Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

April, 2011:

Corfe Castle – its Chequered History of Owners and Occupiers

Apr 27th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

The ruins of Corfe Castle rise majestically above the town that shares its name. Here is a structure that in its day was one of the most impregnable fortresses in the kingdom: so strong, the ascent so steep, and the walls so massive it was virtually unassailable and commanded the area in the south-east of Dorset that we call the Isle of Purbeck.

These one hundred or so square miles bounded in the north by the River Frome and Poole Harbour, the waters of the English Channel making land fall on the east and south; on the west is Luckford Lake and the parish of East Lulworth. From the head of Luckford Lake south to the English Channel, a distance of about two miles, there is no water boundary so the area might more accurately be called the Purbeck Peninsular.

Straddling east to west across the middle of the island are the Purbeck Hills.The most easterly is known locally as Ballard Down, and then going west to Nine Barrow Down, Challow Hill, Knowle Hill and Purbeck Hill, effectively dividing Purbeck into two roughly equal parts. Between Challow and Knowle Hills is a gap filled by a steep rocky mount upon which sits Corfe Castle. Corfe is Anglo Saxon for gap and in Saxon times it was known as Corfe Gate. The Danes arrived in the area in 876 A.D. destroying the nearby town of Wareham only to be beaten back to the sea the following year by Alfred’s warriors. Their escape in over a hundred boats was thwarted by Alfred’s ships and bad weather; all of the Danes perished in the waters off Swanage.

During the next century the castle was enlarged by King Edgar who resided here and it was Edgar who was most likely responsible for building the central Keep. King Edgar died aged only thirty-three; his widow Elfrida inherited the castle and it is here she plotted the murder of her stepson, Edward the Martyr, clearing the way for her own son Ethelred to become King.

Known as Ethelred the Unready he, by his procrastination, allowed the Danes to over run and plunder much of the southern coast of England including Dorset, but they could not take Corfe Castle. Ethelred had granted the Danes rights over the Kingdom while at the same time plotting to massacre them, his plans exacerbated when hordes more arrived. He fled the country to return later; his reign ended in 1007 and his dynasty was brought to a close by the Norman invasion of 1066.

After the Norman’s took control Corfe Castle followed the fortunes of the Crown and was held as a royal property on behalf of the Conqueror and his descendants and work on the castle proper began.

During the Civil War between Stephen and the Empress Maude (Matilda) Corfe Castle was held by the dependants of Maude. It held out gallantly and defied all Stephen’s efforts to take it. At the close of the war in 1153, the Castle submitted to the authority of the de facto ruler Stephen, but unlike many other strongholds it was not dismantled and on the death of Stephen, which occurred in the following year, the defenders proudly welcomed Henry II as their Sovereign (Henry was Matilda’s son).  The castle was a Royal possession during the reign of Richard I.

It is said that Corfe Castle was King John’s favourite residence. He deposited his treasure and regalia here, probably because of the security it provided and he further increased its defences.  It also served as his State prison. When the King was away from the castle his Constable, Peter de Mauley, was in charge.

Following John ‘s death de Mauley loyally delivered the castle with its treasures and military supplies to the Earl of Pembroke who was Lord Protector of the Kingdom during the infancy of King Henry III. Amongst the regalia handed over by de Mauley was the crown which had been worn by the Anglo Saxon kings and it was used at the coronation of the young Prince Henry.

Pembroke died while Henry was still a child but before his death he released King John’s prisoners including those held at Corfe. Amongst the prisoners released from Corfe Castle were Marjory and Isabel, daughters of the Scotch King William. But for another prisoner – Eleanor, known as “The Damsel of Brittany”, the outcome was not so good; she was incarcerated at Bristol where she spent the next forty years until her death.

Nine years after Pembroke’s death Peter de Mauley forcibly seized the castle for Simon de Montfort who held it as security for King Henry III’s future good conduct. During that time and the reign of the ill-fated Edward II the castle was greatly improved and strengthened.

It was Richard II who granted the Manor and Castle of Corfe to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent and Alicia his wife. After their deaths Henry IV assigned the castle to John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, who with his heirs held it during the Wars of the Roses when the castle remained free from attack. But at the close of the reign of Henry VI and after the Battle of Tewksbury on 4th May 1471 the then owner, Henry Duke of Somerset, along with other prisoners was executed in the market square of the Gloucestershire town.

Somerset’s estates including the Castle and Manor of Corfe were granted by Edward IV to his brother George, Duke of Clarence, who was later charged with high treason by Parliament in January 1478 and drowned in a butt of malmsey on the 18th of February; the castle and manor then reverted to the Crown.

When Henry VII became King he granted Corfe to his mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, whose tragic end at Tewkesbury we have referred to. She survived her son by only one year and on her death in the first year of the reign of Henry VIII the castle again reverted to the Crown.

In the twenty-seventh year of his reign Henry VIII granted the Castle and Manor of Corfe, together with the Island of Purbeck, to his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, but on the death of this nobleman thefollowing year, the estate again reverted to the Crown and remained a royal possession until Henry VIII’s death, when it was annexed as his private property by Seymour, Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset, the guardian and protector of the youthful King Edward VI. On the fall of that powerful noble in 1553, it once more became a Royal castle.

