Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

Christmas 1890 – Railway Disaster

Dec 13th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Standing at the controls of his Somerset & Dorset train’s engine, driver Frank Cribb was tired. A Bournemouth man with sixteen years work experience on the railway, Cribb had been on duty since 5.10 a.m. that morning of Tuesday, 23rd December 1890, driving the engine of a regular Bournemouth to Bath service. Now he was approaching Broadstone station at 5.20 p.m., nearing the end of yet another return run from Bath and a gruelling shift of over twelve hours. The train’s engine, which was fitted with Westinghouse vacuum brakes, accordingly maintained a steady speed, and although noted for pulling into stations fast, had always stopped in time – at least, it always had up to then.

In the front carriage behind the engine’s tender, sisters Sarah and Elizabeth Worthington were sitting in a spirit of buoyant anticipation, looking forward to the days ahead. The two women were on their way to spend the festive season at the home of Edith Lowe, with whom they had become friends when Miss Lowe was teaching at a school in Birmingham; now she was living in Poole and in post as Principal of the town’s British Girl’s School.

The Worthingtons were nearing their destination after a journey in which they had travelled down from Birmingham to join the SWR line at Mangotsfield near Bristol; from here another engine took the Bournemouth carriages to Bath, where the sisters caught the S&D connecting service for Bournemouth. They were pleasantly tired, but in their excitement Sarah and Elizabeth were blissfully unaware that within minutes they would be keeping an appointment with destiny.

Frank Cribb was approaching Broadstone station on the single track from Baillie Gate (or Western Curve,) a safety improvement for the line opened just five years earlier in 1885 to eliminate a hazardous reversing manoeuvre for Bath trains joining the L&SWR line to Bournemouth at Wimborne. Standing beside Cribb fireman Edward White suddenly cried out “Whoa mate – there’s something in front!” Dead ahead on the down line stood another engine with tender in the way of their train, but it was too late to avoid a collision.

The Worthington sisters and the other passengers in the forward carriage were then jolted out of their seats by the tremendous recoil force of over 140 tons of train ramming the stationary Wimborne engine. The rear wheels of its tender were knocked off as the tender was compressed concertina-fashion, sending the engine hurtling back down the gradient towards Poole, ripping up the track as it went. The engine with Cribb and White inside came to a halt 55 yards on at Broadstone station with the tender’s four foot diameter wheels wedged beneath it and skewed across the track from platform to platform. The collision’s magnitude was such that the tender’s buffer was later found 40 yards away in a garden! The engine’s boiler was displaced 11 inches backwards; the sound of the crash could be heard two miles away.

Thrown back by the shock of the impact the Worthington sisters and their fellow passengers had sustained horrific injuries. Sarah sustained facial contusions and abrasions, a broken leg and was in shock – but at least she would live; her 33-year-old younger sister Elizabeth however, was not so fortunate. She too suffered head injuries, but also with whiplash injury that had broken her neck, killing her instantly.

Outside the shattered front carriage it was dark, cold and snow lay on the ground. The conditions made rescue difficult and it took some time for emergency service teams to tear frantically through the wreckage. Victims had to be carried to safety on broken doors pressed into use as stretchers. Two other ladies in the first compartment were taken to the nearby Railway Hotel suffering fractures, cuts, concussions, bruising and severe shock. The hotel’s owners did all they could to help the doctors staying the night to tend the wounded. A breakdown train from Dorchester and a steam crane from Northam were sent to the accident site. An emergency team of 200 men had to work through the night to relay 200 yards of damaged track and restore normal service by 8 a.m. the following morning for the seventy-five trains that used the line daily.

Finding the cause of the collision and derailment at Broadstone then fell to the ensuing inquest, which opened at the Railway Hotel on Boxing Day. William Squires, the driver of the light engine, had been stopped at a signal before Broadstone station, but after a two or three minute wait had moved on when he saw the red signal change to green. As he passed the signal box, signalman Walter Gosney yelled out to him to stop. Squire’s fireman applied the brakes as soon as he realised that Cribbs’ Bath train was approaching from behind; Squires closed the regulator, but was then thrown back when the passenger train struck his tender. The fireman then jumped from the cab, leaving the driver to be pushed in his engine 300 more yards along the track before stopping.

Squires, the inquest heard, had been a railwayman for 15 years, yet had only 18months driving experience. On the day of the crash he had clocked-on at 6.25 a.m. for a tiring day of shunting, and hauling the Wimborne to Bournemouth afternoon passenger service. He would not return to Bournemouth West to clock-off until 7.20 p.m., by which time he would have worked a 13-hour day. But not all the culpability for the tragedy rested upon Squires’ shoulders. The competence of Walter Gosney was also brought into question when it emerged that at the time of the accident a railway carpenter was visiting him in the signal box, prompting the implication that the signalman may have been distracted, though it was certain that he had not been drinking.

The Wimborne engine was later than usual in arriving and when it stopped Gosney set the signals for the Bath train to come through. When Squires’ engine began moving forward however, Gosney then called out after him to stop and then had to re-set all the signals to danger, though this came too late to prevent a collision.

It took the inquest jury just ten minutes to reach a verdict of culpable negligence on the part of Squires and his fireman and a sentence of manslaughter for the death of Elizabeth Worthington. The two men were then sent up to appear before Wimborne magistrates, who then acquitted the fireman on the grounds that he was not responsible for driving the engine. This acquittal was confirmed at Dorchester assizes in February.

The majority of the evidence then rested upon the driver and his response to the signals. But the presiding judge, Mr Justice Coleridge, started the proceedings by questioning and then rejecting the testimony of the police officer who witnessed, at the inquest, the reported identification of the dead passenger as Miss Worthington. The judge had found no formal proof as offered by the treasury and did not know the deceased was Miss Worthington. Accordingly, Coleridge directed the jury to find Squires not guilty, as if proof was wanting. William Squires then left a court in uproar as a free man.

