia medica. Doubtless his monument in the Fleet Street church is a fittings memorial to this eminent Dorestian who never returned to cross the divide on his native patch of Wessex.

Godmanstone – Holy Trinity, the Parish Church

May 16th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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It is often said that the two pillars of village life are church and pub and if that were true Godmanstone is blessed with a beautiful church and a public house. It has to be said the village is more famous for its pub, The Smith’s Arms, than for its church.

The parish of Godmanstone is located four miles north of Dorchester at the foot of Cowden Hill. The Parish Church of Holy Trinity stands on the east side of the parish and has been a place of worship for at least eight centuries. The walls are of local flint and stone rubble with bands of flint and stone facing and freestone dressings; the roofs are covered with stone slates, slates and lead.

In the 15th century the nave was rebuilt and the west tower added; in the 16th century the north and south chapels and the south porch were added. The chancel-arch, originally 12th century but rebuilt in the 16th or 17th century is unusual in that it has four shafts separated by ridges, in places like spurs, with scalloped capitals and moulded bases. In the 17th century the tower was partly rebuilt, the north chapel and the chancel were rebuilt in the 19th century when the church benefited from an extensive restoration.

The chancel has a 15th century east window of five trefoiled ogee lights with tracery in a square head; in the south wall there is a similar window and a modern doorway; the north wall has a late 16th century window of two four-centred lights in a square head.

The 27-foot nave has, in the north wall, a-mid 16th century moulded arch, and there is a modern window that looks as though it replaced a doorway. In the south wall is a 16th century arcade of two bays similar to the arch in the north wall; the pier has four attached shafts. The 12th century south doorway has been rebuilt and partly renewed.

The north chapel is 16th century but has been much restored; it has windows in the east and west walls both of three four-centred lights and in the north wall is a window similar to the east window found in the chancel. All of these windows have to a greater or lesser extent been restored.

The south chapel is 16th century and has an east window of three four-centred lights in a square head. The two windows in the south wall are similar but have two lights. In the south wall is a 15th century piscina.

The 15th century west tower has been restored and the top stage rebuilt in the 17th century. It is made up of three stages with a plain parapet and pinnacles. The west window is of three cinque-foiled ogee lights in a two-centred head. The second stage has a window of one round-headed light in the west wall and the bell chamber has in each wall a 17th century window of two square-headed lights and incorporated in the north window is a beast-head corbel.

The 15th century font is an octagonal bowl with modern panels in each face and has an octagonal stem and splayed base. The four bells are all 17th century.

The parish registers that have survived can be seen at the Dorset Record Office in Dorchester and include baptisms from 1654 to 2001, Marriages 1654 to 1990, Burials 1654 to 2001 and Banns 1754 to 1811.

Standing on the banks of the river Cerne is The Smith’s Arms the village pub, which claims to be the smallest public house in the country. It was a thirsty King Charles II who stopped at the blacksmith’s forge and requested a glass of porter but was refused with the words “I cannot oblige you Sire, as I have no license.” To that the King replied “From now on you have a license to sell beer and porter.” There is a comfortable 20’ and 10’ bar in the building, which is made of mud and flint and has a thatched roof. The sign depicts the smithy at his labour. Patrons can sit on the bank watching the River Cerne meander bye while enjoying a glass or two and feeding the ducks who have made this place their home.

Busy Skies over Tarrant Rushton

May 10th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The highways and byways trailing through the Tarrant Valley are quiet and peaceful. They serve to link the Tarrant villages and hamlets of Hinton, Gunville, Launceston, Monkton, Rowston, Rushton, Keyneston and Crawford that stretch along the route of the pretty valley stream: it has been this way for centuries. But 70 years ago the necessities of war disturbed this tranquil scene.

In May 1942 work commenced on the building of an airfield at Tarrant Rushton. So urgently was it needed flying operations begun even before it had been completed and continued until 1945. The 300-acre site became home to hundreds of airmen from Britain and Commonwealth countries and their support staff all contributing to the defence of Britain and the battle for freedom in Europe.

Halifax and Stirling bombers left Tarrant Rushton on sorties stretching far into the skies over occupied Europe. Glider pilots were trained here: for these men there was no ride home; it must have taken a special kind of courage. The Glider Pilot Regiment despatched its huge Hamilcar and Horsa gliders from here full of equipment, some destined for French Resistance fighters and on occasions they would quietly drop secret agents from the Special Operations Executive deep into enemy territory.

Men and women of great courage – heroes and heroines – passed through this place.

The main runway at Tarrant Rushton was over a mile in length and able to service the enormous Hamilcar glider. This aircraft could carry a seven-ton tank and still have room for guns and ammunition needed by our forces in Europe: Halifax bombers towed them.

