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Thomas Hardy

Sir Frederick Treves

Jan 20th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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SURGEON BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT

With heavy hearts a small band of elderly men stood around a small grave in Dorchester cemetery on a bleak afternoon of wintry drizzle. It was January 1924 and the mourners were paying their last respects to a figure of great philanthropy and achievement, born 70 years before in Dorchester. They watched as a small box of ashes was lowered into the deceased chalky native soil. The man they were saying farewell to was Sir Frederick Treves, one of the most remarkable of men from an age of giants and one of the greatest luminaries in the progress of medicine and surgery.

Treves was born in Dorset’s county town in February 1853; the son of a cabinet maker and furniture dealer who had a business on the premises now occupied by No 8, Cornhill. A housemaid fondly recalled that in his earliest days at school Treves’ shyness led him to hide behind the coats in the cloakroom after lessons. In 1860 however, he began attending a school run by the poet and Rector of Winterbourne Came, William Barnes, in South Street.

His famous pupil remembered Barnes as: “…an old clergyman of great courtliness, ever gentle and benevolent, who bore with supreme simplicity the burden of a learning, which was almost superhuman.” Thomas Hardy, who’s family lived only a few miles from William Treves’ furniture shop, early became an inevitable acquaintance; it was a friendship which would last for the rest of young Frederick’s life.

Upon the death of his father William, Treves’ mother Jane sold the shop and moved with her children to London. After attending the Merchant Tailors School and University College, Treves with his two elder brothers embarked upon a medical career. In 1871 he became a student at the London Hospital, where his hard work and dedication saw him rise to become Licentiate of the Society of the Royal College of Surgeons.

In 1877 Treves married Elizabeth Mason, a brewers daughter. That year he joined a GP practice in Cheshire, but soon after fell out with the senior partners over their objections to his suitability to attend the confinement of an upper class socialite. For Treves, the social caste of the baby to be delivered matter not at all, but the principle did. He threw up his practice and returned to London in 1879, living first in Sydenham.

From this time he held a succession of posts over the next 20 years. He became an authority on anatomy and surgery, specialising in the abdomen. On one occasion he wrote to The Lancet urging the importance to public health of the registry of disease by hospitals. He was an effective lecturer, able to communicate well with both academics and undergraduates, and encouraged his students to take notes in the wards as well as in lectures. He also founded the Students Union at the hospital.

One of the several curious and unusual cases of his career during these years came when he was summoned to the home of the American millionaire J.P. Morgan. A new-born baby in the Morgan family was evidently dying from an undetermined cause, which baffled all the specialists present. After examining the baby Treves had to admit that he too was baffled by the condition until a second examination revealed the head of a needle which had penetrated the heart. After seeking permission to perform a dangerous operation Treves opened the child’s chest and removed the needle. As he later stated: “..there was only one thing to do: make a grab for it. If I got it there was some hope. If I missed…. but I got that needle!.”

In 1884, Treves encountered Joseph Merrick, a man born with a hideous deformity of the face caused by an abnormal accumulation of spongy tissue, which also included a curious of the nose, so earning him the name of Elephant Man. At that time a travelling showman, an indignity that incensed Treves and led him to rescue the accursed man from his showman master, was exhibiting Merrick for profit as a side-show freak.

He was examined, but Treves was only able to offer minimal treatment. The physician had to rely entirely upon his kindness and humanity in offering Merrick a better life, which he did by taking him to the Dury Lane Theatre and to visit Princess Alexandra.
Treves later wrote, “…I suppose Merrick was imbecile from birth. The fact that his face was incapable of expression, that his speech was a mere spluttering, and his attitude that of one who’s mind was void of all emotions and concerns gave grounds for this belief. It was not until I came to know that Merrick was highly intelligent, that he possessed an acute sensibility and a romantic imagination that I realised the overwhelming tragedy of his life.”

On another occasion he attended Sir Henry Irvine after the great actor had accidentally swallowed the nozzle of a throat spray. Treves examined Irvine and then had x-rays taken, but on his second visit the doctor discovered that his patient had coughed up the nozzle and needed no surgery to remove it.

Treves left the hospital in 1897 to concentrate on private practise and to develop a career as a writer. Upon the outbreak of the Boer War he was appointed consulting surgeon to a South African field hospital. Here Treves found himself defending the Royal Army Medical Corps against criticism that it was dealing inadequately with sickness. This in turn drew criticism upon himself, though he was active in pressing for improvements. One case in particular during this conflict that would leave a lasting impression in Treves’ mind, and one of many demonstrations of the depth of his human understanding, was his deathbed comforting of Frederick Roberts, son of Lord Roberts of Pretoria, who had been mortally wounded during the battle of Colenso.