A week later a report on the accident was issued by the Board of Trade. It stated that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the down-line signal was passed at danger by the light engine, and that Squires probably only looked at the junction signal and, seeing it wasn’t on, neglected to check the nearby line signal. Gosney had done his duty in stopping the light engine; as it transpired it would have been better had he not done so! The overall conclusion was that the driver, and to a lesser degree the fireman, was responsible for the county’s worst railway accident after being on duty for 11 hours without a break.

The enquiry passed the signal operations as generally satisfactory, though human error apart, it was thought undesirable and unsafe that the Bath and Wimborne lines to Poole then had to share just one home signal. In future they would each have their own signal.

One can only imagine how Edith Lowe must have felt upon hearing of the disaster and its aftermath, after expectantly waiting up at home in Poole for two friends that fate had determined would never arrive. Of course, it was meant to be a joyous time of merriment. Instead, in the days following that dark and awful snow-bound night over a century ago the school headmistress fell ill with post-traumatic stress, her nerves shattered by an event that left so many maimed and two over-worked railwaymen bearing the stigma of professional misconduct for the rest of their lives.

The Dorset Shepherd

Dec 6th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Perhaps it could almost be said that Dorset was made for sheep and shepherding. Indeed, a flock of these animals in a pasture appears at the top of the county council’s website homepage and four hundred years ago there would certainly have been more sheep than people in the county. Of course, from the time of the shepherds watching over their flocks on the night of Jesus’ birth to the updated methods of the present day, sheep have always needed a labourer class to manage them; to pen, breed, feed and shear them. In short, the shepherds job.

Of course, sheep and shepherds are not exclusive to Dorset, though “hill farmer” is the term generally applied to the shepherd up north. For the Dorset shepherd the bedrock for his animals and livelihood has always meant the Dorset Heights, the great tract of Chalk downland spreading through the west and north of the county that has given rise to a native breed of sheep. Today though, the sheep population is but a shadow of what it would have been 400 to 500 years ago, when the implosion of the human population caused by the Black Death created such a shortage of labour for arable farming that it was more economic for landlords to enclose their land for pasture and keep sheep instead. So was laid the foundation of the great woollen industry that lasted until the 19th century.

The earliest reference to shepherds in the county may be attributed to Augustine who, tradition has it, once visited Dorset perhaps early in the 7th century and asked some shepherds tending their flocks in a field whether they preferred drinking beer or water. When the abstemious shepherds replied “water” Augustine is supposed to have struck the ground with his staff crying out “Cerne El” whereupon water gushed forth. The historian William of Malmsbury records that after St Aldhelm had died “Dorset shepherds, from neighbouring pastures” used to use a timber church or oratory the Bishop had built, as a shelter from rainstorms.

Hardy, in his extensive essay ‘The Dorset Labourer’ described the shepherd as “a lonely man of which the battle of life had always been sharp with him.” He is also described as being small frame, bowed over by hard work and who would stand at a hiring fair. His wages would not have exceeded eleven shillings a week. Hardy’s best-known fictional shepherd is probably Gabriel Oak, the ultimate beneficiary of the plot of ‘Far From the Madding Crowd.’ He is hired at a hiring-fair by the heroine Bathsheba Everdene and spends long hours out in the pasture tending her flock day and night. One night Oak shoots his sheepdog dead for stampeding the flock over a cliff while he is asleep, and in another instance cures the flock of “the blasting” after they stray into a field of clover. It is not certain whether the inspiration for these scenarios came from incidents in real life that the author may have witnessed or heard about.

Typically the 18th and 19th century shepherds would have worn smock-frocks and gaiters, though those young or of middle age sometimes wore smocks of a blue material. Only occasionally would they have worn cord trousers. Then there is the standard tool for the job: the crook. These are still made today, lightweight and durable accessories usually with hooks of buffalo horn fitted to shanks made from hazel or blackthorn.

Shepherds have also traditionally lived in purpose-built huts – almost windowless wooden caravan-like cabins on wheels measuring about 8 by 10 feet that could be towed onto the pasture where they would be working in the lambing season. They would have, as Hardy put it “sheltered the shepherd in his enforced nightly attendance.” Shepherd hut-making is a specialist craft that happily has been kept alive mainly through the excellent work of Richard Lee and Jane Dennison, two former students of John Makepeace at Hooke Collage, the school of woodcrafts at Parnham Manor near Beaminster.

At their Plankbridge workshop Richard and Jane use high quality materials locally sourced. Douglas fir is used for the frame and chassis, and the huts are fully insulated with versatile additional space; they can be used for the garden, orchard or filed. Features such as desks, cupboards, beds, heating and wiring may further be added. Te huts are finished off with an exterior coat of green paint and a set of steps for the door at the end are also provided.

One example of a modern Dorset shepherd of the 20th century is Larry Skeats. During a lifetime of shepherding extending across 45 years he folded the flocks in his care over the chalk downland using only dogs and wattle hurdles. At work his home became a shepherd’s hut. His autobiography ‘A Shepherds Delight: Memories of a Downland Shepherd,’ is a celebration of a bygone way of life by one of the last of the traditional shepherds.

Similarly, Ted Riglar began work aged twelve in 1901 as a shepherd at East Farm, Bincombe. Just two years later he sheared his first sheep, then went on to win a first prize of £4 at a shearing competition during a Bath & West Show in Dorchester in 1908. He then went on to acquire his Instructor’s Certificate in 1918. Born in 1891 Ernest Lovell was another ‘shep’ who started at age thirteen and by the mid 20th century was tending a four-hundred strong Dorset Horn flock at South Farm, Spetisbury. Lovell also bred sheep specialising in breeding rams and for this work won ten prizes at agricultural shows.