And that is how the situation remained until the fourteenth year of Elizabeth’s reign when all rights over the Manor and the Castle as well as the Isle of Purbeck were granted to Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight. Sir Christopher spent a small fortune restoring and improving the castle making it a prestigious home with fine furnishings, tapestries and silks. When the Armada was threatening, the castle’s defences were again strengthened.

Sir Christopher died in 1591, just four years after his appointment as Lord High Chancellor. He was single and all his possessions, including Corfe Castle, passed to his nephew Sir William Newport, who assumed the name Hatton by royal licence on succeeding his uncle. When he died in 1597 his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, inherited all his possessions.

Lady Elizabeth Hatton, after turning down advances from Francis Bacon, married  Sir Edward Coke five months after the death of his first wife; it was a complicated relationship but what interests us is that on the death of Sir Edward Coke in September 1634 Lady Elizabeth Hatton (she refused to use her husband’s name) sold Corfe Castle and all her possessions in Purbeck to the Attorney General of the day, Sir John Bankes.

Sir John Bankes established his family in the castle and acquired other land and property in Dorset. Lady Bankes resided in the castle while her husband was away attending the king. She was a woman of great courage and, anticipating the storm that was to break around her, she prudently put the castle’s defences on a state of alert, stocking up with food and military supplies. She heroically held the castle for thirteen weeks when attacked by the Roundheads.

When Sir John Bankes returned to Corfe Castle he found that thanks to the heroism of his wife and family the castle was safe and his property preserved. The same could not be said for the town, which was destroyed, the inhabitants having to retreat within the gates of the castle.

In January 1644 Sir John returned to his duties with the King. By mid summer the Royalists were losing the war: Weymouth and Wareham had fallen to the Parliamentarians and Corfe Castle remained the only stronghold between Exeter and London still holding out for the King. Lady Bankes received news of her husband’s death on the 28th of December 1644. Throughout the winter of 1644 and 1645 the Bankes family, barricaded inside the castle, survived all manner of assaults. Still Corfe Castle held out for the King.

Late in 1645 orders were issued for more determined action to be taken to secure Corfe Castle. For this purpose two regiments were placed at the disposal of Colonel Bingham, Governor of Poole, and further reinforcements were despatched to help during December. Following an act of betrayal by someone in the castle it was finally captured by the Parliamentarians.

Lady Bankes surrendered the Castle on the 27th of February 1646 and on the 5th of March the House of Commons voted to demolish the castle and this was done with some vigour but only after it had been plundered. Carried away were rich tapestries and furniture from the days of Sir Christopher Hatton as well as goods belonging to Lady Bankes and her family.

Today the National Trust protects what remains of the Castle and archaeological excavations are promoted to reveal more of the castle’s past. Corfe Castle is part of the huge Kingston Lacy estate left to The National Trust in 1981 by Ralph Bankes, a direct descendant of Sir John Bankes.

This was home to Kings, a place where a King was murdered, intrigues were plotted, prisoners of state were held, and for a while it was the stately home of wealthy and important families. It is much more than a pile of stone and rubble, the ruined Keep towers over the town a constant reminder of its place in the history of the Kingdom.

Thomas Weld – A Cardinal at Lulworth and Rome

Apr 21st, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Visitors to Dorset’s historic Lulworth Castle should look out for one painting in particular hanging on a wall. The work of Cornelius Jansen, the picture is especially significant, for it is a portrait of the man who saw the building of the castle to its completion: the second Sir Humphrey Weld, Governor of Portland. Two generations later Lulworth was in the possession of Humphrey’s grandson, Thomas Weld the elder, who in 1786 was responsible for the first freestanding post-Reformation Catholic chapel to be built in England, within the grounds of the castle. However, it was his son, also called Thomas, who was to leave his own outstanding mark upon the estate – and upon the Catholic cause. This Thomas is the subject of this summary biography.

Something should be mentioned at this point of the condition of church and state in the realm at the time. The England of the 18th century, into which the younger Thomas was born, had not long begun to emerge from a Protestant supremacy in which Catholics could not hold or inherit property, vote at elections, or take an oath of Allegiance to the Crown. The Test Acts, which enforced these privations upon dissenters, were repealed by an Act in 1729, and in 1791 the Catholic Relief Act was passed, though it would be another 38 years before full emancipation was achieved. The Welds appear to have been an influential part of 17th and 18th century aristocracy with family or property associations in other counties, particularly Berkshire and Staffordshire, before acquiring their entail in Dorset.

The younger Thomas Weld was born in January 1773, not in Dorset but London, where his parents were staying, apparently for the occasion of the birth. His paternal grandparents were Sir Edward Weld and Mary Theresia Vaughan, while his mother was Mary Massey, a daughter of the Massey-Stanley family of Hooton Hall at Puddington, Cheshire. Young Thomas was one of six children but as he was the eldest son the estate would revert to him upon his father’s death.

When Thomas was only three years old in 1776 his father inherited the Lulworth estate upon the death of his elder brother Edward, eventually taking up his residence at the castle in July of that year. Within two weeks Thomas senior had employed contractors to transform the castle into a grand 18th century country house.