In the winter after the soldier’s death Treves upon visiting the grave, found that the heat had drawn Robert’s stark corpse from the ground. The doctor – entirely alone – re-interred the body himself. In 1900, before the end of the war Treves’ services in South Africa were recognised in Dorchester when he was made a Freeman of the Borough. In 1903 he opened an operating theatre in the County Hospital.

But the act of duty he is best remembered by came in 1901, when he was appointed to operate on the as yet uncrowned Edward VII for peritonitis. Treves recalled how, to allay public suspicions that anything was wrong with the King on the eve of his coronation, he was allotted a code number, alias and casual disguise, even disembarking from the train at the previous station and walking the rest of the way to the royal residence.

After the operation Treves joined the King on the royal yacht. In gratitude for literally saving his life Edward made the surgeon a Baronet, Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order and gave him a grace and favour house, Thatched House Lodge in Richmond Park. It was here that he was once visited by his great friend and fellow countyman, the Cassells publisher Newman Flower, about a matter of publication. Flower lovingly recalled in his ‘Just as it Happened’ how he found every chair but one in the living room piled high with papers which, upon enquiring, discovered were the pages of an Italian dictionary the doctor was compiling, but which was never published.

In 1904 Treves retired from surgery to concentrate on travel and writing books, medical papers and letters to The Times. That year he also undertook a visit to Japan, where he was presented to the Emperor, an event, which inspired one of his greatest works ‘The Other Side of the Lantern.’ On a later occasion he also met the President of the USA. In the summer of the following year (1905) he made a phenomenal blanket cycle tour of every settlement in Dorset, which became the raw material for his ‘Highways & Byways of Dorset’ (1906.) The retired doctor wrote vividly of his impressions of what he saw in the countries he visited, and in one of his letters to the Times expressed his reservations about the nature of the restoration work being carried out on Puddletown Church.

He held the first presidency of the Society of Dorset Men in London, standing down three years later to make way for Thomas Hardy, though he continued to contribute several articles to its Yearbook thereafter, including ‘William Barnes the Dorset Poet’ and ‘Dorset Seventy Years Ago.’

Treves was a humanitarian, a man intolerant of humbug or deception. He was never slow to temper at any injustice yet had great reserves of kindness and compassion. He did not mince his words over matters, which animated or angered him, such as the standard of medical care in hospitals. During his hospital years in London he could still find time to put in an hour or so of writing each morning before his daily work on the wards began. He was a genius of surgery, yet found time to pursue a wide range of other interests. He was keen on sailing and gained a qualification certificate as a Master Mariner. He is said to have sailed the Channel to France and back every Boxing Day. His coterie of friends included many famous men of books and letters such as Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy, William Watkins and William Barnes.

After the First World War failing health led Treves to spend most of his time on the Continent, first at Monte Carlo, then Vevey near Lausanne. Here he was visited by Newman Flower, who encouraged him to write ‘The Elephant Man & Other Reminiscences,’ the book which more than any other documented the extraordinary casebook of his career and his distinguished clientele. Other works were ‘The Lake of Geneva’ and ‘Tale of a Field Hospital.’ On a visit to England in November 1923 he joined Newman Flower for a dinner in London in the company of Edmund Gosse. It was the last time the trio of friends would ever meet up together. In the first week of December that year Treves went up the hill above Montreux to watch a football match. Possibly aggravated by the weather, the great surgeon was taken ill with peritonitis upon his return and after several days in a state of delirium he died in the hotel at Vevey.

William Watkins, who had founded The Society of Dorset Men in London, arranged the funeral in association with Thomas Hardy. But the ceremony had to be postponed twice because of bad weather on the Continent and a delay caused by having to produce the death certificate. After the funeral Newman Flower returned to have tea with the Hardy’s.

Later Lady Treves approached Flower with the suggestion that he should write the official biography of her husband, but the widow later had second thoughts about allowing Treves’ court connection to be publicised and withdrew the request. Since then no biography of Sir Frederick Treves has ever been written.