On occasion shepherds formerly may have delegated the responsibility of tending a flock to a hireling. Many shepherds would have smoked clay pipes and piped out folk tunes on a long-blown flute to keep themselves occupied throughout their long uneventful hours in the pasture. Early in the 20th century sheep used to be sheared at Upwey, where shearers at work were photographed in 1909. The prevalence of pastureland in Dorset is attested to in place-names such as Shepherd’s Bottom on the Ashmore Estate, and the shepherd is immortalised in a statue now standing in Dorchester.

Roman Heritage at Tarrant Hinton

Dec 1st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

One look at the growing crop suggested to William Shipp that something of great significance lay beneath the field. The Blandford Forum man had been called in by the farmer to investigate why the turnips he was growing as fodder for his livestock were withering or yellowing along curiously straight alignments. It was a coarser version of a physical phenomenon more usually seen in hay or cereal crops, but well known to archaeologists as a crop mark, caused when vegetation growing over deeper soil such as that in ditches grows taller and greener than that growing in shallower soil, due to the greater retention of water in the former. The failure of the crop in this way likely meant only one thing: that a large and important building or buildings had once stood where a farmer’s turnip field was now situated.

The field then used to grow turnips was Barton Field, situated in the parish of Tarrant Hinton, one of the Tarrant River Valley group settlements on the southern slope of the chalk ridge overlooking the Tarrant on the western side of the parish. But it is just one of several places in Dorset and southern England much favoured by the Romans for locating their villas (farm estates) or other settlements. The Tarrant valley in particular seems to have been a corridor attracting intense colonisation and farming during the boom periods of Roman Britain in the 2nd and 4th centuries. For example, excavation of another important villa site at Hinton St. Mary, a few miles south east of Tarrant Hinton, revealed a mosaic floor pavement in which was set a motif featuring the two Greek letters Chi & Ro (standing for Christos) behind a representation of Jesus. This depiction, now in the County Museum, furnished evidence of conversion to Christianity among these early Romano-British settlers by the 4th century – over two centuries before St. Augustine’s mission in 597 AD.

What Mr Shipp was looking at that day in 1845 were concealed foundations of one of Dorset’s major Romano-British settlements, agriculturally etched into the failure of the turnip crop. He was later to remark that remains of Roman origin were to be found in every part of this field and it was evident that for many years numerous finds of Roman pottery and coins had been turning up for antiquarians to collect. Early in the 20th century a Mr A, Giles from Tarrant Hinton uncovered an extensive tesserae (mosaic) floor in the field, but apart from this no further serious exploration of the site would be undertaken until the 1960’s.

Fast-forward to 1968, when the then landowners, Messrs E & D Hooper, suspecting that a major archaeological site of the 1st to 4th century once occupied their property, called in two officials on the staff of Dorset County Museum in Dorchester to assess whether a trial exploration should be undertaken. After determining that the mosaic flooring was being ploughed out, the archaeological consultants recommended that a full systematic excavation should be carried out during the field’s fallow periods, for which the Hoopers duly granted permission to proceed.

The subsequent trial excavation commenced in October 1968 and concluded in March 1969. A grid system of trenches spaced at 10-foot intervals was set out in the centre of the field. This revealed a large building later thought to have possibly been the headquarters of a large estate of farms, lying at 45 degrees across the grid square.

Then in August 1969 the Department of the Environment  authorised the start of a full-scale long-term excavation. During this dig a complex of about six distinct buildings was exposed, irregularly grouped around a wide open courtyard. It was determined that these buildings extended into the 3rd and 4th centuries. Two of these buildings had a hypocaust (under-floor heating system); though curiously, an absence of soot residue in one of these systems showed that it had never been used. The second of these buildings with a hypocaust was excavated in a fallow area of the north-eastern side of the field while a crop was being grown elsewhere and turned out to be a bath house dating from the 1st century. Unlike the earlier-discovered building however, it was soon evident that this bath house had been in constant use over a long period, as the under-floor space was full of soot. A coin of the 1st century was recovered from the debris near the heating-duct’s entrance. The excavations as a whole did indeed bear out W. Ship’s findings of 1845, for a large amount of coins, pottery sherds and painted wall plaster fragments were recovered from the site.

Nor was it only Romano-British settlement evidence that the Barton field contained. Immediately beyond and adjacent to the two main buildings long the south-west side of the courtyard a small cluster of Bronze Age graves was found. And furthermore, the complex of buildings on the western side had been built over an Iron-Age ditch running west-east through the site.

Documentary research indicated that the Roman settlement was granted to a freedman of Nero called Pompeius Anicetus. Two reference works indicate that this estate was said to have been situated just off the Roman road linking Durnovaria (Dorchester) and Sarum (Salisbury), and north of Vindocladia (Badbury Rings) but approximately half-way between the two town’s population centres. Furthermore, it is known that Pompeius dedicated an altar to the Roman deity Sulis at the Roman baths of Aquae Sulis (the town of Bath). The Barton field settlement also lies adjacent to the Roman road connecting Badbury Rings and Bath near the intersection of the Sarum-Durnovaria road. From a map it can be seen that Tarrant Hinton lies roughly midway between Salisbury and Dorchester, and north of Badbury Rings. Indeed, on a clear day anyone standing on the Anicetus site can clearly see the ancient Badbury earthworks when looking south.

Note: William Shipp was a bookseller trading from Market Place, Blandford Forum. He was baptised on the 28th of March 1807 at Blandford and was the son of John Shipp and Ann Simmonds who were married at Blandford on the 8th of May 1797.