Together with his younger brothers Thomas was educated by a Jesuit tutor employed at Lulworth. However, he would remain at home for longer than either his father or uncle, but is thought likely to have rounded off his education studying for a year at the Jesuit Academy in Liege. But France was then convulsed by the Revolution, and so because of the danger Thomas was not able to travel freely around Europe.

When Thomas came of age at 21 his proud father was prompted to write, in a letter to Bishop Walmsley, that his heir”…was all that one could wish for in a son…”. Generous, creative, and kind, Thomas developed keen interests in art and music, learning the cello, French horn and flageolet and filling sketchbooks with pencil drawings of scenes from life and nature. Indeed, in one early portrait he is portrayed with sketchbook and pencil in hand.

That same year, 1794, a company of Trappist monks, having already fled the French Revolution were invited to Lulworth and resettled in a small house near the castle. Them move was part of an ambitious plan by the elder Thomas Weld to build a small cob-walled monastery on the estate for the monks, though this was intended to be just an interim measure towards a plan to restore and re-consecrate the ‘dissolved’ Cistercian Abbey at nearby Bindon. The Order was originally designated the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, though for a reason not clear this was later altered to St. Susan. This event, possibly more than any other, may have winged young Thomas’s faith. And determined that he should study for the priesthood.

But within the next two years, another development arose in Thomas’s life that would normally have been irreconcilable for one in hold orders. He had fallen in love with Lucy Clifford of Tixall and in 1796 they married. The time would come when Thomas’s infringement of the Church’s vow of celibacy would earn him the title “Cardinal of the Seven Sacraments,” though by the time he reached that exalted position he was a widower. For the next 14 years the Weld’s had a home – Westbrook House – at Upwey, where their daughter Mary Lucy was born in 1799. Here, Thomas and Lucy could pursue their interests of music and regular visits to London and Paris, though Thomas, in the company of Bishop Milner, also attended the consecration of the new cathedral in Cork in 1808.

In 1810 Thomas senior died from a stroke following a year of declining health. This event brought a greater burden of responsibility on his eldest son. Thomas the elder was a wealthy man who had left his affairs in good order, but his younger sons were not so financially responsible. Thomas found himself having to pay off his younger brother’s debts and provide a jointure for his mother. This came at a time when rising bread prices and depreciating land values due to the recession in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars affected the Weld fortune as it affected everyone else’s. The Welds moved to a more modest residence in the resort of Clifton, and Thomas closed Lulworth Castle for about three years. With his three younger brothers Thomas became a subscribing member of the Catholic Board in 1812.

But in the Waterloo year of 1815 Lucy Weld fell ill and died. To support her grief-stricken brother-in-law Lucy’s Sister Constatia Clifford took her place as a surrogate mother to care for Mary Lucy until she came of age or married. Thomas then came under pressure from the Church authorities to close the provisional monastery at Lulworth, and eventually the St. Susan’s monks were repatriated in 1817. Mary Lucy, Thomas’s daughter, married Hugh, son of the 6th Lord Clifford in 1818. Soon after Thomas sold the Clifton home, finally leaving to study for ordination under the Abbe Carron at a seminary in Paris.

From then on, Thomas Weld’s rise through the Catholic hierarchy was steady and sure. After three years he was bestowed with minor orders from the Archbishop of Chartres, being ordained Priest and returning to England in 1821. Back home his first appointments were at the Chelsea Chapel and as assistant Priest at St Mary’s in Cadogan Street. During this time Lulworth was being managed through his agent, Thomas Billet who sub-let the castle three times: to a Mr Baring in 1817, to Robert Peel in 1820 and the Duke of Gloucester in 1824.

In 1826 Thomas Weld was consecrated as Bishop of Lower Canada, although he remained based in London as Co-adjutor to Bishop MacDonell of Upper Canada. Two years later he signed over Lulworth Castle to his younger brother Joseph, who was noted for his standing in the yachting world. By this time, however, through his daughter the Bishop had six grandchildren.

The Duke of Wellington managed to pass the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829, and proposed that Thomas should be appointed Bishop of Waterford. But the Duke was over-ruled by the Vatican, which instead conferred upon him the first Cardinal’s Hat any Englishman had worn since the Reformation and summoned Bishop Weld to Rome, for which he departed with his family. Once there, Thomas was made Priest-Cardinal of San Marcello in 1830.

But in 1831 Hugh Clifford’s father and Mary Lucy died within a few weeks of each other. Hugh then succeeded to the title but returned to England only briefly before re-joining his father-in-law in Rome. The Cardinal had been much attached to his only child, as he would now be to his grandchildren, and is said to have taken one with him whenever he left Rome.

Little is known about Cardinal Weld’s affairs in Rome after 1831. He would have presided over commissions, and his great friend Cardinal Wiseman considered him a business-like chairman. Thomas made his will in 1828. The winter of 1837 was a severe one and led to the Cardinal contracting bronchitis, and after twenty years as a senior cleric in the Roman Church, he died.

There is however, a touching little addendum to this story. One of the Cardinal’s present living descendants, Sally, was clearing out an attic in the castle house in 2003, when she discovered a Harrods hatbox bearing a label reading: “Cardinal’s Robes.” The robes have been placed on display in St. Mary Chapel in the Castle grounds – the church the Cardinal’s father built.