The Sea Fencibles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry Moule

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Parish of Bere Regis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bincombe – Holy Trinity Church

Jan 13th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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On the morning of the 30th of June 1801, the bodies of two young German soldiers were brought to Holy Trinity Church, Bincombe for burial; a private and a corporal in His Majesty’s York Hussars, the two twenty-two-year-olds had been shot for desertion. At the time King George III, his family and Court stayed at Weymouth for much of the summer and with the threat of invasion from across the English Channel by Napoleon, there were soldiers camped on many of the surrounding hills to ensure the King’s protection, including Bincombe Down. In 1890, Thomas Hardy wrote a short story ‘The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion.’ Perhaps he had heard the story of these young men.

There is one road into Bincombe and from there the church does not look especially attractive. Pevsner refers to its “Blunt west tower”, which from a distance looks in need of a spire. The centre of the village is all farmyards, appropriate for this rural area, and you have to pass through one to reach the church.

We visited on the Saturday before the rogation service and we came round the side of the building and found people busily preparing the church, arranging flowers and tidying up the churchyard.

Consisting of a west tower, nave, chancel and south porch the church is mostly in the Early English style of the 13th and 14th centuries but there are traces of Norman work in the building. In 1862 the floor of the chancel was raised and other changes made and the church furniture was renewed. The organ came to Bincombe in 1901 from Broadwey Church, were it had been since 1873.

The church is entered through the south porch and beside the doorway (dated 1779) is a mediaeval Holy water stoop. The font is at the west end of the nave, beneath the tower. The round bowl with chamfered under edge dates from the 13th century and is of Purbeck marble. The stem is modern. In days past Fonts were kept filled and, in 1236, the Archbishop ordered that the covers should be secured to prevent the water being stolen for superstitious purposes; on the rim are traces of the old cover.

 The chancel east window is in memory of Elizabeth, the widow of John Howship, a surgeon of Saville Row, London. Elizabeth died on the 20th of November 1860 aged 73 years; she is buried in a single stone covered tomb with her father Robert Tillidge who died in 1806 aged 88 years. John and Elizabeth Howship had a son John who only lived for two months; he died on the 4th of March 1808 and is buried here. The windows on the south side are in the Perpendicular style of the mid 1400’s.

Holy Trinity has two bells: the larger dated 1658, is by Thomas Purdue and the smaller one, dated 1594, is by John Wills of Salisbury and is inscribed ‘Feare God.’

Recent changes include the installation of the clock in the tower as a thanksgiving for delivery and victory in WWII. At a cost of over £80,000 the roof was renewed and other repairs carried out in 1995. The modern sound and Loop system was installed in 2001.

When 2001 census statistics are compared with figures from the 1841 and subsequent censuses, we see an increased population something unusual in rural communities. On the gate of one of the farms on your right as you proceed into the village is the name Pashen – the family name appears in the 1841 census.

The name Bincombe probably means a place where beans were grown, a staple food in prehistoric and Saxon times.

We noticed these family names in the churchyard: Hawker, Fookes, Cooper, Christopher, Pashen. Grant, King, Loveless, Foot, Haines, Gollop, Cake, Hatton and Bayley.

A Cardinal’s Progress – The Life of John Morton of Stileham

Jan 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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On Easter Sunday in April 1471 a small ship docked at Weymouth after a stormy crossing of the Channel from Brittany. Queen Margaret of Anjou was returning to England with her son Prince Edward of Lancaster on a mission to raise an army against the Yorkists at Tewkesbury. Their escort inland for this critical event in the Thirty Year’s War was a rising Dorset born clerical statesman soon to have an important influence on the course of England’s dynastic history – John Morton.

Morton was born in Stileham, Milton St. Andrew, Dorset, in 1420. On his mother’s side he was a descendant of the Turberville family of Bere Regis (the D’Urbervilles of Thomas Hardy’s Tess. Who are commemorated by a stained glass window in the Church.) His grandfather and other members of the family are also buried in the church.

Educated at Cerne Abbey and Balliol College, Oxford, young John graduated in law and went on to study for the priesthood. By 1446 he had become one of the University’s commissioners and was subsequently appointed Moderator of the Civil Law School, Master in Chancery and Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall by the time he was about 30. From here on Morton emerged as a most distinguished clerical lawyer, holding several preferment positions, including that of Vicar of Bloxworth. He was to have an important effect on the country’s affairs in the latter half of the 15th century.

This chiefly came about through Morton becoming committed to supporting the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses. He probably realised that the cause of the Lancastrian Henry VI was lost, but held office under him and lent his support nevertheless. But after the Yorkist victory at the battle of Towton in 1461, the Earl of Warwick deposed Henry and put Edward IV on the throne. The new king took Henry prisoner and Morton escaped to France wit Henry” other followers, spending several years in exile there with Queen Margaret.