In the first half of 1839 William Shipp married Emily Spooner. Their children were: Amelia (1842); Mary (1844); William (1845); Henry (1847). William died late in 1873, his widow moved to East Street, Blandford Forum.

The 1830 edition of Pigots trade directory has a John Shipp trading as a bookseller from premises in Market Place, Blandford Forum, so it would appear William continued his father’s business.

The Stuart Hibberd Story

Nov 28th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

“Goodnight, everybody, goodnight”

This mellifluous farewell would have been familiar to those with radios tuning in to the then Home Service of the BBC during the post-war years. The “Golden Voice” belonged to Stuart Hibberd, one of the earliest celebrity broadcasters of the Corporation’s early and intermediate periods, who with his friend and fellow Dorsetman Ralph Wightman set an example of a standard in radio presentation, which has now largely lapsed. By the time of his death in November 1983 at the ripe old age of 90, Hibberd could look back on an illustrious career, and one not without its firsts in the field of radio.

Stuart Hibberd was born in the east of the county into a Broadstone family in 1893, and educated at Weymouth College, from where he won a choral scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the Dorset Regiment, going on to serve with distinction in the Gallipoli campaign and also with the army in India.

Having survived the war he passed a somewhat aimless and obscure five years, during which time, in 1923, he married Alice Chichester, daughter of Lt Col Gerard Chichester, a senior officer of his former regiment. But the following year Hibberd’s big break came. Spotting a newspaper advertisement placed by the just two-year-old BBC for a Broadcaster/Announcer, he applied for the job and was accepted. Despite being a rural Dorsetian the successful candidate possessed one excellent credential he spoke RP (received pronunciation) which stood him in good stead when he was engaged to fill the announcer vacancy at the then headquarters of the BBC at Savoy Hill.

At this London station Hibberd was soon promoted to Chief Announcer. With impeccable annunciation, his voice soon became the best known on the airwaves. Hibberd was one of the very earliest of the radio newscasters, at a time when the transmission of bulletins was not allowed before 7 p.m. When live outside broadcasts of dance music were begun in the mid 1920’s the studio microphone was fitted with a cut-out switch to prevent dancers from relaying illegal adverts or messages to friends.

The General Strike of 1926 burdened Hibberd and his colleagues with additional responsibilities, as newspapers were not being printed, compelling the public to rely on the BBC for all special news of the stoppage. The Savoy Hill station had to be put under heavy police guard, which was maintained there throughout the ten days of the strike. Because of the extra news, bulletins had to be extended, and senior staff was brought in to help. One rather curious stipulation the BBC made at this time was that all announcers had to wear dinner jackets. Stuart Hibberd did not object to this ruling, but nevertheless hated the tight collars and stiff, short cuffs, which creaked when he was reading on the air!

In March 1932 the Broadcasting House building in Portland Place became operational, and Hibberd made broadcasting history on the 13th by reading the first news bulletin ever transmitted from the Corporation’s new home. The 39-year-old broadcaster initially found the building depressing, though this in no way hampered his professionalism. Few in the media would have been surprised when in 1935 at the age of 42 Hibberd was awarded the MBE for his services to radio.

The Second World War inevitably brought about something of a seismic shift in the BBC’s operations and scheduling, which included the start of regular midday news bulletins. In April 1940 Hibberd was transferred for a while to the BBC’s station at Bristol. Here, he and his colleagues became closely involved with the news flooding in from the many theatres of war and were – by proxy- an indispensable part of the war effort on the home front. Possibly to avoid the stigma of being a non-combatant “reserved occupationists” Hibberd served in the Home Guard in his out of work hours until July 1942, when he was able to return to Broadcasting House. With the slow return to normality after the war, the BBC ventured into new broadcasting territory with shows such as Tommy Handley’s ITMA; Hibberd himself took part- and sang- on Children’s Hour from time to time.

During these years too, Hibberd’s thoughts and philosophy about what made good broadcasting practise crystallised in his mind. Like all experienced broadcasters he was conscious of the importance of writing for the voice, as distinct from the printed page. This had been realised in the early days of radio, when a special technique had to be contrived. But Hibberd went further: he founded a blueprint or guide to good presentation for his successors to follow. For example he advocated that broadcasters should avoid long sentences and instead script those which slide easily off the tongue. Phrases like: “the Soviet & Finnish State” or “extraordinary orderliness of the room” should be avoided. Hibberd also eschewed parentheses, believing their use should be kept to a minimum because of the difficulty in making meanings clear, and the need to vary intonation of the voice.

For their retirement Stuart and Alice made their home in Devon, where sadly Alice died childless in 1977. Stuart always maintained close ties with his native county, and was elected Vice President of the Society of Dorset Men, a position he held for the rest of his life. His book ‘This is London’ is an autobiographical reminiscence of his experiences over 26 years of his broadcasting career and his fond memories of the many personalities he met in this capacity. Referring to the programme broadcast on Christmas Day 1946, he wrote “…the outstanding performance was given by Ralph Wightman, who introduced a man named Cross from Dorchester; he was so homely and sincere in his approach, and forthright too, that I felt very proud of my native county.”

Of Stuart Hibberd himself, it was remarked that he was unusually tall for his time, one of the loftiest men to walk the BBC corridors. He was kindly and courteous, but reticent, and modest enough never to seek fame or accolades, but was always popular with the public and colleagues.

NB: In May 1957 Stuart Hibberd was featured on ‘This is Your Life.’