Sir James Thornhill

Apr 17th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Artistic talent in 18th century England has been said to have-lagged some way behind the standard of painters in the rest of Europe, where talent appears to have been thicker on the ground. It was considered that landscape painting was an unworthy subject for an artist to indulge. So Dorset can proudly claim to number among its sons a luminary in the art world who applied his talent to great commissions, and who would become the first English artist to be knighted.

This son of Dorset was James Thornhill. The family name derived from the then hamlet of that name in the northern parish of Stalbridge, today a part of that town. His earliest traceable ancestor was Lord of the Manor at the time of Richard II, and the Thornhills held the manor until the late 17th century. Some uncertainty exists as to whether James was born in 1675 or 1676, but his birthplace was Melcombe Regis, Weymouth. His father was Walter Thornhill of Wareham, a grocer who was the eighth of sixteen children; his mother Mary was the daughter of the Governor of Wareham, Col William Sydenham. While James was still young, his father abandoned his children, leaving James in the care of his uncle, Dr Sydenham.

James’ rare talent showed itself early and in 1689 when he was 14 he was apprenticed to Thomas Highmore, to whom he was distantly related. Highmore was then Sergeant-Painter to William III, and specialised in non-figurative work. Thornhill soon found himself assisting his master with the interior décor at Chatsworth House, and during his work there was introduced to the work of the French and Italian masters such as Laguere, Cheron and Verrio, who greatly inspired the novice.

In March 1704, eight years after completing his apprenticeship, Thornhill was made a Freeman of the Painter-Stainers Company of London. In 1707 he began work at the Royal Navy Hospital (now Greenwich College,) a commission which would preoccupy him on and off for almost two decades. Justifiably considered his masterpiece, this involved two lofty ceilings and five murals depicting the protestant succession from William and Mary to George I. The Painted Hall alone was 108 feet by 50 feet, and took four years to complete.

Following a visit to the continent in the early 1700’s Thornhill was appointed Sergeant-Painter to Queen Anne. In 1711 the painter was appointed a director of Sir Godfret Kneller’s Academy, succeeding him as governor there from 1716 to 1720. He was also active in promoting other early art academies. In 1721, when the Naval Hospital commission was half-finished, George I knighted Sir James Thornhill.

Running concurrently with this mammoth undertaking was another commission (1714-1717) to embellish the dome and Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s with scenes from the life of that patron apostle in eight guilded chiaroscuro designs. To gain this contract however, Thornhill had to ward off competition from the Italian masters Pellegrini and Ricci. It is noted that during this task he almost lost his life when he stepped too far back on the platform suspended from the dome, but was saved by his assistant’s intervention in pulling him back from certain death.

The years of the Greenwich and St. Paul’s commissions were productive for James Thornhill in other ways too. In the 1720’s he established his own drawing school at Covent Garden, where his pupils would include William Hogarth. By then Sir James had married and had a daughter, Jane, to whom Hogarth eventually became engaged and married, though the father -in-law of the future painter of ‘The Rake’s Progress’ thought his pupil had betrayed his trust, and for a time he cold shouldered the union.

In 1722 Thornhill was contracted to work at Kensington Palace, but over-charged for the job, leaving him open to being under-cut by the ascendant William Kent. Other works of Sir James were painted scenes for the Drury Lane Theatre, the Great Hall at Blenheim, Princesses apartments at Hampton Court, the South Sea Company’s hall and staircase, the staircase at Easton Newton (Northants) and the chapel at Whimpole.

Another plank of Thornhill’s work was to illustrate books and carry out some architectural work, though Moor Park in Hertfordshire is believed to be the only building wholly attributable to him. At one time in this capacity he even drew up plans for the new town hall at Blandford. He further undertook some portrait painting, Sir Isaac Newton and the play-write Sir Richard Steele being two of his most illustrious subjects. His smaller works from the easel include the altar pieces for Queens College and All Souls Chapels in Oxford, and even an altar piece portraying the Last Supper for St. Mary’s Church in his home territory of Melcombe Regis.

St. Mary’s however, was not the only work of Thornhill’s hand to grace some of the stately homes in his native county. In total he pained four murals for Dorset Houses, but only two of these – at Sherborne and Charborough – survive. That at Sherborne is on the theme of the Caledonian Hunt, and shows the goddess Diana gazing down from the ceiling. This painting however, is in urgent need of restoration, but requires £55,000 to be raised in order for the work to be carried out.

James Thornhill’s life work earned him honours, wide acclaim and – for the time – a great fortune. For example the Greenwich naval hospital commission alone netted him over £6,000 – three times the earnings of an 18th century Dorset farm labourer over his entire working life. At Greenwich he commanded the fee rate of £1 per square yard for the walls and £3 per square yard for the ceiling.

As well as his knighthood, Thornhill became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1723 and in 1722 was elected MP for Melcombe Regis and Weymouth. This had recently been the constituency of Sir Christopher Wren and Thornhill held it for the next 12 years, though it is not thought that he ever made a speech in the Commons throughout all this time. He did however, paint the houses of Parliament (as they then were) in 1730, a work in which he was assisted by his son-in-law William Hogarth, and which has been in the possession of the Earl of Hardwicke.

