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August, 2010:

Mysterious Rempstone and its Hall

Aug 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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From almost the earliest antiquity, the parish of Rempstone in Purbeck has been an area of unresolved enigma and dark secrets. Possibly over four thousand years ago Neolithic farmers or traders created a track, possibly a trade route, along the north flank of the Chalk ridge called Nine Barrow Down, connecting the mound of Corfe Castle with the coast at Studland. Centuries later, in the second millennium BCE (Before the Common Era,) pagan priests of the Bronze Age constructed a ceremonial circle of nine stones a little to the north of the hogsback track way, later much damaged by medieval clay workings. The remaining stones today stand half hidden in a block of woodland on the manor estate. Along the ridge itself are the nine barrow graves of Wessex chieftains, while on the hills opposite Rempstone Hall are two enigmatic earthworks of unknown date and undefined purpose.

Then in Iron Age and Roman times the parish became caught up in the plundering of Purbeck’s wealth in extractive mineral resources, as its heathland was turned into an industrial landscape for the extraction and exporting of iron, clay, shale and finished pottery goods. At Church Knowle, only a quarter of a mile west of the manor, lie the remains of a Romano-British villa. By the time of the area’s industrialisation in the Middle Ages, Rempstone was already an ancient manor and hamlet, becoming a farmhouse in the 16th century.

Rempstone Hall itself is an isolated house two-and-a-half miles from the nearest villages of Corfe and Studland. Situated to the east is Kingswood Farm, while to the west lie Rollington and Brenscombe Farms. Over two centuries the Hall has become impounded by mature woodland of oak, chestnut, birch and pine, planted in 1790.

Regarding the name Rempstone, several options have been put forward as to its origin. According to historian John Hutchins the earliest, or one of the earliest, Lords of the Manor was Robert Rempston, who died in 1464, though it has been suggested that he adopted his family name from the pre-existing place name, not the other way round. Another popular theory is that George Trenchard, who occupied the house in the 17th century, called it Rempscombe after the Old English word combe, meaning “narrow valley.” However, as the “valley” from Corfe to Studland is only one-sided, grading into the heath and is anything but narrow, it is difficult to see how this interpretation can be accepted.

Etymologist Eilert Ekwall has argued that Rempstone may derive from the Old English “Hrempi’s Tun,” meaning the home or village of one called Hrempi, though there is no record of such a person; or else it derives from “Hrimpan” (wrinkled.) Most likely however is “Hring-Stun” – Old English for Stone Ring – surely significant, since the stone circle lies only 300 yards from Rempstone Hall.

Whether or not Rempston was the first Lord of the Manor, his immediate successors seem to have been the Miller family of Corfe, who in turn relinquished the estate to the Uvedales of Sherborne. The estate then passed to the Framptons of Buckland. By 1664 Rempstone was in the hands of the Trenchards of Wolfeton, and then finally (i.e. up until the latter 18th century) becoming the possession of the Rose family of Dorchester.

But the modern well-documented history of the estate begins with the highly interesting political and military Calcrafts, a family that had its roots at Grantham in Lincolnshire. The Calcrafts established a dynasty that lasted from 1726, when the second John Calcraft was born, until the last male Calcraft died in 1901. John Calcraft the younger was the supposed son of another John Calcraft of Grantham, though it is more likely he was actually an illegitimate son of Sir Henry Fox, father of the famous Tory politician Charles James Fox. John himself became a prominent Whig politician and MP for Wareham, who bought up much of its property after the town’s great fire in 1762.

In the 18th and 19th centuries the Rempstone estate extended in a broad band right across the Isle of Purbeck from the southern shore of Poole harbour to the coast at Worth Matravers and Winspit.

John Calcraft began a relationship with Elizabeth Bride and bought Rempstone Hall from the last of the Dorchester Rose’s in 1757. Calcraft however was already in possession of several other estates in Lincolnshire, Kent, Wiltshire and elsewhere. At that time Rempstone Hall was a considerably smaller house, consisting of the original 16th and 17th century core building. During the time of John’s son, the Rt.Hon. John Calcraft MP and his wife Lady Caroline Montagu Calcraft no major alterations took place, but in the early 1790’s John Hales Calcraft, John the second’s grandson, considerably enlarged Rempstone by the addition of another wing, ever since known as Lower Rempstone to distinguish it from the earlier Upper Rempstone. More minor additions to the Hall were made in the 1830’s.