Memories of Weymouth’s Old High Street

Nov 22nd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Weymouth can be a busy town – in summer holidaymakers crowd the seafront and the town, in winter it’s more peaceful, although the shopping streets are usually busy. Now the Christmas lights are on, the seasonal atmosphere aids the traditional pursuit of spending money and more money.

A Dorset Echo columnist commented that far too much of old Weymouth and Melcombe Regis has been demolished. That is certainly true, but there are still unexpected examples of the old towns which have somehow survived the march of modernisation. Some look increasingly threatened by neglect.

In Elizabethan times, it was Melcombe Regis on the north bank of the River Wey – where the modern town centre is now situated – and Weymouth on the south bank. There were many rows and disputes, until the Privy Council and the Queen forced the two boroughs to unite in 1571.

In the old borough of Weymouth – behind the ghastly concrete structure of the modern Council Offices – stands the rump of the old High Street. Leading from Holy Trinity Church to Boot Hill, this was the trading centre of the old borough – controversially demolished in the early 1960s, considered by many to have been a great corporate act of vandalism.

The old High Street, with the raised pavement, even today has something of the charm of Tudor England. The two oldest buildings are The Boot pub and the Old Town Hall opposite. The old centre of local government is mired in controversy as the owners, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council, have allowed this grade II listed building to decay for years. Repairs are estimated at over £100,000 and the council say it doesn’t have the money. Having installed a “temporary” odd replacement window, plastic drainpipes and chicken-wire over the windows, local criticism over their lack of stewardship has been increasing.

Across the road from the Old Town Hall, the splendid grade II listed Boot dates to about 1600. Well known to real ale drinkers, The Boot has won their Wessex Region Pub of the Year by the Campaign for Real Ale. This fine old pub, Weymouth’s oldest, is also lauded in the Good Beer Guide and the Good Pub Guide.
 
There are two versions of how the pub got its name. In the days of Queen Elizabeth I, the River Wey flowed at the back of the pub, with the public slipway running down the side. The Melcombe Regis ferry operated from here and “Boat Inn” could have been corrupted to “Boot Inn.” Others speak of the fact that the Dorchester to Portland mail coach would stop at the inn and force those sitting on top to help push the coach boot up the Hill. Did Boot Hill get its name from the pub, or vice versa? That is unclear.

The hooded stone mullion windows are certainly late Tudor and as the road falls away to the level of the old boat ramp, one door is at lower level.  Built on a slope, the bare boarded rise carries on up into the main room, which opens out to the full width of the house. A waist-high skirting board follows round the room and the walls are adorned with local pictures. The black beams are certainly original and the inside has a warm, homely feel. In winter, a real fire warms the room. A carpeted snug forms the right hand room, leading to a few more stairs and the short bar to the right.

Local historian Mark Vine has been researching the Civil War and highlights the many battles that were fought around The Boot and the old High Street. He rightly criticises the lack of official interest in an important historical story and battle site. Many royalist and parliamentary soldiers lost their lives in these skirmishes, the existence of which is not marked in any way.

In 1645, Colonel William Sydenham and his Commonwealth troops set up a defensive line at the top of High Street, near the Boot Inn. Roundheads set up cannon on the raised pavement by the Town Hall and pounded King Charles’ men every time they looked out of The Boot’s door! Eventually, there was a battle royal in High Street and a major massacre of 500 Royalists ensued, right outside the pub and along the quayside.

Storm at Marnhull – 1843

Nov 15th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

In July of 1843 a severe storm brought death and destruction to the Dorset village of Marnhull. The villagers suffered thunder and lightning, accompanied by very high winds with huge hail stones raining down on them. Several men were knocked senseless by lightning and injured; John Hasket, Joseph Warren, Robert and Sara Blackmore were lying injured days after the storm and narrowly escaped the fate of one young fellow, John Fudge, who was killed outright when lightning struck them. Livestock were killed, some animals being burned alive as the hayrick they were sheltering under was struck by a bolt of lightning. The apples, plums, gooseberries, and currants were beaten off the trees; banks and walls carried away with the water, hailstones measuring three inches still remained after 24 hours.

This storm was the harbinger of worse to come though it isn’t clear how badly Dorset was damaged by the second storm that tore across the country in August, and which thundered its way from Norfolk through Cambridgeshire and on into the Midlands. Following this second storm the General Hail Insurance Company was formed, later to become Norwich Union.

In the late 18th and early 19th century it was not unusual for people to live out their lives where they were born, their history recorded in the registers of just one parish church. So it was for John Fudge the second son of Samuel and Elizabeth Fudge; he was followed into this world by another brother and five sisters. His life, though, was cruelly extinguished by the storm.

John was baptised at Marnhull on the 8th of December 1816. On the 25th of February 1837, he married a girl from the parish, Frances Abigail White. Four years older than John, she was baptised at the church on the 18th of May 1812. In their turn they took their first child Henry to be baptised on Christmas Day 1839, a duty they performed for George White, their second son, on 19th of November, 1842.

The following year proved disastrous for this small family. The Register of Burials at Marnhull records that John Fudge at the age of just 26 years was buried on the 16th of July 1843 and worse was to follow. Henry we think may have pre-deceased his father and George, while still a babe in arms, lost his mother a few weeks later; her burial was recorded on the 22nd of October 1843 with no second chance of happiness for her. Sadly there is every reason to think George didn’t survive infancy.

We know about this devastating storm from a letter sent from Marnhull on the 16th of July 1843. Written by William Lewis and addressed to his daughter Mary Ward who he asks to pass it on to her brother John: they both lived in King Street, Wimborne Minster.

Mary was married to George Ward a Tallow Chandler and Robert the son of Mary’s brother Edward was Ward’s apprentice: George and Mary had a son and a daughter. John Lewis was married and employed as a Rural Post Messenger; he was married to Sarah Masterman Fripp; the couple had three sons and three daughters.