It appears that sometime before 1470 Morton decided to seek the King’s pardon. This Edward granted, and Morton returned from France. But as the King was also aware of Morton’s ability and loyalty to a cause, Edward further appointed him Master of the Rolls, then Bishop of Ely (he plays a minor role as such in Act 3, scene 4 of Shakespeare’s Richard III.) After Edward had been on the throne for a few years he quarrelled with Warwick, who deposed him and restored Henry. But at the battle of Barnet in 1471 Warwick was killed and Henry died, presumed murdered, in prison soon after.

It was at this point that Queen Margaret and Prince Edward returned to England to be escorted by John Morton to Cerne Abbey en route to Tewkesbury. But at the Battle there later in 1471 Edward IV inflicted a defeat upon the Lancastrians and Queen Margaret was taken prisoner, but after paying a ransom was allowed to return broken hearted to France.

For Edward, Morton had been a valued advisor whose duties often took him abroad. When Edward died in 1483 his 12-year old son Edward, Duke of York briefly succeeded as Edward V. But his Uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, imprisoned Edward and his younger brother in the Tower where, according to tradition, he had the princes murdered so as to claim the throne for himself as Richard III. The new king’s suspicions about Morton’s loyalty outweighed any regard he had for his abilities as a statesman. On the pretext of some cleverly contrived charge or excuse, Morton was committed to prison, first in the Tower, then later Brecknock Castle. For some months his life would hang by a slender thread, and he faced being murdered, had he not managed to escape.

After this timely breakout Morton joined and sided with Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond in Brittany, where he helped to plan the Earl’s invasion to oust Richard from the throne. The fatal engagement came at Bosworth, where Richard was killed and Henry came to the throne as Henry VII. As a reward for his loyalty Morton became the first Tudor’s most trusted advisor, being promoted from Commissioner to Chancellor of Oxford University.

Thus Morton helped to establish the Tudor dynasty, but his effect on the course of English history did not end there. He effectively brought the dynastic civil war to its end, ushering in a new age of peace and material progress by advocating in 1486 the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth of York – the future mother of Henry VIII – so symbolically uniting the two royal houses. That year also Morton was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. The following year he became Lord Chancellor and, in 1493, a Cardinal.

Morton helped Henry accumulate substantial reserves while becoming wealthy himself at the same time. The Cardinal was intensely dedicated to ambitious building and restoration projects, into which he poured much of his personal assets. He rebuilt the palaces of Wisbech and Hatfield, and funded those of Lambeth and Canterbury.

Another re-building venture close to his own heart was the re-ordering of Bere Regis Church, where he constructed the timber roof as a memorial to his parents and also left a legacy for the upkeep of the paintings. He is represented personally in the bosses, the central boss being specially carved to portray the unification of the York and Lancastrian houses. But one of Cardinal Morton’s greatest achievements was the excavation of a great leet or drainage ditch through the East Anglian fens between Peterborough and Wisbech and named Morton’s Dyke after him.

Another facet of the Cardinal’s character was his ingenuity in procuring “benevolences” from the poor and wealthy alike, a practice which gave rise to the expression “Morton’s Fork”. If he heard a nobleman was rich he would say “I hear you are a very rich man, and are surely able to spare some money for the King.” He would then “turn the prong” to the nobleman who lived frugally and say “you are a careful thrifty person who must have saved much money, and some you will be able to spare for the King.” Neither then escaped their obligations to the royal coffers. But Morton did restrain certain financial policies that Henry proposed.

The opinions of contemporary writers about the Cardinal vary considerably however. Many saw him as a strange character, one accusing him of acting “from base and sordid motives,” even of sorcery. As a young man the statesman and writer Sir Thomas More served in the Morton household. He later wrote that Morton was “a man not more venerated for his high rank than for his wisdom and virtue.”

Other writers said he was energetic, sometimes brusque with polished manners, exemplary as a lawyer, one possessed of a great mind and a phenomenal memory. Through discipline and hard study he improved the talents which nature had bestowed upon him. He was a wise man, according to Bacon, but “a harsh and haughty one.” Morton could also be summed up as being accepted by the King, envied by the nobility, but hated by the people.

Cardinal Morton died at Knole, Sevenoaks in Kent in 1500 in his 80th year, and was buried in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.

Wimborne to 1800 – A Brief History

Jan 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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There is no certainty whether the site of Wimborne, the historic Minster town of Dorset, had any pre-cursor before the Saxon period. The town occupies a rather strategic position on the floodplain of the convergent rivers Stour and Allen, a situation of quick flooding and drying as the rivers rise and subside. But the Allen had long protected and restricted urban development eastwards.

