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Cerne Abbas

The Cerne Abbas Giant

Apr 17th, 2014
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Some say he was carved out two milleniums ago, to represent the Roman god Hercules. Pagan rites were certainly carried out there some four centuries ago. But some affirm that he is a bogus god-figure, created out of the Dorset hillside in the 17th or 18th centuries.

He is the Cerne Abbas Giant, fashioned in the chalk above that village, a few miles from Dorchester. At 180 feet (55 metres) high, he is the largest hill figure in Britain. The Rude Man as he is sometimes referred to carries a 120-foot club and this place has been the setting for fertility ceremonials and practices.

Visitors gazing from the viewing point look on in awe. Apart from the Long Man of Wilmington in East Sussex, there is nothing quite like this in England. If such a figure were created today, it would cause an outcry.

People climbing the giant’s steep hill are not much more than spots across the valley. On May Day, which must once have drawn crowds to this spot, the phallus points directly at the sun as it rises over the hill. The whole figure stretches two-thirds of the hill from top to bottom.

Dorset, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire have many hill figures. This one is associated with maypole dancing in an earth enclosure, the “Frying Pan”, located high up above the giant’s left arm, which may once have supported a cloak in classic fashion.

At the end of the second century AD the Emperor Commodus, a supposed reincarnation of Hercules, who campaigned in Britain, revived the worship of this god. But the Dorset figure may be associated with the adoration of various Romano-Celtic gods.

However, there is no actual reference to the giant to be found before 1694 when a payment in the Cerne Abbas churchwardens’ accounts of three shillings is recorded for the re-cutting of the figure. So we may be dealing with one of history’s hoaxes, performed perhaps by libertarians – on a colossal scale.

In 1751 the Dorset historian John Hutchins suggested that the figure was chiselled out in the mid-1600’s. It was depicted in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1764. There is no reference in mediaeval documents. One theory is that monks at a monastery in the valley below created the giant as a joke. At any rate, local people have maintained the trenches, about half a metre wide and deep, down to the clay bedrock.

The Silver Well or Augustine’s Well, flows below the giant and has both pagan and Christian connections. Some even imagine the giant goes to the bottom of the hill for a drink from it at midnight. Actually, he would have to do little more than put down his club and stoop.

In the 17th century Lord Denzil Holles (1598-1680) was lord of the manor and it has been suggested his servants cut the figure while he was away. The roof leads on the aisles of a nearby church were repaired in 1800 and 1843, and since then have had reliefs of the giant. What does Christian spirituality have to say about that?

The whole subject is a curiosity. The inquirer keeps returning to the question of why there are no early records. Travellers in the Tudor and Stuart periods made no reference to the figure. Nor did the wealth of local mediaeval documents.

Then there is the question of the monks. For at least 500 years a Christian monastery stood looking up at the barbarous and brutish, not to say impolite form. How could the abbot and monks, and visiting church personages, the pillars of society, have tolerated it? For five centuries?

This gigantic figure with his knurled club stands watch over the villagers of Cerne Abbas. He has in fact a kind personality, for he can help childless couples produce heirs, or so they say.

Note: In the gallery there is an aerial view photograph of the Giant.

Dunn Family

Oct 28th, 2013
by Dorset Ancestors.
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George and Amelia (nee Sherry) Dunn were both born at Cerne Abbas during the 1850’s, this is where they grew-up, married and had their three children. Born in Victoria’s reign they lived through the times of Edward VII and George V and the Great War. They would have followed with interest the events which led to the abdication of Edward VIII. Their long lives stretched into the early years of the reign of George VI and they witnessed some of the darkest days of the Second World War before their deaths in 1942 and 1943.

In 1891 George and Amelia moved from their home in Mill Lane, Cerne Abbas, to the nearby parish of Bradford Peverell, where they spent the rest of their lives. It is not clear what prompted the move that occurred shortly after the death of George’s father. As he neared the end of his life George had the distinction of being the oldest inhabitant of the parish and a few weeks before his death in 1943 George was interviewed by a journalist who found him receiving the attentions of a visiting barber (his nephew.)
 
A year earlier George lost his wife of 64 years, they had married on 27th of December 1877. For the times theirs was not a large family, just three children: William James born towards the end of 1878 (George’s father was James Dunn,) Rebecca Mary was born early in 1882 (Amelia’s mother was Rebecca Sherry,) and Charles George was born during the summer of 1885.

Mr Dunn told the journalist that he started work at the age of nine for one shilling and sixpence a week and remembered his father received seven shillings a week – there were seven in the family. George remembered his father being ‘sacked’ by his employer, a lime burner, for refusing an overtime task (without pay.) For this ‘grave’ offence his father was punished with six days confinement in Dorchester prison. George could remember his father walking the eight miles from Cerne Abbas to the prison attired in a white smock and on the completion of his sentence he walked back in the same white smock.