But following his work at Moor Park Thornhill undertook no further major commissions. He hardly needed to. With the great wealth he had accrued, Sir James was able in 1725 to re-purchase his ancestral seat at Stalbridge. Here he built Thornhill House in the Palladian style, setting up in the grounds a lofty obelisk to commemorate the accession of George II. And after several years of genteel retirement in broken health marked by attacks of gout, Sir James Thornhill died here on May 4th 1734 aged about 60.

The Battle for Weymouth

Apr 14th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

It was a cold and miserable day that greeted the people of Weymouth as theyawoke on the morning of March 3rd, 1645. They would have seen the Parliament Navy’s ship the ‘James’ anchored in the bay, dark clouds hanging low over it. Soon after daybreak Captain William Batten, Vice-Admiral of the Parliament Navy, came ashore and together with his officers marched straight to the Nothe; on the way he was joined by William Sydenham, the Parliamentary Governor and his garrison officers. Many of the battle fatigued half starved men of the town trailed along behind them through their ruined town.
 
The gallows loomed large in everyone’s view summoning John Mills , who had been the Town Constable and Captain John Cade a Royalist sea captain, and Walter Bond, a local tailor. All three were charged with treachery. Mills and Cade were hanged but the penitent tailor, described as being “full of confession and sorrow “, was reprieved and returned to Marshallsea, the prison within the Nothe fort.  Another man did not wait to be dragged through the streets to meet his end, choosing to hang himself. No-one knew his name but he was thought to be an “Irish rebel – a native Papist”. Fabian Hodder one of the instigators of the plot to secure the town for the king, was not hanged; he was in prison at Poole.  Hodder survived and following the Restoration became a member of the Corporation of Melcombe Regis.

By Christmas 1644 there were few men in Weymouth who supported the Royalist cause; indeed Weymouth had little to thank either the King or Cromwell for. Fabian Hodder was a prominent merchant in the town, and was plotting with Sir William Hastings, Royalist Governor of Portland, to take Weymouth for the king.

The plan was for Portlanders to attack along the beach road while cavalry under Sir Lewis Dyves, Commander in Dorset for the King, would attack the town’s inland defences. Hodder, Mills, Cade and other Royalists in Weymouth would rise-up when the attacks started at midnight on February 9th 1645, but Hodder found he had over-estimated the support for the king.  He went about the town offering men £5 if they would join him and those that took the money were made to swear an oath: “You shall swear by the Holy Trinity that you will conceal the intended plot”.  The password for the royalist conspirators within the town was Crabchurch and they were told to wear a white handkerchief on their arm.

It had been a hard winter but militarily a quiet one. Peter Ince, the Minister appointed by Parliament, wrote: “In the beginning of February we were in as sweet and quiet security as any garrison in the Kingdom. No enemy near us but one at Portland, and they not very considerable, being about 300 or 400 men”.

Fabian Hodder’s wife Anne wrote the letter that was sent to Sir Lewis Dyves at Sherborne and it was another woman, a widow, (Elizabeth Wall), who undertook the dangerous mission to deliver it to Sherborne, a distance of some nineteen miles.

Battles rarely proceed according to plan and this proved to be no exception. John Cade visited Fabian Hodder just four hours before midnight and was told Sir Lewis Dyves and his cavalry would attack at midnight. Earlier at a church service on Portland the islanders and the King’s troops were told to be at Portland Castle at five o’clock. This was going to be a two pronged attack: one along what was then a quiet country road and the second group were to move by boat to the pier under the Nothe guided in by Walter Bond. Marching along the beach road the Portlanders were met at ‘The Passage’ (there was no bridge) by John Dry, a Weymouth tanner, who led them to the Chapel Fort on the heights of Chapelhay.

Amongst the Parliamentarians within the fort, most of whom were asleep; there was more than one man who had taken Hodder’s money. The men of Portland attacked from the rear and from the harbour but within the hour the Roundheads counter attacked but failed to re-take the Chapel Fort. It was here that Major Francis Sydenham lost his life – he was the Governor’s brother.

Chapel Fort commanded the harbour, the town and much of the Bay. Nothe Fort and a smaller fort at Bincleaves were soon captured. Parliamentary troops still remained in Weymouth and suffered from the Royalist guns which fired upon them from the heights of Chapelhay.
 
The attack by the Portland men was the only attack that night. Dyves did not keep his promise to march on Sunday.  It was not until the following day that Dyves’ 1,500 horse and foot battled their way into Weymouth forcing the Roundheads to retreat to Melcombe, raising the drawbridge between the two towns as they left.

Two miles away at Radipole Meadow, Mr Wood, Curate of Sutton Poyntz and about thirty other men, most of them armed only with cudgels, had waited all night for the arrival of the King’s cavalry.  Brought before a Parliament Council of War, they pleaded “We waited and went home”. They were fortunate.