Although it did not originate as a Saxon Burgh with the status of Bridport or Wareham, Wimborne has nevertheless been a significant royal manor since the 8th century AD. Early in that century King Ina (or Ine) of the West Saxons (688-726) founded the bishopric of Sherborne and appointed St. Aldhelm as its first bishop. In 705, Ina’s sister Cuthberga founded a nunnery on the site, which then became a monastic order for men as well as women. Both Cuthberga and her sister Quinberga – credited with being the co-founders of the town – were buried there.

The term ‘Minster’ occurs in other Dorset place names and can signify both a group of churches founded by King Ina to support a bishopric, and a monastic abbey church. Wimborne first appears as a Minster in 871. The nunnery was sacked and destroyed by invading Danes in 1013, but in 1043 Edward the Confessor founded a college of secular canons on the site. The collegiate building has not survived, but some of the fabric of the late Saxon church (i.e. the Minster) is preserved in the transepts and crossing. For centuries the church retained a special status as a royal free chapel independent of the bishop.

At Doomesday in 1086 Wimborne was held by Queen Matilda as lands of the King, and fell within the 32-hide Hundred of Badbury. But it was the Earl of Gloucester (the future King John) who granted the Minster a charter. The Minster then underwent phases of extensive re-ordering and enlargement in 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. Two developments in the 15th century were the addition of the western tower and a spire to the crossing-tower, though the central tower’s embattled parapet and pinnacles were not added until 1608. The main interior features of interest are the Norman Purbeck Stone font, a 15th century brass to king Ethelred, a medieval astronomical clock and the Chained Library – possibly the earliest public library anywhere.

Like other religious foundations Wimborne attracted settlement of population, though its site was less spectacular than that of Shaftesbury or Corfe. By 1200 a market and fair to be held on St. Cuthberga’s Day (August 31st) was in existence. Originally this was held in the churchyard but in 1244 it was compelled to move onto open space now partly occupied by the present Cornmarket, just west of the Minster. This market was the property of the Deanery Manor and provided the church with an income from stallholders. Further streets would later grow up around the Cornmarket, which also held the stocks for public punishments.

The church/market area then provided the focus around which the town developed in the form of what can be identified as three distinct boroughs or areas. Essentially the area to the north of the Minster and its grounds developed as two boroughs laid out along the axis of what would be called East Street and West Street. Here was centered the first commercial activity in the town. This development was established by the de Lacy’s, Lords of Kingston Lacy, who may have set up a market while the Deanery was without Royal support. But the long streets of East and West Boroughs were not laid out as a natural development from the town centre; rather, their origin is in a rival market set up in opposition to the Deanery.

This market was the borough manor market of the de Lacy’s, which had its own court, and it is recorded that this manor was involved in a dispute with the manor of the Dean in 1236. The noted Dorset historian John Hutchins mentions that there were already burgage tenure properties and evidence of stalls by very early in the 13th century, so indicating the appearance of the Boroughs as a northerly appendage to the ecclesiastical hub. Then about 1300 John de Lacy’s son Henry staked a claim to hold a fair once a year with a weekly market on Sunday and Monday.

The part of the East Borough leading into the Square was originally a narrow winding street crowded with buildings and known as Black Lane. The area of the square was once occupied by a chapel called St. Peters, which was later demolished. The area of the High Street where it bends sharply just east of the Minster, was called Cheapside, though many other street names of the earlier Wimborne are now lost.

The third area of growth centered on a meadow just south west of the Minster long recorded on maps as The Leaze and belonging to Deans Court. This area lies between the Minster and the Stour, and superficially appeared not to have been developed. However, it had been noted that a lane branching from King Street grades into a holloway before ending abruptly some distance from the river, suggesting some main street access to a former residential area. Interestingly, this was indeed confirmed by excavations between 1961 and 1964, revealing the presence of streets and the platforms of houses or cottages extending to the Stour’s floodplain boundary. This evidence dated The Leaze as a borough to around 1200, but it was apparently abandoned by the mid 14th century.

The Black Death did much to halt any further expansion of the town by 1350, and this decease is likely to have been the cause of the desertion of The Leaze. Leprosy was also widespread in the district and a building was dedicated to St. Margaret as a hospital for lepers. In 1800 a document, seemingly to date from King John’s time, was discovered in a chest in St. Margaret’s Almhouses, which superceded the hospital on the site, stating that it was a building for the welfare of lepers.

