Dorchester

In Speed’s plan of Dorchester published in 1610, the gallows prominently illustrated as two uprights with a connecting crossbeam, was marked at the junction of what today is Icen Way and South Walks. In an earlier time, Icen Way was known as Gaol Lane and started at the Gaol then on the corner of High East Street; the final section leading to the gallows was known as Gallows Hill and for many men, women and children the journey along Gaol Lane was their last.

This final journey along the narrow lane from jail to gallows was for some, heretics and traitors, even more of an ordeal. Dragged by their heels by horses frightened by the crowd to be strung up and disembowelled while still alive, their quartered remains boiled before being despatched to outlying villages as a warning to others.

Dorchester the county town was host to the Assizes, sentences handed down were quickly executed, and in those days the theft of a few shillings would merit a death sentence. Following the Assizes there was a barbaric spectacle thought by government to improve the morals of the people. Actually, the opposite was true, the crowds often numbering thousands drank too much and degenerated into a drunken rabble shouting, cursing and jeering at those unfortunate beings who, to use the term of the times, were to be “turned-off.”

Nearly a century later the Dorchester gallows was moved to the Roman amphitheatre then as now known as Maumbury Rings. The young Mary Channing was brought here in 1703 and burned alive in front of a crowd said to number thousands. (See ‘Mary Channing – a path to the gallows’ in our Archived Articles section-Ed.) Females found guilty of crimes that are more serious were frequently burned alive presumably this was considered more humane than hanging, drawing and quartering, the fate endured by men.

Death by hanging was in practice death by slow strangulation; not until the early years of the 19^th century was the longer drop allowed.

The Lent Assizes at Dorchester in 1801 tried 48 cases mostly for theft. Several people found guilty of minor offences were ordered to be transported. (See ‘Transported to such place beyond the seas’ in Archived Articles – Ed.) Ten were sentenced to death including one woman, Lydia Hiskins; she had stolen a bank note.

By the mid 19^th century the long drop had been in use for nearly fifty years and the gallows had been arranged at the entrance to the prison in North Square and later moved inside the prison to a spot with views overlooking the meadows by the river.

One of the last public executions at the prison entrance was that of Martha Brown, which was witnessed by a young Thomas Hardy and is said to have haunted him all his life. (See Elizabeth Martha Clarke – “a most kind and inoffensive woman.” Published 24^th December 2009 in Real Lives category.)

“Hang Fairs” held below the jail would attract people to Dorchester from all over the county. By daybreak all the best vantage points were taken and the spectators occupied their time drinking, fiddling and dancing. Two centuries on and the public was still attracted to these dreadful spectacles, viewed by many as a free entertainment.

The Royal Mail coach from London pulled in to the King’s Arms at about 9.30 a.m. after a 13-hour journey from London and its arrival determined the time of execution, usually stayed in case there was a last minute reprieve from London.

The last public execution at Dorchester was in 1863. Two men, Preedy and Fooks, were to die on the same day. The Vicar of Fordington, The Rev. Henry Moule, was concerned about Preedy and frequently visited the man in jail. Following the executions The Rev, Moule published a book entitled ‘Hope against Hope,’ an account of Preedy’s life and his repentance. (See ‘The Prisoner a Padre Befriended’ published 9th February 2010 in the Real Lives category.)

This double execution drew thousands from far and wide. It was reported that two brothers erected a grandstand on the meadows and charged for seats. Their enterprise was so well supported that the stand collapsed under the weight of the spectators who all subsided into the mud below.

For year’s the saddler’s shop now long closed but then in High East Street supplied the new rope needed for the gallows. This was always the best quality hemp and probably supplied from Bridport.

In the Dorchester Gallery at the CountyMuseum there are on display two lead weights each about the size of a brick, engraved with the word “Mercy.” Silvester Wilkins was a very light man and even with the benefit of the long drop he faced a lingering death, the weights were a humane gesture from the Governor of the jail. Wilkins was executed in 1833.

Six Roman Catholics were executed on a charge of high treason during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and then there were the 13 prisoners condemned by Judge Jeffreys, who suffered on the old Gallows Hill. The thirteen were hung in succession one after the other, their bodies treated in the manner reserved for traitors. The quarters of 12 men were distributed in Dorchester and the body of one man handed to his friends by order of the Judge.