From the Chapel Fort the Royalist guns thundered down on around 900 Roundheads trapped in Melcombe surrounded by more than 4,000 Royalists. Thatched houses were set alight as fire balls, bolts and bars rained down on the town. It seems William Sydenham might have been close to surrendering when he said “Let us cease this useless burning”.  The King’s man, Dyves, replied “We scorn to parley with you.” After that exchange Sydenham sent out a patrol that burnt eight more houses and a Royalist ship in the harbour.

A jubilant Dyves arrogantly certain that this time the Royalists would hold Weymouth and confidently expected to capture all of Melcombe, but could the tide of events be about to turn? Vice Admiral Batten brought two Parliamentary ships into the bay and landed two hundred of the toughest fighting men in the Dorset campaign and Lieut. Colonel James Haymes arrived with one hundred men.

On his way from mid-Dorset was Lord Goring, the King’s Lieutenant in Hampshire; with him 3,000 horse, 1,500 foot and an artillery train. On February 23rd Goring unleashed this overwhelming force against the 900 Roundheads in Melcombe but Sydenham did not surrender.

William Sydenham’s men captured twenty-five Royalist cavalry on February 25th. The Cavalier Dyves watched from his vantage point high above the town at Chapelhay and ordered 100 Foot to rescue the prisoners. The hard pressed Sydenham countered by sending 150 musketeers to attack the Chapel Fort. These men were led by Major Wilson and Captain Langford and to the heights of Chapelhay they climbed, stormed the fort taking more than 100 officers, soldiers and “some perfidious townsmen”.

The Royalists had held Chapel Fort for 17 days. With their superior numbers it is surprising they were beaten but the facts of their defeat suggest a lack of enthusiasm amongst the troops, perhaps aggravated by an arrogant and cavalier style of leadership.  On February 27th Lord Goring unsuccessfully fought to regain the fort and suffered heavy losses.  The following day Dyves and Goring heard that Sir William Waller was marching towards Weymouth. Goring withdrew his men to Wyke where his they rested while his wounded were patched-up before marching off to Taunton. The Royalist troops holed-up in the smaller forts of Nothe and Bincleaves – which had not been attacked –appear to have left in a hurry leaving their colours and most of their guns.

At the end of all the fighting the people of Weymouth and Melcombe were left ragged, hungry and filthy. Their towns in ruins, the narrow streets lined with their demolished homes and burnt timbers were scattered all about the place.

“My soldiers, Horse and Foot, have all had very hard service of it day and night. I shall entreat you to write to the Parliament for something for their encouragement; they have neither money nor clothes, and yet unwearied in thisbusiness”, wrote William Sydenham.

Dorset’s Ancient Fields

Apr 10th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Generally speaking, Dorset is notably a bonanza for the archaeologist or landscape historian.

Prominent among its prolific remains of early human habitation are the ancient field systems popularly known as Celtic fields, a term used to indicate all fields of regular shape. These are much smaller than the fields of modern intensive arable farming and appear as clusters of square or oblong plots separated by boundary banks. Often, remains of  the farms, settlements and trackways associated with these field systems can still be seen. In one respect the term ‘Celtic’ is misleading, as these field systems also include some laid out later than the Saxon conquest, whereas true Celtic fields are of Iron Age origin or even Roman at the latest, while a large proportion will date from the preceding Bronze Age. 

By the late Bronze Age, the early arable agriculturalists had developed the ard, a light plough that made only shallow furrows in the soil and drawn by oxen along and across the squarish fields. However, where ploughing resulted in downhill creep of the soil, more pronounced linear banks called lynchets often formed. These fields continued in use and increased in number on the chalk downland throughout the Iron Age. Although the number of people was slowly increasing, it should be born in mind that in pre-Roman England the population was much smaller than it is today, so only a small area of land was needed for subsistence crops.

Dorset is an especially fine area in which to see ancient field systems and theassociated settlements and trackways that served them. This is because it is in this county that archaeological field research into these features has been more intense than elsewhere. We can therefore regard Dorset’s field systems  as establishing the model for lowland Britain as a whole. In the highland zone of Britain, however, where soils are better suited for pasture and sheep farming, the field pattern still closely resembles the ancient lowland type. The croft system of the western isles of Scotland may be regarded as a vestige of this elementary subsistence system for sparsely populated areas surviving into the present day.
  
South and south-east Dorset are particularly rich in these field remains, where they cover an area of approximately 4,000 acres. Most are on chalk orlimestone, but some are on the clay-with-flints where this caps the chalk hills or on sandy or gravelly areas. One very clearly defined example of a Celtic field system is visible off to the east side of the Yeovil to Dorchester stretch of the A37 opposite the point in the road known as Breakheart Hill. The field system lies on the flank of a downland spur slightly west of Church Bottom near Sydling St Nicholas and, as in other similarly orientated examples, is particularly well-defined in early morning or evening on a clear day when the sun is low on the horizon. Also, in the presence or absence of sunshine a light dusting of snow can produce a similar effect, the topography being etched out in relief by the casting of shadows.

Six other examples of particular note are:

On the high downland at Turnworth, one can still see today vestiges of a prehistoric field system which once served a contemporary farmstead enclosed by a circular bank. The farm lies to one side of a holloway (sunken trackway) leading off through the fields, which here cannot be dated precisely, but which must have originated at some time between the early Bronze Age (1800 BCE) and the late Iron Age (c100 BCE).