In 1496 the Countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort, founded the grammar school which Elizabeth I re-endowed and which was re-named after her in 1562. Another parchment deed exists endowing a school in Wimborne in 1510, though churchwarden’s accounts at the Reformation indicate trouble and expense in the maintaining of this institution. The governors were then accused by royal commissioners of allowing the building to fall into dis-repair.

Poet Matthew Prior is believed to have been born in Priors Walk in 1664. Wimborne had an unenviable reputation for uncleanliness until 1800, by which time the town had largely been rebuilt. In 1758 the Market House opened in the Cornmarket. The first regular coach service from London to reach here started in 1772, when the fare was £1.4s for the 14-hour journey. In more recent times the smuggler Isaac Gulliver and writer Thomas Hardy lived in Wimborne for a time and it is believed that the memorial to Gulliver in the Minster was the inspiration for the characters Snodgrass and Wardell in the Pickwick Papers. By the 19th century the parish covered 12,000 acres.

In 1915 Canon Fletcher and a doctor, Sir Kaye Le Flem, were sorting archive documents in the Minster library when they stumbled upon hitherto lost churchwardens accounts for 1403 and 1475. The documents revealed that at the time they were written the people of Wimborne were paying rent to the church as the landlords of the property they occupied, as well as burial fees.

St.Andrew’s Church at Winterborne Tomson

Dec 30th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In beautiful Dorset countryside surrounded by a grassed and walled churchyard is the delightful Norman church of St. Andrew in the hamlet of Winterborne Tomsom.  It owes its present condition to repairs carried out between 1929 and 1932 at the instigation of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The architect A.R. Powys, who is buried in the churchyard, supervised the work.

In 1933, the two adjacent parishes of Anderson and Tomson combined under the former name but as time has passed, Anderson became a redundant church and is now in private ownership.

St. Andrew’s church is a single cell Norman structure with an apsidal east-end, the only Norman apse in the county. The walls of the church, made up of many different kinds of Dorset stone and flint have seen quite a lot of rebuilding over the years. The tiled roof, re-laid in 1984, has several courses of stone slates at the bottom. The charming bell-cote was repaired during the 1929-1932 restoration and houses a single bell dated 1668.

The unusually low blocked-off small elliptical window at the west end of the south wall is the result of the walls having been raised by about two-feet in the 16th century. The three large windows in the south wall allow light to flood into the church. Arguably, the square-headed windows are16th century in the view of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments although the Churches Preservation Trust is of the opinion the windows date from the 17th century.

On entering, the visitor’s attention is straightway drawn to the woodwork presented in the box pews, pulpit, communion rail and screen; note the carved piece cut out in the screen so the preacher need not duck to enter the pulpit. The oak has bleached and paled since it was installed during the early 18th century; the cost was met by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, who was born in Dorset at Shapwick.

Whenever he was staying at Shapwick Wake would preach at St. Andrew’s and said he found the calm atmosphere refreshing after the great cathedrals. I wonder what this rural congregation made of finding such an important churchman amongst them and preaching too them.

On the north wall is an inscription tablet erected in 1962 to A. R. Powys and cut by the engraver Reynolds Stone who had a home and workshop at Little Cheney. In the centre aisle is a floor-slab memorial with an inscription to James Ainsworth telling us he died August 12th 1849, aged 10 years, he was the son of James and Marianna Ainsworth who lived at Tomson.

Turn around and you will see over the entrance doorway a gallery with steps leading up to it. This would have seated those who could not afford to rent a family box pew or perhaps it accommodated musicians at some time.

The lime washed plaster emphasises the outward lean of the walls towards the wonderful plastered wagon ceiling.

The 1929-1932 restoration work was paid for by the sale of a collection of Thomas Hardy’s manuscripts held by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings: Hardy had been a member of the society for 47 years.

The Dorset History Centre at Dorchester has the baptism records from 1723 to 1970, Marriages from 1751 to 1968 and Burials from 1769 to 1915.

St. Andrew’s is still a consecrated church but nowadays services are held only at Advent, Whitsun and Harvest Thanksgiving. St. Andrew’s is open daily to the public thanks largely to the excellent work of The Churches Preservation Trust who look after it.

The Parish of Glanvilles Wootton

Dec 30th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Formerly known as Wootton Glanville, the name of this small village community in north-central Dorset preferentially became Glanvilles Wootton in conjunction with boundary changes that took place in 1985. A former parochial division of Cerne, the parish now comes under the North Dorset Local Authority, and commonly shares boundaries with the parishes of Buckland Newton, Pulham, Holwell, Holnest and Minterne.