During the time the manor was in the ownership of the Calcrafts, the highly formalised, labour-intensive system for household management of the gentry came to full fruition. For example the 1861 census records that Rempstone Hall had ten resident servants, two footmen, two ladies maids, a cook, a cookman, a butler, a scullery maid, and a carpenter. This tally did not include non-resident daily workers and outside servants. Like many country houses, Rempstone was effectively a self-contained self-sufficient community producing much of its own food.

The last of the Calcrafts was William Montagu Calcraft, who died in 1901. His successor was a nephew, Guy Montagu Marston RN, the son of William’s sister Katherine and the Revd. Charles D Marston. Marston carried out repairs to the house in 1906 and 1919, where drainpipes bearing his monograph date from this time. Although outwardly respectable, Marston is better known for his friendships with the poet Rupert Brooke and the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, who performed ritualistic magic at the house. In 1927 Rempstone Hall came into the possession of Major Douglas Claude Dudley (Jack) Ryder, and it was he and his family who were occupying the house at the outbreak of war in 1939.

At the end of 1940 the military requisitioned the west-end of the house. The squash court became a canteen. Bren-gun carriers were em-parked in the driveway. By the end of 1942 the army had taken over the entire hall. The windows of Rempstone had to be protected with sandbags. One night in 1940 the household received a phone call to say church bells were being rung because it was believed an invasion was imminent. Rempstone Hall itself was never hit, though during the Battle of Britain several bombs fell nearby.

When the war ended many unexploded bombs and shells had to be cleared from the surrounding area. Rempstone continued to be occupied by army and navy personnel until 1949, by which time much interior and exterior restoration had to be carried out. At this time also, the connection between Lower and Upper Rempstone was broken and the lower part sub-let to tenants. Tourist coaches on the road would point out that Rempstone was the house where the D-Day landings were planned, though written proof of this has not been found. However, Rempstonee Hall as the local Army HQ is thought to have been visited by at least some of the wartime leaders.

Rempstone Hall is a residence that over its centuries has acquired more than one ghost, including that, it is said, of the religiously fanatical Lady Caroline Calcraft. Possibly the supernatural disturbances and darker goings-on can be attributed to Cowley’s evil magic rituals, also to an underground stream said to flow beneath the house. This is entirely credible, for there is one other feature that underground streams have been particularly associated with: megalithic stone circles.

John Beard – Educator of Bridport

Aug 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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For the townsfolk of Bridport January 4th, 1911 was an occasion of dreary solemnity and from something more than just the depressing effect of wintry weather. People at home drew the blinds of their windows down; businesses put up their shutters. A cortege bearing a plain oak coffin passed through the town en route to the cemetery. Clearly someone special, someone almost everyone in Bridport had taken to their hearts, was no more.

This special citizen who had prompted such an outpouring of reverence and mourning on his last journey was John Beard. Beard was born in Bristol on March 20th 1833 and died in Bridport on December 30th 1910, his allotted 77 years being ones of making outstanding strides in the education and rectitude of generations of Victorian boys growing up in a Dorset market town. Indeed, many prosperous men had John Beard to thank for the special training they received.

As a child growing up in Bristol, Beard became a pupil-teacher at that city’s Red Cross School, where the more advanced boys taught those in the lower forms. On leaving this school he attended Borough Road Training College from 1852 to 1853, from there going on to teach at Chatham for a few months.

But in 1854 Benjamin Templar, then Headmaster of Bridport General Boys School left to take up another head position in Manchester. The position of headmaster at the Bridport school, which had only opened in 1849, was then filled by Beard, an appointment that was to last for the next forty years. Under its new Head, the school would soon make its presence felt in the community – and in the fortunes of a rising generation of its acolytes.

Beard’s own dedication and attendance record were legendary. In his two score years at the school he was known to have been absent no more than about four days from incapacity. He was also possessed of a stoical sense of duty, being so devoted to his job that he often kept working when he should have rested. A colleague once told him: “I’m afraid you are too young (he was only 22 at the time) in fact some of the pupil-teachers are nearly as old as yourself.”