Constructed on an area of flat and windy agricultural land 300 feet above the Tarrant Valley it was an ideal site for an airfield. The 18th century Crook Farm was lost to the project. The construction statistics are staggering. The endeavour meant laying twenty miles of drains, a six mile water main, ten miles of extra roads and ten miles of conduit and in difficult times half a million tonnes of concrete, over thirty thousand square yards of tarmac and four million bricks were used.

This massive enterprise employed workers from the Irish Free State and involved building three runways, concrete hard standings for fifty aircraft, a four-mile perimeter road, accommodation for 3,000 personnel, hangers and a control tower, and it was all completed in under a year.

Flying operations at Tarrant Rushton Airfield – call sign ‘Cheekbone’ – and known as the “secret airfield” because of all the undercover work it did, were led by Squadron Leader Joe Soper and a team of officers, airmen and WAAF’s working from the control tower.

Aircraft from Tarrant Rushton played an important role on D-Day. The first of the six glider-borne troops set off at 2300 hours on June 5th and a few minutes into June 6th 1944 landed the very first Allied troops in Normandy. Tarrant Rushton’s 298 and 644 squadrons flew 2,284 missions into occupied Europe between April 1944 and May 1945.

After the Victory in Europe the airfield was stood down but before it could become derelict it was taken over in June 1948 by the commercial business ‘Flight Refuelling’ who stayed for 30-years.

The airfield was quickly back in the thick of things when ‘Flight Refuelling’ became involved in the Berlin Airlift between July 1948 and August 1949 when they flew over 4,000 sorties using Lancastrians and Lancasters. The airfield went on to welcome more modern aircraft including Meteors and F-84’s visiting to be adapted for in-flight refuelling.

The airfield was officially closed on the 30th of September 1980 and the Tarrant villages returned to the quiet unhurried lifestyle they have enjoyed over the centuries.

Abbotsbury – A Perfect Day Out

May 8th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Where better to start a day out at Abbotsbury than at the top of Abbotsbury Hill. From this vantage-point you can enjoy breath-taking views of the Dorset coastline, but to do so safely use one of the lay-bys provided. To the west you can see over Lyme Bay and it is said that on a fine day the view is clear to Start Point, off Plymouth. The view to the east is over The Fleet Lagoon with Chesil Beach stretching across the vista to the Island of Portland. In the foreground, sitting on a hill and from here easily mistaken as nothing more than a lookout point, is St. Catherine’s chapel. This is the first of many glimpses of the chapel you will enjoy during the day.

Before descending to the village cross over the road and take a walk around Abbotsbury Castle. This is an Iron Age hill-fort on the brow of Wears Hill on the edge of the hills to the north of Abbotsbury known as the Ridgeway. The hill-fort has double ramparts, which enclose an area of about 4 acres; the whole site covers about 10 acres. The fort is seven miles from Maiden Castle and five miles from the hillfort of Eggardon.

Down in the village you will find a choice of places offering food and drink. Tuck in and enjoy, forget the calorie count; there is still lots to see and places to visit, and any surplus energy you have you will need for the final climb of the day. In the village you are spoilt by a variety of shops offering all manner of interesting goods from the usual tourist bric-a-brac to some excellent work offered to you directly by local craftsmen and artists.

As you walk through the village feast your eyes on the cottages: many date back to the 16th century or earlier. Strict planning and conservation regulations ensure they remain much as they were.

The Church of St. Nicholas is well worth a visit. It is mainly 15th century, but was rebuilt in the 16th century and restored in 1885. There is a fine embattled tower with six bells. During the Civil War the church was defended for the King, and in the Jacobean pulpit there are two-bullet holes, evidence of 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. 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.

A few steps through the churchyard will bring you to the site where the Abbey of St. Peter stood. From here there is another view of St. Catherine’s Chapel. Of the Abbey little remains to be seen: only one wall and the entrance arch remain standing. Sir Giles Strangeways bought the Abbey, its lands and holdings in the 16th century just four years after he had been the commissioner appointed by Henry VIII to negotiate the surrender of the monastery. A caveat on the sale to Sir Giles dictated that the Abbey was to be demolished and there is no doubting that the condition was honoured. English Heritage has placed an information board here and it includes an artist’s impression of how the Abbey would have looked before it was destroyed. You may think the destruction a terrible sacrilege.

A couple of hundred yards away we can see the Abbey Barn and this will be of great interest to any children who may be accompanying their parents. Nowadays it is home to a menagerie of friendly farm animals and many of these, including the goats, can be stroked and fed at regular times thoughout the day; ideal for under 11’s. Toy tractor racing and pony rides are to be enjoyed. And there is more to keep the children occupied: inside the ‘Smugglers Barn’ there is an undercover play area including an interactive educational play area on two floors inside the reconstructed hulls of a smugglers lugger and revenue cutter from the 18th century.