William and Lydia Lewis, just like John Fudge, were both born and lived out their lives in Marnhull achieving their allotted three score years and ten by a distance. William, baptised on 1st of February, 1778 was the son of Thomas and Mary Lewis and Lydia, baptised on 2nd of April 1782, was the daughter of Edward and Lydia Young. William and Lydia married at Marnhull on the 22nd of February 1810 and they had four children: Edward (1810); Mary (1813); John (1815); and Elizabeth (1821). We learn from the census of 1851 that William was a Hosier and Lydia a Dressmaker. We know William was literate and the Militia List tells us he was 5’4” tall. William’s passing is recorded in the Marnull Burial Register on 10th of August 1860 and Lydia, the Register reveals, was buried five months later on 28th of December 1860.

William Lewis’s graphic description of the storm continues “…there was another wagon near where William Galpen and Edward Acouts sister-in-law was and seeing what was happening they ran and dragged them out, else they could all have been burnt to death as all of them struck senseless and some crippled.. Mr Foox was coming that way and says he never witnessed such a scene.” And he goes on to say “…your dear Mother was in the pantry on her knees praying for herself and her dear children…”

Minterne Magna

Nov 8th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

The parish church dedicated to St. Andrew sits in beautiful and mostly wooded countryside in the Cerne Valley about eight miles south of Sherborne. The main route from that town to Dorchester runs through the village past, and some might say dangerously close to, the entrance.

With a population of only about 200 it is not surprising that the village lacks all the usual amenities. There are no shops, post office or garage, but it does enjoy the benefit of Minterne House with its gardens and parkland that are open to the public and draw in many visitors from March to early November.

Minterne Magna has connections to many powerful and influential families both at home and overseas, a boast confirmed by memorials to members of the Churchill, Napier and Digby families inside the church. In the churchyard is the tomb of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, who was presented with the Sword of Honour for the part he played as the Captain of the HMS Africa at the battle of Trafalgar over two centuries ago.

The church has walls built from local rubble and flint with dressings of ashlars and Ham Hill stone. It is entered through the slim west tower and comprises a nave, chancel and north chapel. The nave and chancel were built in the early part of the 15th century; the north chapel was added about two hundred years later and the west tower was rebuilt in 1800 and heightened during restoration work carried out in 1894. The tower is home to two late medieval bells.

The chancel has a partly restored east window with three lights; in the north wall is a 15th century window with two lights and in the south wall are two windows: the western modern and the eastern similar to that in the north wall. The doorway is 15th century, as is the chancel arch.

As you walk down the nave from the west tower entrance towards the chancel, there are the huge wall-mounted monuments to Napier’s and Digby’s. They tell of famous ancestors: Sir Nathaniel Napier who built the Alms Houses in Dorchester known as Napier’s Mite; of Charles Churchill who as a boy was page to King Christian of Denmark and later became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince George. He fought with his brother The Duke of Marlborough at Blenhein.

In the south wall of the name are three windows, the middle one modern, the other two of the 15th century. The late 17th century arch is partly obscured by the gallery and the organ. The octagonal bowl of the font is 15th century, though the base is modern.

On my previous visit to St. Andrew’s in 2005 the east wall of the north chapel was scarred back to the stone. This was because of emergency action taken to remove the huge Napier monument after it had become dangerous, with bits and pieces falling off it while the whole monument was moving away from the wall where it had hung for more than two and a half centuries. Enquiries revealed it was likely to need £12,000 to repair the monument and place it safely back in position; a fund had been started but it was anticipated some time would pass before the monument would be seen again.

It is now returned to its place in the north chapel. The white veined marble monument has Corinthian side-columns, entablatures, continuous cornice, cartouche-of-arms, putti and allegorical female figures. To Sir Nathaniel Napier, Bart., 1708-9, and Jane (Worsley), 1692, and Catherine (Alington), 1724, wives of his son Sir Nathaniel Napier, Bart. For all its size and dominance the monument cannot detract from the wonderful north chapel window of five four-centered lights, the middle light higher than the rest.

The monuments here are huge and overpowering and arguably unsuited for such a small church but the windows are beautiful. There are several photographs of the church, monuments and windows in the gallery. If you visit St. Andrew’s take care as you leave – you could be just one step from heaven!

Toller Fratrum

Nov 1st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

During the 11th century the Knights Hospitallers, the brethren of St. John of Jerusalem, came to the area below Beaminster Heights and Toller Down and settled in what became known as Toller Fratrum. Toller is a reference to the Hundred of Tollerford and Fratrum is Latin for Brothers. Here the knights set up home and built their storehouses.

The church we see here today is from the 19th century but inside there are two ancient relics. In the wall and dating from the 12th century is a fragment of a relief illustrating Mary Magdalene wiping Christ’s feet with her hair and the tub-shaped font strangely decorated with archaic figures including a two headed monster that may be of Saxon date. The church is of a simple single cell design comprising a nave, chancel and small bell-turret.

It is one of only three churches in England dedicated to St. Basil the Great, an honour more usually bestowed on churches in the east. St. Basil ruled over fifty bishoprics in the fourth century. Over looking the river Hooke, a tributary of the river Frome, the church is set a little aside from the manor house, farm buildings and workers cottages that make up this hamlet, the smallest of the three Tollers; the others being Toller Porcorum or Great Toller and Toller Whelme.

The Manor House, built on the site of the original Knight’s home and nowadays known as Little Toller Farm, and the thatched outbuilding were erected in 1540 by John Samway of Winterbourne Martin, who purchased the estate in 1540. The west of the house was added later. There is a chimney breast near the centre with two tall twisted stacks and a gable finial carved as a monkey with a mirror.