But from the first it was evident that the new Headmaster was an exceptionally gifted man. On the founding of the General School just five years before, it was intended that technical instruction should be in the curriculum. To this end the school even bought up adjoining allotment land for use as an open-air gymnasium. However, at the time no rigid code or syllabus had been drawn up. Beard was therefore not limited by curriculum; he taught mensuration, land surveying and any other subject fitting boys for science and technology-orientated careers.

When he had been in post at Bridport for only four years, Beard met and married Ellen Swain, the youngest daughter of a local captain, at the Congregational Chapel in Bridport’s Barrack Street on June 20th 1858. It was for both parties a marriage as successful as the groom’s academic career. The Beards raised three sons and two daughters, two of the sons themselves becoming teachers, while the third, Ernest, having apparently inherited his maternal grandfather’s love of the sea, became a sailor and emigrant. The grandfather – Captain Swain – was a harbour master at West Bay, a job which Ernest was to take up in a new life in Calcutta. Sadly, Ellen pre-deceased John by twelve years in 1898.

After some time the state began to interfere more in the running of schools. School Commissions had to march in a rigid step according to new rules. Beard was given – and heeded – the advice that he should obtain certificates in sciences, so qualifying him to teach these as a supplement to the ordinary school course. In fact, John Beard was the first teacher in Bridport to qualify as a science master, and was one of only three in the whole county. Besides giving special class instruction, he extended his expertise to private schools and seminaries. Evening schools were begun, though these were dropped after a time. In about 1874 however, John Beard revived evening schools in Bridport, these being attended by 150 to 200 pupils.

Beard also took an active interest in the Working Men’s Institute in South Street, appreciating its worth as another means of combining education with recreational activities. Here his lectures were highly instructive, appreciated and well attended. He always gave of his best when coaching dozens of young men privately for examinations towards lucrative positions or occupations. By the 1800’s Beard’s name was a household word in Bridport.

At the time, the Headmaster was getting through a prodigious amount of work, despite having no assistant master to share the burden, and only two or three pupil-teachers. His institution was almost a secondary school without rates to support it, though many of his former pupils who had become wealthy men regularly sent subscriptions to support the General School. Alas, the grants ultimately dried up, and the sciences had to be discontinued.

Needless to say John Beard was no less industrious during school holiday time. Much of this time was spent touring the continent with his family, collecting any material he thought would be of interest to his pupils. He also visited many places of historic interest and was in Paris at the time the Franco-Prussian War ended. His lessons based on this foreign material were always of exceptional interest during the new term.

In his latter years Beard also found time to write two books, on English History, and another entitled ‘Outlines of the English Language.’ The key to John Beard’s great success lay in the practical and attractive way he imparted knowledge while leaving his students to think for themselves. He further managed to temper a firm, disciplinary approach with an amiable, smiley demeanour and kindly greetings.

In politics Beard was a life-long Liberal, and indeed served for some years as Vice President of the Bridport Liberal Association. Though he resigned when Gladstone presented his Irish Home Rule Bill.

Sadly though, John Beard’s retirement in the company of his wife of forty years proved to be all too brief. Ellen died only four years later, leaving John a widower for the remaining twelve years of his life. At his own funeral in 1911, the Revd. J. Menzies, for so long a friend and colleague of the former Headmaster delivered a last moving address at the graveside in Bridport Cemetery that bleak winter afternoon.

Dorset County Gaol

Aug 9th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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A prison sentence today has been cynically likened by some people to being at Butlins when compared with the austere conditions of penal servitude in the 19th century. Assuredly, conditions were a lot harsher then, and nobody living at the time would likely have doubted that one stretch in prison was an effective deterrent against recidivism. But what would conditions have been like in the county goal at Dorchester during the period from about 1800 to 1950? What follows is an account of those conditions based on documentary research.