Wootton is situated on the B3146, approximately 12 miles north of Dorchester and 7 miles south east of Sherborne in the Cerne valley area, where the rich clay pastureland of the Blackmore Vale grades south-eastwards into the chalk downland of the Dorset Heights.

The earliest visible relic of human occupation of any magnitude within the parish is Dungeon Hill, an Iron Age fort and later Roman camp lying south east of the village.A Bronze Age Celt (axe or palstave) has been unearthed on Newland Common and also a very long iron spur as well as some Spanish and monastic coins, though prehistoric burials may be present.

Before the Norman Conquest Wootton was a possession of the Abbot of Middletun,then having 16 acres of meadow and four of pasture, but at Domesday it was held by William de Braiose. The earliest Lords of the Manor were the Mauger family.

Before the time of Henry 111, Henry de Glanvyll held two virgates of land as a free tenant of the Abbot. The name of Wootton appears to derive from the“Wideton(e)” of Domeday, meaning a woody place, whilst “Glanville” is the modern form of de Glanvyll or Glanvill, the name of the manorial family who held the parish in the 14th century.

The nave and chancel of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin were re-ordered in 1876 by G.R.Crickmay with assistance from Thomas Hardy. During this restoration it was found that subsidence of the north wall of the nave was due to it having been built over a line of ancient coffins.

Today the parish has an area of 1,705 acres (690 hectares), but in 1865 its area was 1,665 acres (674 ha). It is sub-divided into the two tythings of Wootton and Newland; a number of hamlets or farmsteads lie within its borders as possible former manors of the mother church. These include Newlands, Osehill Green and – most famously – Round Chimneys, the farmhouse of which became the later home of the first Winston Churchill and the birthplace of his son, John, first Duke of Marlborough.

The area’s soil is noted for being very favourable for growing timber, and many of the hedges have been thickly planted with oak and elm. Near Wootton Manor house there is also a fine grove of tall mature elms. By the time of the historian John Hutchins in the 18th century the village had a dispersed settlement pattern with cottages and houses occupied mainly by farmers and labourers. Only a few cottages remained as leasehold. The main agricultural activity of the parish has traditionally been sheep and dairying on rich pastureland divided into several dairy farms. In the 19th century the villagers were sending butter produced from milk to market in London via Sherborne.

Other notable early buildings are the Elizabethan manor houses of Wootton and Round Chimneys. The latter underwent a period of dereliction, but has more recently been restored in a more truncated form. Most homes in the village today are either recent or 19th century; there is a farm with a barn and a cottage with a half-hatch door called “The Smithy”, both dating from 1874.

Wootton formerly possessed two public houses: The New Inn and The Pure Drop Inn, but both of these ceased trading and have since been converted into private residences. The Post Office also has been closed and is now a private cottage. There is however a small public hall still in use near the centre of the village.

As originally planned, the laying of the Yeovil – Dorchester branch railway line was to have passed through the village, but a local landowner forcefully persuaded the planners to lay the line five miles to the west. He did however,plant several Douglas Firs in his wood.

Glanvilles Wootton and in particular the Churchill’s manor house, Round Chimneys, is of significance as it later became the home of James Charles Dale and his son Charles William Dale, noted entomologists who recorded the history and insect life of the parish. In addition James Charles Dale was the first to describe the Lulworth Skipper butterly from a specimen captured at Durdle Door in 1832.

The village is also thehome of former Country Life magazine columnist David Edelsten, author of Dorset Diaries, and landscape architect Amanda Patton, who beat 3,500 other competitors to first prize in a National Horticultural Society garden photography competition.

Changes were made to this article on 12th April 2013 Ed.

The Parish Church at Affpuddle

Dec 27th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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One crisp sunny afternoon late in the autumn a wrong turn found us at the front gates of the Parish Church at Affpuddle, struck by the large churchyard and the regiment of yews. In the spirit of “well, we’re here now” we decided to stay awhile.

The parish is large, at 4,600 acres sparsely populated by 402 people 27% of whom are pensioners, not surprisingly; elsewhere it has been described as a sleepy village. East north east of Dorchester the county town is about seven miles away from this parish the southern boundary of which is the River Frome. Much of the area is heathland, produced by the underlying Reading Beds; it rises to a ridge where there are a number of swallow-holes. One made famous by Thomas Hardy in his novel ‘The Return of the Native,’ where he places  Mrs. Wildeve at the lonely and desolate Culpepper’s Dish; said to be named after Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) a figure in the field of herbal medicine. On the north the land, on chalk, slopes to the River Piddle and then rises to another ridge, this is the northern boundary.