On John Samway’s death in 1586 the manor passed to Robert Samway, who left it to Bernard Samway when he died in 1620. Through marriage Toller Fratrum became the property of Francis Fulford of Devon and remained in this family for over a century. The Tudor work including several Tudor windows must be credited to John Samway but it was the Royalist Sir Thomas Fulford who was responsible for adding the west part of the building.

The Fulford family were also joined in marriage with the Sydenham’s who, in the middle of the 16th century, moved into the Manor of neighbouring Wynford Eagle, coming originally from Somerset. The marriage of Thomas Sydenham to Elizabeth Fulford is recorded at Wynford Eagle on 15th of June 1581 and in 1694 there is a record of the marriage of John Sydenham to the widow Susannah Fulforde. Wynforde Eagle was a chapelry of Toller Fratrum.

Mappowder

Oct 29th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

In rural communities, more so than in towns and cities, the parish is the twine that binds the people together. Parishes, villages and hamlets have a reason for being and a history deserving to be heard, not least by the people who hold temporal ownership. The name Mappowder is derived from the Anglo Saxon word mapuldor, which means maple tree. As Mapledre this place is recorded in the Domesday Book, giving authority to the suggestion that a settlement existed here well before 1086.

Mappowder has been dismissed as being no more than a few cottages and a nice church, when actually the parish comprises almost 2,000 acres and historically was a part of the Royal Forest. Mappowder Court stands on the site of the original hunting lodge and has been home to several wealthy and important families. A more modest house in the village served as a retirement home and retreat for a famous author and, yes, it does have an interesting church.

As the crow flies Mappowder is about 10 miles north of the county town, directly west of Blandford Forum, south west of Sturminster Newton and south east of Sherborne on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, a beautiful area of the county that Hardy refers to in his novel ‘Tess of the D’Ubervilles’ as “the Vale of Little Dairies.”

A tributary of the River Lydden flows north and west in the southern parts of the parish and another branch of the Lydden forms the north east boundary. According to Isaac Taylor’s 1765 map of Dorset the land south of Mappowder Court and around Thurnwood farm is the 15th century manor and hamlet of Thurnet. Land surrounding Old Boywood farm was, in the 14th century, the manor and hamlet of Hull. The village lies in the south of the parish.

In the 16th century the Coker family set-up home here and built Mappowder Court, which was by all accounts a grand mansion: they reputedly made their fortune from the slave trade. The entrance pillars to their estate topped with sculptured Negro heads proclaiming and celebrating the importance of the family and their involvement with this dreadful trade. The Coker’s left the parish in 1610 and sold the house and estate in 1745. Some members of the family remained in Mappowder between 1610 and 1745; this is evidenced by memorials in the church and cursory glance through the parish register will also confirm this.

It was The Hon. John Spencer who acquired Mappowder Court from the Coker’s. His descendants became the Earls Spencer and one of their daughters, before her untimely death, was the mother of a future King. The Spencer family demolished the grand mansion and replaced it with a smaller house. Later the Wingfield-Digby family purchased the property and held it until the outbreak of the First World War; it has been sold and bought several times since.

On a suitably wet and dismal afternoon I stood outside the entrance to Mappowder Court, it was easy to imagine the Coker family in their mansion with their friends making small-talk over dinner with little thought given to the business being conducted at Bristol in their name or the misery experienced by countless souls to pay for their high living. Today those mounted heads still stand and serve to remind us of a dark period in our history. We might wonder that this business could have been conducted from the seclusion of the Dorset countryside.

John Hutchins tells us a school was built near the church in 1846. It consisted of a single room with large windows and was entered through a porch. The 1851 census records that the schoolmistress had charge of 33 scholars – a ratio we are still trying to improve on a century and a half later.

There were several farmers and dairymen employing 57 agricultural labourers including three women. At this time Sherborne had a thriving button industry and much of the work was out-sourced to home workers in the neighbouring parishes. 37 women and one 1 man in Mappowder worked as buttoners. Of the 290 people living in the parish then, only 182 were born there and the parish overseers had 8 paupers to provide for.

Looking forward forty years we see in 1891 a drop in the population to 195 and it appears the button industry has collapsed. There are still several farmers and dairymen, but employing only 32 men. In the parish are 37 children of school-age and the schoolmistress now has a monitor. The Glove industry employs 13 home workers; there were three laundresses, two carpenters, a mason, a baker and a photographer in the parish.

In 1940 the novelist and unconventional religious thinker Theodore Francis Powys retreated here from the coastal parish of Chaldon Herring where he had lived since 1904. It is said he spent many hours in meditation in the church but was rarely seen at Sunday services. He died in 1953 and he is buried in the churchyard.

The parish church is dedicated to St Peter and St Paul and is a good example of 15th century architecture. The walls are built with squared and coursed rubble with ashlar dressings of Greensand and local limestone. The roof, presently in need of repair judging by the large tarpaulin draped over a part of it when I visited, is covered with tiles and stone-slates. The Nave, South Aisle, West Tower and South Porch date from the late 15th century but some restoration work was carried out during the 19th century, probably in 1868 when the 15th century chancel arch was rebuilt. There is a squint from the South Aisle that opens in the south west corner of the Chancel. Light, even on the dreary day I visited, streams into the church through clear glass there being a noticeable lack of stained-glass.

There is a tiny effigy of a 13th century knight said to commemorate the death of a crusader whose heart was brought back to his parish for burial and carved on a capital near the lectern is a symbol of a Green Man with foliage sprouting from his nostrils. The screen under the tower described by Pevsner as looking Victorian and “prettily flamboyant” was by the Rev. G.A. Coleman and his friend Mr Ringrose and is c.1925.