Dorchester’s present prison stands behind a high and thick redbrick wall just off the town’s North Square. In 1773 the penal reforms of Thomas Howard were about to change the nature of incarceration here as everywhere else. Prior to 1795 the gaol was a much smaller institution in a ruinous condition elsewhere in the town which, in 1784, prompted William Tyler of Vine Street, St. James, to draw up plans for an entirely new penitentiary for an estimated £4,000. Howard had a strong link with Dorchester, and plans were drawn up for a larger, more secure prison on the present North Square site, the building contract being secured by John Fentiman of Newton Butts for £12,000. By a contractual agreement the work was scheduled for completion in March 1792, but the building was well in arrears by December 1793. It was eventually opened for occupation by inmates in 1795.

When viewed in elevation from the front (beyond the perimeter wall) the main building comprises three elements: a central, five-storey block flanked by three-storey wings to each side. In the central block the floors are accessed via a well of alternating metal staircases. In the north block however, the stairwell is positioned at the end, while in the south block it runs up the middle. In total the prison was constructed in six blocks, the entrance block comprising the keeper’s office, brewhouse and bath-house, all within the retaining perimeter wall. This part fronted by a broad, high archway in austere Portland stone ashlars and with thick, double doors painted black, accesses three courtyards, one each for the keeper, the women felons and the women penitentiaries.

The centre block houses the keeper’s quarters, the prisoner’s visiting rooms, the debtor’s custody area and several single working cells. Above them on the first floor are the chapel, the cells for condemned and refractory prisoners, the debtors sleeping rooms and single sleeping cells. At each corner of this main block are four smaller blocks having single cells for working and sleeping. There are seven inner courtyards for separating each category of prisoner.

According to the penal system and administration of prisons at the time convicts were distinguished both by sex and as felons (those awaiting trial for either jailing or transportation.) Besides these there were other categories such as those in prison for debt, bigamy, vagrancy, idleness in domestic service or apprenticeship, for breach of contract or under the terms of a bastardy order. As far as was possible all these categories were kept apart from one another and the building had separate sleeping cells each 8’5 x 6.5 x 9 feet in size. The debtors had working cells, a day room 18 x 13.5 x 12 feet in size and slept four to a room though they were not kept in separate confinement.

It is noted that the prisoner’s daily rations of food consisted of one-and-a-half pounds of bread, though this was a day old, despite being baked in the prison itself using flour from which bran had not been extracted. Those prisoners who worked however, were entitled to an extra ration of food and from the Keeper’s account records it appears that 9d worth of meat was permitted, later increased to 2/6d worth a week. However, it is probable that this increase reflects the sharp rise in the price of bread caused by the French wars early in the 19th century rather than any increase in amount of the ration.

By 1813 the special meal that had cost 6d in 1794 had risen to 2/6d. Broth to the value of 10d was also served. Children were fed on a special diet, but prisoners were treated to a special meal at Christmas and Whitsuntide. Prisoners brought to the sessions were permitted to buy meat, fish, fruit and pastry, but following conviction only bread was allowed. Sick convicts were given food and drink of better quality, including jelly, wine and gin. In addition to a special diet when ill, prisoners were given rush-lights or candles; those “affected by itch” were given special nightshirts.

Because of sickness special measures were taken to ensure the prison was kept clean. The gaol appears to have been organised into eight wards, each of which was overseen by a warder responsible for sweeping out the cells and washing them out once a week. Several women cleaners were also paid to carry out this work. Sometimes gunpowder was used for fumigating and, once a year, parts of the building were lime-washed. Prisoners themselves were washed upon admittance and provided with clothes. Prisoners working outside the gaol were issued with “small frocks” bearing the lettering “DORSET GAOL” on the back. Women prisoners were issued with dresses, aprons, petticoats and bed gowns, while men had shoes, shirts, trousers, shifts, hose and clogs bought for them.

The cells were furnished with iron bedsteads fixed four inches from a wall and equipped with straw-filled bedding. Prisoners could be subjected to enforced discipline by means of solitary confinement in a dark cell, though the governor was under an obligation to visit such prisoners at least once a day. The Chaplain would have read prayers three times a day and distributed religious books as thought necessary. He had to visit and counsel the prisoners in private to assess their mental states and keep a log of his findings. To prevent escapes, all prisoners had their clothes confiscated each night.