On the 27th December 1937 George and Amelia celebrated their Diamond Wedding Day Anniversary and received a Royal Greetings telegram from the King and Queen. For over forty years George was captain of the Bradford Peverell bell ringers. He last rang to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI.

At different times George was an Agricultural and General Labourer, a Carter and a Domestic Groom. The 1911 census reveals that Amelia was working as a Midwife.

The tight bond between George and Amelia was broken when Amelia passed away early in 1942 soon after their 64th Wedding Anniversary: George passed away in the second quarter of 1943.

 

Joseph Clark (1834-1926)

Apr 30th, 2012
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Artist in Oils

In 1857 Joseph Clark submitted his first picture for the Royal AcademyExhibition, entitled The Sick Child; it was accepted. He exhibited regularly atthe Royal Academy and at the Royal Institution until a few years before hisdeath. In 1876 he was awarded a bronze medal at the Centenary Exhibition at Philadelphia. Then, in 1877 his painting Early Promise was purchased for the nation and a further painting Mother’s Darling was purchased for the nation in 1885; both paintings are held by the Tate. His first painting offered at auction realised £4.17s.6d, a high price for the time and his paintings continue to command good prices when they come up at auction today.

He was the son of a draper and calico bleacher, born at Cerne Abbas on the 4th of July 1834. His early education was at a Dame school, these small privateschools usually run by an elderly woman who taught the children to read and write before they were old enough to work. He was then enrolled at the Dorchester school run by William Barnes. A book has survived in which the young Joseph detailed various workings of geometrical problems and précis of lectures given by Barnes on divinity, English and Roman history, geography and geology.  He developed an interest and aptitude for art, which was encouraged by Barnes.
 
Following the death of his father the family fortunes declined and he was removed from Barnes’ school to be apprenticed to a chemist at St. Neot’s in Huntingdonshire. He was not happy in his new position and returned to Cerne Abbas where he joined his mother, Susan, and his two older sisters, Mary and Emma, and their family servant, Jane Seard. Meanwhile, the family business had been taken on by his older brother William who had added a tailoring establishment.

The boy’s burning ambition was to go to London to continue his art studies and in this he received help from an unexpected quarter. His brother had employed a cutter to work in his tailoring shop; the man had come from London and he was a cultured individual who was familiar with the London art galleries and exhibitions. Having seen some of Joseph’s paintings he encouraged Mrs Clark to let Joseph go to London to further an artistic career.

On his arrival in London he wasted no time, immediately enrolling as a pupil at the school ran by James Leigh, located in Newman Street, which is just off Oxford Street. The school later became known as Heatherley’s; it still exists today. From Leigh’s school he progressed to the Royal Academy School then situated in the National Gallery building in Trafalgar Square.

By 1861 Joseph had been joined by his mother and the family servant, Jane. They all lived together at 25 Belle Vue Villas, Sussex Road, Islington, London. Thecensus confirms he had established himself as an ‘Artist in Oils.’

The next decade was a time of sorrow and happiness for Joseph. Early in 1866 his mother passed away having reached 76 years, her death being recorded inChristchurch. Towards the end of 1868 Joseph married Annie Jones, who was almost half his age. Her father was a Woolstapler from Winchester in Hampshire.

 
These two events suggest Joseph may have moved away from London for a while but by 1871 he was back in London, living at Arthur Road, Islington, with his young family and the faithful family servant, Jane. Jane Seard was now 60 and was assisted in her duties in the Clark household by a fourteen year-old girl, Emma Mills. A decade later we find Joseph and Annie Clark and their eleven year-old daughter, Annie, at 396 Holloway Castle, Islington. The couple enjoy the services of an elderly nurse and a young servant girl.

Then in 1891, after a space of fourteen years, the sound of young children can be heard again in the house. There are two more daughters and a son: Elsie was born in 1884; Wilfred in 1886 and Margaret in 1888. A 21 year-old governess, Harriet Eusor, was employed as well as a 23 year-old servant girl. Joseph Clark never seems to have needed an excuse to move house but his move to 23, Grosvenor Gardens, Hampstead, suggests more room was needed for his growing family and confirms he was a successful artist.

In 1901 we find Joseph and Annie with their four children at ‘Wenouree,’ Pinne Rd., Harrow-on-the-Hill. Their eldest daughter is teaching music and their son, Wilfred, is a Clerk to a Grain Broker. Joseph and Annie’s house moving continues but they stay, for now, north west of the metropolis and in 1911 they are in Uxbridge with two of their girls: Annie, who is still teaching music and the piano, and Margaret who is teaching at a private school.