Even more impressive by virtue of its extent is the complex of prehistoric fields that has been revealed from soil-marks on Dole’s Hill near Puddletown. Here a system of croft-like plots over 1000 feet across from west to east is bisected by a stream and penetrated by a winding system of service trackways. The fields and tracks straddle a narrow chalk valley. Not far away, at Winterbourne Houghton, a system of small fields is associated with two former settlements. What is particularly interesting at this location is that one of these settlements had a track leading from it in a north-east direction, which stops abruptly at the line of a modern hedge. Beyond this boundary all trace of the trackway has apparently been erased by medieval and modern ploughing, though the surviving un-eroded portion indicates that it formerly led off in the direction of “modern” Winterbourne Houghton village.

The South Dorset Ridgeway was an important geographical feature in the lives of the early farmers who left behind the traces of fields such as those on Crow Hill. Here, a small complex of plots of the Bronze Age lies at the head of a dry valley or combe, just off from the entrance of which there is a later post-Roman valley-floor enclosure (see photo in the gallery).

Relatively close to Dorchester, Shearplace Hill, again in the parish of SydlingSt Nicholas but this time lying east of the unclassified road to the village, is another site in the county where Celtic fields are associated with a Bronze Age farmstead, and field systems of the prehistoric period have been located and mapped at St Aldhelm’s Head, near the famous 12th century chapel.

A Natural Wonder Double Bill: the Chesil and the Fleet

Apr 5th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Even for a county teeming with many natural and historical wonders, Chesil Beach is in a class of its own and something of an enigma. All hypothesising about its origin has been unable to explain why similar offshore spits have not been deposited elsewhere, though tradition has it that the Chesil was laid down in toto during a very severe storm one night. But why should the sea only deposit its pebbles here? Though it is unlikely the legend could be true, the sea became impounded behind the shingle bar, forming the unique ribbon-like lagoon known as The Fleet.

It was the Saxons who gave us the word ‘Chesil’ meaning shingle. At Portland the end of the beach is well defined, but exactly where the western end should be placed has been a matter of dispute. Some authorities maintain that it ends as far westwards as West Bay (to include Burton Beach and Burton Bradstock); while others hold that it ends at Cogden Beach between Burton Bradstock and West Bexington. There is however, agreement that part of the beach is east of West Bexington, and that there the Fleet is at its most spectacular.

Certainly amazing, though less controversial, are the fascinating facts about this freak of nature. The Chesil is 18 miles long between West Bay and Portland, while from West Bexington to Portland it is 13 miles long. In reality the beach is not built up in one terrace but two, against which the waves break upon the lower and discharge their spray over the upper. At its highest the pebble ridge is 45 feet above mean sea level and 200 yards wide to the Fleet. It has been estimated that the beach contains 50 million tons of pebbles, and that if these were packed into the largest lorries permitted on British roads the convoy would stretch from Dorchester to Perth in Australia! Chesil pebbles were collected by the defenders of Maiden Castle, to use as sling-stones against the Roman army when it attacked that hill fort in 43 CE.

The shingle has a distinct gradation along the beach’s length from west to east, with fine creamy-white oolitic limestone pebbles at the west end, known as pea gravel, to large grey cobbles of Portland limestone at the east end. This indicates that the Chesil originated as an east-to-west deposition of long shore drift and could not therefore have been created as a spontaneous storm deposit as folklore implies. It is this gradation of size and texture that gives the shingle bar such a distinctive sound and feel to the soles of the feet. Many have been proud to be able to complete the end-to-end energy-sapping slog that deadens rhythm and makes ankle injury an ever-present risk. 

Fishermen and smugglers have long been able to tell upon which part of the beach they landed after nightfall by the size and feel of the pebbles in their hands. From early times Abbotsbury fishermen have trawled for mackerel off the beach, catching them in seine nets. Daniel Defore writes of these mackerel catches as being so abundant in his day that the fish could be sold onshore at one hundred for just a penny.

No less awesome than the Chesil’s curious facts is its history of notorious savagery towards ships and seamen. Immediately offshore for example, there exists an immensely powerful undertow that can drown even a strong swimmer in only three feet of water five feet from the waterline, and rough seas can throw up fresh shingle banks that can persist for years. During storms the undertow can generate a sucking noise that, it has been said, can be heard in Dorchester. Author Meade Falkner in Moonfleet described how this current caused two fictitious smugglers to fight for their lives in water only three feet deep.

During the age of sail the beach was especially feared. Eastbound ships were in serious difficulties if a storm blew them north-eastwards towards Portland, and there is a sharp shallow water reef that can rip the keels off deep-draughted ships. The combination of the beach’s steep seaward gradient and the underwater current often resulted in shipwrecked passengers and crew being drowned almost in reach of rescuers.

But in 1752 it was said that all of Abbotsbury – including the vicar – were ‘thieves, smugglers and plunderers of wrecks’. In 1822 a Swyre man, Richard Bishop, was jailed for “unlawfully making a light on the sea coast” suggesting that he was signalling to smugglers.