Of course, until as late as 1965 when the death penalty was abolished in Britain, prison would often be just a temporary custody facility pending a time of execution to be fixed for those sentenced to death. As in other county gaols Dorchester would have had its own facilities for carrying out executions: in this case, gallows set up outside the main building. Consequently, the current “cell-block” or overcrowding crisis now facing the penal system could never have arisen over a century ago. At Dorchester those sentenced to death were kept in cells near the chapel. Early in the 18th century, long before the present prison was built executions were very public affairs in public places. Until 1766, when the gallows there were removed, hangings were routinely carried out at Maumbury Rings on the outskirts of Dorchester, that of Mary Channing in 1706 being a particularly high-profile case of the time.

But notable executions were carried out behind the present prison wall as well. Especially tragic was the highly public hanging of Elizabeth Martha Brown on August 9th, 1856, attended by a crowd of several thousand including a 16-year-old apprentice architect called Thomas Hardy. Martha had been found guilty of bludgeoning her husband to death with the kitchen wood-axe in anger upon discovering his adultery. James Seale was hanged on August 10th, 1858, for the murder of a girl called Sarah Guppy, but the last execution of all in Dorchester took place in 1887.

Today, under the prison’s present governor, Serena Watts, its operational capacity is about 260, with all males except category A being held there. There is no segregation unit. The regime includes provision of workshops, and the prison is currently running a programme of full education including courses on thinking, life and social skills and substance awareness. Strong emphasis is also placed upon physical education.

In conclusion, one interesting feature of the prison’s location is the fact that it was built where a Roman townhouse had once stood, but this was either disregarded or overlooked when the foundations were laid. It was not until the grave of Martha Brown was being dug within the prison precincts 64 years later that a floor mosaic was uncovered, though this was not lifted and removed to the County Museum until the burial of James Searle two years later re-exposed it.

Note: Fuller accounts of the Channing and Brown cases can be found on the site.

Note:  The last execution to be carried out at Dorchester was on the 24th of July 1941, when David Jennings was hanged; our thanks to John Grainger for bringing this to our attention.

Purbeck Mysteries and Strange Burials

Aug 2nd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Before we can delve into some of its secrets, even the name Purbeck is of obscure and uncertain origin. The earliest reference is in 948 AD, where it appears as Purbicinga, later as Purbic in many medieval documents. But other place name authorities variously suggest the Old English pur (a bittern), and the element becc, a point or headland or becca, a pickaxe or mattock.

Besides the uncertain origin of its name, Purbeck is an island of unresolved riddles and ritualised dead. As good a place as any to start would be at the Promontory on the south side of Poole harbour known as the Goat Horn Peninsula. Near to its base are the foundations of a ruined church, with other settlement remains in a shallow valley of what today is oak woodland just west of the Goat Horn railway at or near a place called Newton. But nothing of Newton survives as a viable settlement today. It is a place vanished from the face of Purbeck, yet Newton was to have been the fulfilment of Edward I’s vision for an entire new town and port on Poole harbour.

Oddly, the foundations of the church building were never recorded by surveyors of the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments, suggesting the foundations are not those of a medieval building. Furthermore, the oaks in woodland have been dated to the earlier 16th century, and are therefore too late to have been planted as part of Edward’s planned town. Yet Newton is clearly indicated as a settlement on a map of 1597, suggesting something was built here once – and in any case, how is it that the name Newton has survived?

There exists a document of 1286 stating Richard de Bosco was appointed to lay out a new town “with sufficient streets and lanes and adequate sites for a market and church and plots for merchants…” in a place called Gowtowre (Goat Horn?) Super Mare. But it is generally thought the silting of the harbour and the unfavourable situation of the site detached from the Dorset mainland probably killed the scheme.

What became of the road, which must once have connected the Roman ports and industries in Purbeck with Durovaria (Dorchester)? The question has been exercising the minds of archaeologists for some time, for no trace of a Roman road has yet been found. The explanation, which is common currency at the moment, holds that, as the communication was merely local rather than arterial (as roads emanating from London were). The Purbeck road was simply a flat metalled track, which the Romans did not bother to provide with a cambered hardcore foundation (agger), or with drainage ditches. There was no earthwork, and so the superficiality of the structure would understandably make it less inclined to leave traces after two millennia. Furthermore, the development of the Purbeck industries came mainly after the building of the main Roman road network.