Joseph Clarke died aged 92 years. He died on his birthday at Ramsgate in Kent, his death being registered in the Thanet district. Perhaps he had tired of north London and decided the Kent coast would be a nice place to live out his last years.

Like his parents, Joseph was a life-long member of the New Church, sometimes known as Swedenborgians. He served his church well as a Sunday school teacher and Church deacon as well as being a member of the Committee of Management.
In all his paintings he showed a feeling for family affection. All hispaintings express a love of family domesticity and portrayed moments of ordinary mans difficulties, sorrows and joys in his everyday existence. Many ofhis paintings had Barnes’ style captions, such as: Jeanes Wedden Day in Mornen (1879);  Farmer’s Woldest Dater (1908) and Wedden Morn (1909).
 
He spent most of his life away from Dorset but he had with him those views and memories which had been so familiar to him in his youth and are suggested in many of his paintings.

Cerne Abbas – St. Mary’s Church

Jan 28th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The worn down curved stone steps at the entrance to St. Mary’s church are testimony to the numbers who have come here to worship over the centuries since this church was built by Benedictine monks around 1300. The first vicar was inducted in 1317. There had been a Benedictine Abbey here since 987 AD – dissolved in 1539.

The difference between the outside and inside of this church is breath taking. Viewed from the outside, as parish churches go, it is ordinary, except perhaps for its tall west tower that has a statue of the Virgin Mary above a large four light west window: it is one of the few not to have been destroyed in Cromwell’s days.

St. Mary’s comprises a tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, with a porch off the south aisle. The roof area over the nave is higher than over the two aisles and it is the windows in this heightened area that flood the inside of the church with light emphasising the feeling of being in a large airy and uplifting space. These upper windows, or clerestory, were installed in 1530 by Thomas Corton, the last abbot of Cerne Abbey.

Entering the church you step into the tower area, to each side of you the north and south arches of the first stage of this three stage early 16th century tower: ahead of you the larger east arch and the screen, erected in 1749, leading into the nave. Before you go any further, look upwards at the interior of the first stage of the tower beautifully lit by the large west window – high above you hang six bells.

Proceeding down the nave’s central aisle, over three large slab memorials, to the stone screen with its six lights either side of a central entrance into the chancel. On each side of the nave are four arches and above these are painted shields with biblical texts. The records show that in 1679 Robert Ford was paid twelve guineas for painting three of them. Hanging over the nave a large chandelier probably 18th century, the modern seating replaced the pews during major restoration works in 1960/61. The carved pulpit is dated 1640. The north and south aisles have modern electric light fittings that seem out-of-place.

The chancel’s large east window bathes the area with light and here you can see parts of the original 14th century church. The window includes illustrations of numerous late 14th century shields-of-arms. The lancet windows on each side of the altar are the original early English windows. Recent restoration work revealed the windows and a blocked doorway on the south chancel wall. There is a 14th century piscina in the wall to the right of the altar and what is thought to be a consecration cross can be seen on the north wall of the chancel.

The font located in the south aisle near to the south porch is probably mediaeval, its octagonal bowl mounted on a modern base and plinth. The cover was added in 1963.

About the church are many memorials to many families including Dr. William Cockeram 1679, Thomas Cockeram 1862 and his wife Anne 1847; Robert Farr 1720; Elizabeth Foord 1766 and Robert Foord Snr 1768; George and Susanna Turner 1750; Samuel Randall 1785 and his wife Elizabeth 1769; Thomas Boys 1774, and others.
 The Notley family is referred to in two of the floor tablets in the nave. The family, we are told, were early settlers in America and owned Cerne Abbey Manor in Washington, the site on which Capitol Hill stands today.

We have placed several photographs of St. Mary’s Church in the gallery.

Samuel Crane – Farmer Diarist of Bloxworth

Dec 30th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Dorset farmers with a firm footing in the 18th century were not usually the kind of people known for their erudition. After all, for anyone running a farm this was an age of illiteracy and poverty; any schooling, where it existed at all, would have been very elementary. However, there were a few notable exceptions to this rule. One such person was Samuel Crane.

Crane was born near Bere Regis in 1746, one of eight children and the elder son of John and Elizabeth Crane. Of the younger son George, little is known but it is known that Sam was able to benefit from a well-rounded education, since it was noted that his handwriting was distinctly legible and precise. Probably from his father, he gained knowledge and instruction in practical husbandry and farm management. These attainments would serve him well in the years to come.