Affrith gave land from here in 987 AD to the Abbey of Cerne and it is reasonable to conclude the parish was named after Affrith and the River Piddle. At the Dissolution in 1539 the manor and advowson (the right in English law of presenting a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice) was given to Sir Oliver Lawrence of Creech Grange, near Steeple, Purbeck. Sir Oliver was the brother-in-law of the Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII.

The church guide tells us “in 1685 John Lawrence sold the property to William Frampton of Moreton and in 1755 Edward Lawrence sold the mansion and farm to James Frampton. In 1914 Harry Frampton sold the property to Sir Ernest Debenham.” The rich London draper bought farms and cottages in the area with the idea of developing a model estate: in 1952, the estate was sold off in small lots.

The church dedicated to St. Laurence is well set back from the road in its large churchyard from where you have a view to the west of the water meadows. Stroll on to the rear of the church and you will be surprised and delighted to find the River Piddle providing a natural northern boundary to the churchyard and the garden of peace to the east of the church. The Domesday Book talks of a mill at Affpuddle and there is a small-disused mill here, the mill race is a feature of the garden of peace; a seat of Portland and Purbeck stone in memory of local historian Joan Brocklebank is a recent addition to the garden.

The church walls are of rubble and squared Portland stone, in places with alternating bands of flint and carstone, and limestone ashlar and flint in chequered-pattern, with local Ham Hill stone dressings. The roofs are mid 19th century and mainly tiled with some stone slates.

The east window, the smaller chancel pointed window and the trefoil arch of the south door are dated 1230 AD. The nave and possibly the chancel were built about 1200AD, the south porch added in the middle of the 14th century, and the north aisle late in the 15th century. The chancel was rebuilt in 1400 when the chancel arch was enlarged and at this time the south wall of the nave was partly rebuilt and two large windows put in place. The chancel arch includes a hagioscope. On the south side of the arch is an entrance to stairs leading to the rood loft. On the south wall there is a holy water stoup, and in the south chancel wall a piscina with lancet shaped head. In 1840, according to the diary of James Frampton II, the east and south walls of the chancel were taken down and rebuilt. The west tower added towards the end of the 15th century is a good early example of the Perpendicular style.

Before we encourage you to enter the church, we must make you aware of the step down immediately behind the porch door, unprepared for this we fell in landing awkwardly on the hard surface bruising more than our dignity. So do watch your step.

Once inside you will find two Norman fonts both of Purbeck marble but it is the one with the square bowl at the west end of the North Aisle that belongs to this church; the other is in storage from the redundant church at Turners Puddle.

1883 saw the installation of new seating but the carved ends from the original pews have been retained; dated 1547 they are a feature of the church and refer to Lylynton.  Thomas Lylynton, a monk at Cerne Abbey, came to Affpuddle as vicar in 1534. The pulpit is from about the same date and is carved with figures, below which are medallions with the symbols of the four evangelists and the fifth, of a pelican.

The church guide tells us “The screen dividing chapel from nave was one of Sir Ernest Debenham’s many gifts to the church. It is partly made from the screen, which used to be at the west end, and this in turn was constructed from the chancel screen.” Another of his gifts is the altar frontal of 15th century Spanish embroidery. The reredos, the figures of St. Laurence and St. Cecilia on the east chancel wall, the Virgin and Child in the chapel, and the crucifix in the war memorial shrine in the garden of peace are all gifts to the church from Sir Ernest.

We consulted three sources for information about the bells and in one respect or another, they all disagreed except in that there are four bells dated 1598, 1655, 1685 and 1722.

The Lawrence family coat-of-arms found with the monument to Edward Lawrence on the north wall of the chancel is supposed to be the same as that on the signet ring belonging to George Washington, the first President of the United States; the Lawrence family is connected to the Washington’s through an earlier marriage. In claiming that George Washington’s mother was a Miss Lawrence, the church guide may be taking a step too far: George Washington was the son of Augustine Washington and Mary Johnson Ball.

Over the past millennium the church here at Affpuddle has been cared for and improved by Cerne Abbey, the Lawrence, Frampton and Debenham families and no doubt the parishioners, all of whom can be justly proud of the part they have played in preserving and delivering this house of worship to us in the 21st century.

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