The Abbey Barn dates from the 14th century and being 272 feet in length is one of the largest barns in England. The timber and thatched roof is much later.

Abbotsbury is most famous for its swannery: it is just down the lane from the Abbey Barn. These amazing creatures freely choose to be here and in no way are they confined to the place. Surprisingly they will allow you to wander amongst them and you can see them at close quarters, nesting and looking after their young. The swannery is home to as many as 1000 birds.

Established in 1393 by the Benedictine monks at the Abbey it is a largely artificial pond on the land side shore of The Fleet Lagoon. It is likely the swans were here before the monks, attracted by the eel-grass that grows in the waters of The Fleet.

Time now to visit the Sub Tropical Gardens. Twenty acres of woodland valley with exotic plants from all over the world and a nursery where you can buy plants and seeds. The first Countess of Ilchester established the gardens in 1765 as a kitchen garden to her nearby residence. In 1990 considerable damage was caused by a severe storm but since then the gardens have been restored and many new exotic and unusual plants have been introduced. There are formal and informal gardens with woodland walks and walled gardens. There is a bird aviary, children’s play area, and a colonial teahouse: here you can rest you feet for a few minutes before moving on to climb up to St. Catherine’s Chapel.

We started our day out at the top of a hill so it is appropriate to end it the same way. Throughout our stay at Abbotsbury we have been able to see St. Catherine’s Chapel from nearly every place we have visited: now it is time to take a closer look. The chapel is at the top of a grassy hill, some 250 feet above and 700 or so yards from the church; and quite a steep gradient to climb.

Built around the end of the 14th century the chapel’s survival intact after the actions of Henry VIII in 1538 possibly had something to do with it being a useful navigation marker for seafarers. From outside the thick walls and huge buttresses give the impression of a larger structure but internally the chapel is only 45’ x 15’. The chapel’s dedication is to the patron saint of spinsters and there is a notice inside, which says that once a year a spinster can pray to St. Catherine.

From the chapel you can look landward over the church, the Abbey Barn and the picturesque and historic village, seaward over The Fleet Lagoon; the Swannery, the Sub Tropical Gardens and Chesil beach where you could sit awhile in the warm early evening sun and watch the waves breaking against the shore and think “oh, what a perfect day.”

Monuments of Prehistoric Dorset

May 4th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In purely archaeological terms the Prehistoric constitutes the period un-represented by any written record, from when the country was first occupied by man right up to the Roman invasion. Dorset is especially well endowed in this regard. It is as if its topography, climate and geographical position were most highly coveted by the earliest settlers of southern England, and the concentration of their activities and monuments here attains a density unparalleled anywhere in the country. This understandably makes the workload of the county’s archaeology department particularly challenging, for most fieldwork today is salvage or “rescue” archaeology in the vanguard of development.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harry Pouncy – A great publicist for the Dorset scene

May 1st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Just two months before he died Harry Pouncy visited Pokesdown Technical School in Bournemouth to do what he had become accomplished at doing as an erudite hobby throughout his life: to present a lecture with slides on the beloved county of his birth. Of that lecture on February 3rd 1925 the Bournemouth Echo reported: “There is no one who can talk and bring visions of the leafy lanes of Dorset, charging the air with the scent of its fields and with the atmosphere of its stately ruins and its humble cottage homes like Mr Harry Pouncy of Dorchester.”

Pouncy’s love affair with all things Dorset and Dorset’s people showed itself early. And it cannot wholly be a coincidence that he shared his name and preoccupation with pictorialising Dorset with his contemporaries John and Walter Pouncy, who ran a notable photographic business in Dorchester. Yet their existed no direct blood-tie between himself and the father and son.

However, Pouncy is an unusual name, so it is likely that Harry was descended from a different branch of the family to that of John and Walter, though quite possibly from common ancestors. He was born near St. Peter’s Church in Dorchester and baptised there on December 8th 1870, the son of Thomas Crook Pouncy and his wife Ellen. He had two brothers; Thomas and George Ernest; and two sisters, Mabel Ellen and Michelle Ellen. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Smith Pouncy who married Sarah Crook. Their children, apart from Harry’s father, were Ann, George, Elizabeth and Marianne. Harry was the third (middle) child of Thomas and Ellen.