While Samuel was still a young man a wealthy landowner called Jocelyn Pickard came into the possession of Bloxworth House in the parish of Bloxworth near Bere. The house was the focus of an extensive estate of farmland which, with the exception of the northern part, was owned by the Lytchett Matravers branch of the manorial Trenchard family. Pickard had secured his tenure of the estate by marrying George and Mary Trenchard’s daughter Henrietta in 1751. At the time the best land on the estate lay to the north, where the bedrock was chalk, while to the south was a narrow belt of clay mostly suitable for pasture with some crops. Some yeoman farmers had smallholdings here.

Needing a farm/estate manager Pickard appointed Crane to the position soon after taking up residence at Bloxworth. But Samuel wasn’t just concerned with carrying out his duties. Possibly upon the instructions of his superior he began to keep what would eventually become at least two farm diaries: the first, covering the period from June 14th 1770 to August 10th 1771; the second, from February 1st 1781 to November 30th 1783. These records have proved to be of great value as sources of information about managing of the agricultural estate of an 18th century country house.

It is thought, therefore, that Crane probably arrived at Bloxworth House before beginning the first diary. Pickard was clearly eager to increase the estates’s value by ensuring that the farm was a success. However, entries in the 1781 to 1783 diary show obvious signs of some alterations being made in the style and content, suggesting Pickard was wielding some influence upon the content of what Crane wrote.

In 1771, the year the first diary was completed, Sam Crane married Jane Perrott at Hermitage, some 12 miles north of Dorchester. A faded, barely legible entry of a baptism on October 25th 1772 in on of the parish registers suggests that by this date the couple had a son, though no further or later records relating to him have ever been found. No less obscure has been the fate of Jane herself, who early disappears from the records, leaving behind her abiding mystery unresolved to this day.

While the Crane diaries furnish a wealth of detail about the day-to-day nuts and bolts of his managerial labours at Bloxworth, they are much less informative about personal details. For example, Sam did not record where he lodged at the time, though it is believed he lived in a large farmhouse in the part of the parish known as Newport. Otherwise, in these pages it is possible for the reader to compare changes in the organisation of the farm over a ten-year period – a time covering a recession when the estate workers experienced great hardship.

Samuel recorded the wages paid to the workers, though never his own. The wages include details of labour costs, staff numbers, and occupations, and it was a measure of Crane’s skill that the wage bill was brought down by almost 5% despite an increase in the size of the farm and in the amount of time worked. By March 1771, he wrote, he had increased the dairy heard, and during the writing of the first diary, the number of sheep increased to 1,100. Wheat and barley were sold for profit and cereals were also grown to supply the manor and to sell off to the farm workers. Details of wheat deliveries to the mill are also noted. In June 1771, Crane borrowed horses from two other yeoman farmers.

Also to emerge from the diaries is the fact that children were regularly employed as part of the workforce, though girls were not made to work until they were twelve. By 1782 ten men and four boys were employed on the Bloxworth farm. In that year too, five fields of hay were mown and by the 1780’s Crane had increased the size of the turnip crop. For a time, Sam had dealings with a man in Wolverton he called “my brother” selling turnip seeds and barley. Some buck wheat was bought in August 1782, but what it was used for is not recorded.

Domestic arrangements at the manor were largely in the hands of Henrietta Pickard, so that Sam had little involvement in the running of the house. His remit was limited to securing farm produce, furze, turf, hay, corn and coal. Routinely, Crane undertook journeys on horseback to make deliveries of corn.

Then soon after 1783 everything changed for Sam Crane. He left Bloxworth, his last diary entry being for November 30th that year. On August 28th, 1788 at Cerne Abbas, he married Elizabeth Davis and settled in that parish. The couple had four sons of which two, Samuel (born 1790) and James (born 1792) survived to adulthood. The eldest and youngest sons died in infancy.

In 1787 an uncle of Sam Crane – also named Samuel – had died at Alton Pancras in the Piddle valley, leaving his nephew a legacy of land called Mill Grounds at Buckland Newton and a residue of £1,700. Uncle Sam Crane, although twice married, had no surviving children so his nephew became the principal beneficiary.

Although his uncle’s will meant that Samuel was comfortably off, it is not certain whether he had any other sources of income. There is also no record of his salary as a farm manager at Bloxworth, and whether this included accommodation and food. Since by now his diary keeping had ceased, there are no details of how Sam earned a living after his move to Cerne.

Samuel Crane died in 1815, aged 69. Whatever income Elizabeth was able to provide, the time in which she could have applied it was very brief, as she followed her husband to the grave only three months later, leaving an estate worth £35,000. Today Samuel and Elizabeth lie together in Cerne Churchyard.

The following year Sam Jr and James married, at Compton Valence, women who may have been sisters. Samuel married Jane Davis and made his marital home at Godmanston; the couple’s only child died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. James married Charlotte Davis that June.