A 12th century font, some 12th century head-corbels and a reset 14th century window indicate as earlier church stood here.

The West Tower has two stages topped by a plain parapet. The four pinnacles are modern restorations and at each corner a grotesque gargoyle in the form of two monsters and two musicians can be seen. In the upper stage each side of the tower has a belfry window. Until 1999 the belfry housed five bells by W. Knight dated 1735. An anonymous donation of £50,000 was received in time for the millennium to refurbish the bells, which were re-tuned, and a further bell was ordered from The Whitechapel Foundry. The church of St Peter and St Paul at Mappowder now has a peal to rival the best in Dorset.

Ashmore – Ancient and Modern

Oct 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
Comments are off for this post

Ashmore, at 700 ft above sea level, is the highest village in Dorset. It is situated on the county border with Wiltshire about six miles south east of Shaftesbury. The village is built around a large pond that was probably artificially enlarged during Roman times and which is likely the reason a settlement grew up here. The existence of this village is recorded in Domesday Book as Aismere with its great dew pond or mere.

In times past the pond would dry-up about once in every twenty years. On these occasions the villagers would follow ancient customs and hold a feast. The mud would be removed from the bed, a fire lit while “figgy pudding” was eaten. Local cattle owners who depended on the pond for water used to supply the puddings. Following a feast in 1921 a new water suppply was provided in 1923 so it is likely this tradition has died out.

There is mention of Round Barrows in the parish and RCHM reports that bones were recovered from a barrow when it was removed in the 19th century. The Roman road from Badbury Rings to Bath passes through the east of the parish.

Our Victorian ancestors were busy all over the country restoring or rebuilding the churches and Ashmore gained a new church, but before we look at that let us see what we know about the earlier church.

First thing to say is it was not the first rebuild; that was in 1423 and the Chancel was reconstructed again in 1692.  The old Church of St. Nicholas was a small structure of stone and flint, consisting of a Chancel, Nave, porch and a small wooden tower housing two bells. The west end was an example of Early English work, with side buttresses and two narrow windows. The solid projecting piers of the Chancel arch were Norman. It is thought the single window in the Nave was from the 15th century rebuild. Important items disappeared during the 1874 rebuild: the font, probably Georgian was dumped in the churchyard and monuments to several Rectors as well as two floor monuments bearing coats-of-arms were lost.

The old church featured a gallery at the west end where the singers and musicians would sit and the pews on paved slabs over the vaults had been known to collapse, falling into graves below – an unseemly business that hastened the need for a new church.

Church accounts back to 1755 record the continuing deterioration of the church. £37 was spent on repairs during 1768-9 and a further £23 expended in 1773. In 1801 there was a succession of vestry meetings to discuss the roof that had become dangerous to worshippers. Also cause for concern were the rotting pulpit and altar rails and the gallery and seats in it as well as the steps  into it, along with seating in the body of the church were all in need of repair. In 1813-14 the church was re-roofed and tiled at a cost of £80 and in 1831 there was a carpenter’s bill for £33. Nothing further seems to have been done until 1873 when preparations got underway for the building of the new church.

The present church, the work of Charles Edwards of Exeter, was dedicated on the 20th of October 1874, the service being conducted by the Ven. the Archdeacon of Dorset, the Revd. T. Davidson and the two Churchwardens, Mr G. Rabbets and Mr G. Hare. There was by all accounts a large congregation.

Hanging above the entrance is the Royal coat of Arms, dated 1816 and signed by K. Wilmot. The Royal Arms at St. Peter’s Church in nearby Shaftesbury is dated 1780 and signed by M. Wilmot.

Not much from the old church survived. The Chancel arch is now used as the entrance from the vestry into the Church; the stone step at this entrance is part of a monument to John Carver. A blue slab formerly in the Chancel of the old church was laid in the new porch but many years ago it was removed and joined the old font in the churchyard. Most of the memorials from the old church were installed in the new building including the oldest surviving one dated 1652, which is damaged and defaced and remembers John Mullen, a man who “feared God and loved peace.” The bible from the old church was given to Mr G. Hare who was a churchwarden in the 19th century and in 1960 the Hare family, who have been in the village since the 16th century, returned it to the church.

The present church consists of nave, chancel and side chapel. In 1933 John Skeaping, an animal sculptor whose work was not well known then but who went on to become a Professor at the Royal College of Arts, was commissioned to carve some hunting scenes on the corbels of the chancel to illustrate the parish’s connection with Cranborne Chase. Carvings of St. Nicholas, St. Anthony, St Denis and St. Michael were also added.

In the nave is a window of two lights on the south side illustrating Christ feeding His sheep on one side, and restoring sight to the blind on the other. The font used in the new church is believed to be Norman and it is mounted on an 18th century pedestal. It has a carved mahogany cover edged with gilt and surmounted by a gilt dove.

In the churchyard there is a monumental slab dated 1662 with a shield of arms to George Barber, who purchased Ashmore in 1634. Two members of the family were High Sheriffs of Dorsetshire: Robert Barber in 1670 and his great grandson of the same name in 1742. The Revd. James Ivie was Rector of Ashmore from 1682. He was responsible for the 1692 restorations and married Elizabeth Barber.  James Ivie died in 1710 and his son of the same name became Rector in 1711. Charles Barber, the Rector, was the last member of that family to live or be buried at Ashmore. His brother Robert Barber sold the estate in 1765.

The purchaser was John Eliot, a London merchant whose daughter Mariabella married Luke Howard, well known in his day as a chemist and meteorologist. Following the death of Mariabella’s unmarried brother the estate passed to the Howard family and remained in possession of that family for over two centuries.

← Earlier Posts Newer Posts →