Even more mysterious and perplexing for archaeologists is a discovery on heathland west of the South Haven Peninsula. Concentrated in an area between Redhorn Quay and Jerry’s Point are no fewer than 71 earthen ring-banks ranging from 45 to 150 feet in diameter. Although the banks are about 20 feet across, they are only about one foot high. Another six circles lie just to the south near Brand’s Ford, and 50 (once about 100) more cover the ground south west of Squirrel Cottage at East Holme.

The interiors of the circles are typically flat or slightly concave, hinting that one of two may have been ponds storing rainwater for short |periods, but the function of the others remains completely unknown. Of some significance however, has been the observation that trees established in some of the circles have grown larger than those of the same species elsewhere have. Two circles excavated in the 1960’s were found to contain burnt furze, which may point to a feeble explanation for the enhanced tree-growth but little else. No artefacts, which could have conclusively dated the structures, have ever been found, and the best estimate has been that they are not earlier than the Iron Age or later than 1700 AD. The lower end of the range is based on the finding that one or two of the rings impinge upon Bronze Age barrows and are therefore assumed to be later.

But associated with the northern group of circles are thirteen low sandy mounds, and an alignment of five evenly-spaced stones with a sixth lying off-centre at the north end occupy the centre of the South Haven Peninsula. Some of these stones have fallen, but like the circles and the tumuli they have so far defied explanation.

The 19th century antiquary Charles Warne describes another curious rock of Purbeck, this time entirely natural. This is the Agglestone near Studland, a great anvil-shaped 400 ton boulder which for thousands of years sat perched on a sandy hill (it eventually toppled over in 1970), It is now known that the Agglestone is an example of the outlier or lens of more indurated gritstone weathered out from its enclosing Bagshot Beds, but traditionally it has been accounted for in more prosaic, folklorish terms as thrown or placed by the Devil, prehistoric man, or brought by a glacier. The name may have its roots in the Old English word for hailstone, suggesting that the Agglestone fell from the sky.

While the Agglestone holds only a folklore tradition with no mystery attached, the same cannot be said for Harpstone. The Harpstone is no natural erratic but a seven-foot limestone menhir set up by prehistoric men beside a stream and a coppice in the Corfe Valley south east of Steeple. Isolated standing stones are rare in Dorset (although there are circles and rows) and were it not in Purbeck the Hartpstone’s environment would argue against prehistoric origin. Instead, its presence may indicate early Bronze Age penetration and clearance of the Corfe valley. Yet the “stone” part of the name does not appear in a document until 1340 (as Herpston); if it could be proved the stone part of the name is older, we would have evidence of greater antiquity.

Then there is the gravedigger at Studland Parish Church who in January 1951 struck a stone cist while digging a grave. Lifting the lid, he found the sarcophagus contained a skeleton with its skull detached and the lower jaw placed behind it. The cist, which had been constructed of Purbeck marble slabs, was more than long enough to contain the body fully extended. The decapitation therefore, was not for want of space. In his pathology report Professor John Cameron determined that the skeleton was of a woman in her thirties. A Kimmeridge shale spindle and a number of cockle shells had been buried with her, initially suggesting a Romano-British date, as J.B. Calkin, who had excavated the Studland cist burial, had also excavated a 3rd century grave at Kimmeridge containing a woman buried with her head placed at her feet and with the jaw removed.

But the Rev J.H. Austen had excavated crouched burials in Bronze Age barrows with the jaw placed behind the skull, presenting the possibility that the Studland sexton had stumbled upon a Bronze Age cist burial older than first reckoned. In the DNHAS Proceedings for 1952, Calkin wrote that the Bronze Age people of Purbeck might have had “..a very lively fear of being haunted by the dead” and so had practised the mutilation of corpses to prevent the dead from walking and talking.

On the ridge between Creech and East Lulworth, at the boundary of Tyneham and Steeple parishes, there is an ancient crossroads long known as Maiden’s Grave Gate. This ominous name preserves the memory of an 18th century girl who killed herself and consequently was denied a Christian burial. Indeed, as the law then required she was buried at the crossroads – buried, it was believed, with a stake driven through her heart! At this place too, there stands an oak, into the trunk of, which has been carved two coffins. It seems that only three hundred year ago superstition extended to taking measures to prevent the appearances of ghosts.