Growing up within easy reach of the sparsely populated Dorset countryside, Harry grew to love its very soil and acquired an enormous knowledge of the country people’s customs and folklore. He earned a reputation for being a likeable man in every respect. Not surprisingly, his later course as a public speaker and publicist for the delights of his county came to the attention of Thomas Hardy, who became one of Pouncy’s closest friends. The two would meet frequently at Maxgate, Hardy’s home, to exchange information and opinions on the countryside and its customs.

Harry Pouncy began his working life earning his living as a journalist, first as a reporter and then as proprietor of the Dorset County Chronicle and Southern Times, apart from a period serving in the First Volunteer Battalion, the Dorset Regiment during the First World War. In his senior position over more junior reporters he knew the value of a compliment towards them whilst being careful not to flatter insincerely. If a piece of writing from a junior reporter pleased him he would lavish praise unstintingly, and his words of encouragement would have a stimulating effect on his colleagues. On the other hand, slovenliness, bad spelling, wrong initialling and slipshod paragraph writing was anathema to him.

On the 7th of July 1898, when he was 28, Pouncy married Daisy Francis Anwell, a 19-year-old Dorchester spinster, at St. Peter’s Church, near to where he was living. The ceremony was witnessed by the bride’s father, John Alfred Anwell, and Harry’s brother and sister Ernest and Mabel. The Pouncy’s had a son, Harry Anwell Pouncy, born in 1899 and baptised in Dorchester that December. In the 1901 census Harry senior is recorded as a newspaper reporter, aged 31, living with Daisy, young Harry and Lionel Anwell, a relation of Daisy’s, at 41 Culliford Road, Dorchester. As a husband and father Pouncy was a good, kind, patient and conscientious man, and said to be the wisest of counsellors.

Later Pouncy resigned his career in journalism upon being appointed Secretary of the Dorset Farmers Union, his labours for which earned him the respect and friendship of every farmer in the county. Said one leading farmer to a reporter from the Echo: “They thought the world of him. He did excellent work for the organisation and more than that he helped the farmers individually with advice upon questions that perplexed them. He won all our hearts by his zeal and his loyalty and his charming modesty.”

While continuing in the service of the Farmers Union Pouncy acquired a lantern projector and began collecting slides with the intention of sharing his prodigious knowledge of Dorset with the local societies and general public through the medium of public lecturing. Given a lantern picture of a yokel Pouncy had a gift for seeming to make the bumpkin portrayed come alive. He knew the dweller of the open country as no others did.

His lectures included a series called “Old Dorset Rustic Wit & Humour” and it was said that no man was more competent or entertaining in the matter of presenting talks on and about Dorset. Nor was his subject matter limited to customs and folklore, for he could discourse equally knowledgeably on such topics as dialects, archaeology and literature, even singing traditional folk songs. A man of varied interests, Harry was for many years an active member of the Dorset Field Club and Dorchester Debating and Dramatic Society as well as a frequent and much welcomed guest speaker at meetings of the Society of Dorset Men in London.

Sadly, in his last year Pouncy’s health broke down, though even then he would not relinquish his duties with the Farmers Union until that organisation compelled him to. He had been a glutton for work all his life, frequently burning oil far into the night, a regimen that may well have prematurely ruined his health and foreshortened his life. The Farmers Union even raised the money to enable Pouncy to a take a convalescent holiday abroad. But the medical restrictions he was under prevented him from enjoying his holiday to the full as he would have liked.

The summer before he died Pouncy talked with a journalist friend in the Bournemouth pleasure gardens, remarking with some irony that it was “the first time in his life that he had the full freedom to enjoy a sort of unlimited holiday.” Like many cerebral men he wrestled with doubts and difficulties over religious faith, though he was ever open to conviction. Once he saw something to be true he cordially embraced it and acted up to his convictions.

Harry Pouncy died in Weymouth on April 28th 1925 after several weeks of illness and was buried in Dorchester cemetery close to that other great writer and surgeon Sir Frederick Treves, who had himself been baptised at the same font in St. Peters and had been born almost next door to the Cornhill house in which Pouncy was born. His funeral was attended by a huge section of the agricultural community, as well as many literary figures. As that same interviewee farmer in the Echo said: “His death was the biggest blow that could have been dealt us.”

Footnote:

From the Kingston Parish Magazine for January 1914

 Entertainment

On Friday, January 23rd, in the Schoolroom, Mr. Harry Pouncy, the Dorset lecturer and entertainer, will give a popular entertainment in the Dorset dialect, comprising a recital from the poems of William Barnes, sketches from the works of Mr. Thomas Hardy (by the author’s special permission), and old Dorset songs and stories. The time will be as usual, namely, doors open at 7, commence at 7.30. Admission: First three rows 1s. ; rest of room, 6d. ; and children of school age in the Class room, 3d.The general Choir Practice in that week would be held on Thursday evening.