In 1795 seven ships of Admiral Christian’s fleet were lost with two hundred crewmen dead. Then in 1824, during a great storm known locally thereafter as “The Outrage” four ships were lost with all hands (but amazingly the sloop Ebenezer was thrown bodily onto the ridge by a wave, from where it could be re-floated on the Fleet and towed to Portland for a refit). This same gale blew the sea half a mile inland, destroying Fleet village and church before leaving in its wake a hundred bloated corpses on the Chesil shingle. Another storm in 1838 cast five ships onto the shingle bank where they were dashed to pieces, their crews drowned to the last man. A French trawler was wrecked on the shingle bar in 1963.

But the beach has also been the setting for two other non-tragic curiosities. There is a story that  in 1757 a mermaid was washed ashore. It is recorded that many people saw her remains, but they generated little excitement as she was supposed to have been no beauty. Then on May 21st, 1802 the crew of the trawler Greyhound landed a huge fish over 26 feet long, 15 feet in girth and weighing 15 tons; it required fourteen horses to drag it ashore. As this monster was positively not a basking shark, it was more likely a whale shark – as this is the largest fish in the sea – while the “mermaid” may have been a manatee or “sea cow” an animal which certainly could be mistaken for an ‘ugly mermaid’ by people who had never before seen one.

The Fleet is eight miles long, though only seven-and-a-half to fifteen feet deep. At its widest it is 900 yards and just 70 yards at its narrowest point and connected to the sea by a channel less that a hundred yards long known as Small Mouth. The lagoon can be walked beside on the seaward side by the fit and dedicated who can then return along the north side on the Dorset Coast Path. Plants typical of shingle beds grow along the margins such as sea holly, sea campion, yellow horned poppy and sea kale, together with beds of reeds and eelgrass. The Small Mouth has the effect of restricting the flow of seawater, making the Fleet brackish, though towards Abbotsbury the salinity is reduced still further by the input of fresh water from streams draining into the lagoon.

Ecologically the result has been the creation of a richly diverse habitat, making the lagoon a premier nature reserve and SSSI encompassed within the World Heritage Jurassic Coast. A hundred species of plants have so far been identified, and many of these, particularly the eelgrass, provide food for a hundred and fifty species of birds, particularly wildfowl, waders, ducks and geese. The water supports a population of twenty species of fish.

All in all it is not just the shingle that can impress the visitor to Chesil Beach, but the bombardment of the senses from stimuli ranging from the smell of seaweed to the cry of gulls.  And there is also that stark contrast between each side of the walker’s field of perception: to one side the open sea; to the other a marshland thicket. Truly, this must make Chesil Beach a very peculiar and special place.

The Great Fire at Blandford – 1731

Apr 2nd, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

On June 4th at about two o’clock in the afternoon, two hundred and eighty years ago, the cry of “FIRE!” was heard in the streets of Blandford. People stepped out from their businesses, some put down their drinks and others were called from their pleasures to see what all the commotion was about. They had no idea that by the end of the day their town would be burnt to the ground, the events of the day forever etched in history as the Great Fire of Blandford 1731.

The fire started outside of a soap boiler’s house when sparks fell from a chimney on to the thatch of a house standing on rising ground at the junction of four streets near the middle of the town. Blandford has a long history of fires: the last serious outbreak in July 1713 was still fresh in the memory of many of the inhabitants. This time they were better prepared and were able to quickly deploy three engines to tackle the blaze, although it soon became apparent these were not going to be enough.

Encouraged by a wind blowing from the north west, the flames with great agility settled on the buildings on the four street corners and from there excitedly raced along the streets swallowing up buildings and contents. Pewter melted and silver turned to dross. By seven in the evening scarcely a house was left untouched.

Townsfolk had grabbed what they could of their possessions and many had run to the church which, standing alone, was still untouched by the early evening. Some rested in the churchyard using tombstones to shield them from the heat. The fire still wanted to play and showed-off, tossing its sparks across the river towards neighbouring hamlets in the parishes of St Mary Blandford and Bryanston.

During the evening it was noticed that there was fire in the church steeple but the people managed to extinguish it only to see it break out again. At about two in the morning and twelve hours after the fire started the flames broke through the roof of the church, melting lead, splitting stones and dissolving the bells before it roared through the building. People raced to the church to salvage their possessions for a second time only to be beaten back by the scorching heat.

It was early morning before the fire abated. It stopped at the east end of the town, which is where the earlier fire of 1713 had started.

Some people were employed to keep watch over the few houses that did avoid the flames while others searched for missing relatives and children. It is thought some sixteen people perished; mostly they were elderly, their blackened remains found in the streets – evidence of the horror they endured.

The following morning plans had to be made to feed all the homeless and supplies were sent in by neighbouring parishes. Four hundred families were burnt out of their homes and barrack type accommodation was built, with thatch being added before winter set-in. These families had lost everything and several hundred pounds was paid out of public funds to help these people survive.

It is said the total loss over and above all insurance amounted to over £84,000. A subscription list was started to relieve the distress in the town. The King and Queen and the Prince of Wales gave £1,300 and generous sums were sent from London, Manchester, Birmingham and other distant towns and cities.

Out of all this devastation and misery arose the splendid Georgian town of Blandford we have today, largely designed and built by the Bastard Brothers.