There is reference in the Weymouth and Melcombe Regis records to a bill of costs in connection with a gallows erected at Greenhill. It reads: “Disbursements for the gallows, burning and boiling the rebels executed per order of this town – £15 14s. 3d.” It is reported that the horrible preparations for the final disposal of the bodies went on in the sight of the victims. These horrors would have been repeated at Dorchester, Lyme Regis and other towns in the county.

The last execution at Dorchester was of David Jennings who had murdered a night watchman. Jennings was 21 years old when he was executed in 1941.

There were some in the 18 and 19th centuries who explored the notion that criminals shared common physical characteristics: the study of phrenology was in its early stages but it was thought a person’s features or expressions were an indication of their personality. During this period it was not unusual for casts to be made of the heads of executed criminals in furtherance of these ideas.

In the middle years of the 19th century the Dorchester Gaol employed the services of Dr. John Good as its prison surgeon. Dr Good is known to have applied for licences to make casts of the heads of some executed prisoners, although it is not clear why as there are no records to suggest he had any particular interest in phrenology or physiognomy.

In the 1960’s four casts were offered to the Dorset County Museum and as far we know they remain in store there. Dr John Good practiced from 48 High West Street, Dorchester, and when he retired his son William Good took over and was joined by a partner, Gerald Taylor. Dr Taylor later moved to Icen House, Icen Way, Dorchester. The four casts moved with him and resided in the garage of Icen House until either Dr Taylor or an associate offered them to the museum.

In a paper published in 2000 G.A. Chester, having sifted through all the available documentary evidence and newspaper reports then carefully considering all that is known about the characteristics of the persons hanged at Dorchester between 1833 and 1887, makes a compelling case for the casts being from the heads of: Charles Fooks; Edwin Alfred Preedy; Jonah Detheridge and Thomas Ratcliffe. (See our story ‘The Prisoner a Padre Befriended’ published 9th February 2010 in the Real Lives Category).

A note made by Thomas Hardy dated 9th of September 1888 provides more information about the making of the casts: “T. Voss used to take casts of heads of executed convicts. He took those of Preedy and Stone. Dan Pouncy held the heads while it was being done. Voss oiled the faces, and took them in halves, afterwards making casts from the masks. There was a groove where the rope went, and Voss saw a little blood in the case of Stone, where the skin had been broken – not in Preedys.” In his account Hardy has confused Stone, who was the victim, with Fooks, who killed Stone.

Thomas Haviland Voss (1806-1889) of Durngate Street, Dorchester was listed in directories as a builder and a plasterer. After his death the Dorset County Chronicle published an obituary on the 3rd of October 1889 saying: “Dorchester has just lost its oldest tradesmen in the person of Mr Thomas Haviland Voss. The deceased who belonged to an old and much respected Dorchester family whose connection with the town extended considerably over a century was in business himself for more than half-a-century as a plasterer, &c, from which he retired some years ago.” Thomas Voss’ grandson, Harold Lionel Voss, was reputed to be Thomas Hardy’s favourite chauffeur.

There are no records of casts being made of the heads of any other criminals executed at Dorchester. We know the casts were made under the supervision of Dr Good but we can only wonder about why he wanted them.

On the 2nd of June 1887 the residents of Dorchester turned out and lined the gaily decorated streets to welcome the Prince of Wales. He was met on his arrival by the Mayor, Mr Alfred Pope, the Lord Lieutenant Lord Ilchester, and Mr Brymer, the High Sheriff. The Prince drove through the town in an open carriage and was accompanied by Lord Alington and the Hon. Humphrey Sturt and attended by General Teesdale.

The visit was on the occasion of the Bath and West of England Show. At a luncheon at the Corn Exchange the Aldermen and Councillors were presented to the prince. Afterwards he was taken to the Show-yard where he was shown around by Lord Ilchester.  Reports made at the time say he was “heartily cheered on his return drive through the town.” He departed by train late in the afternoon.

We have placed in the photo section a copy of an etching taken from a photograph of the event shot by Walter Pouncy the  Dorchester photographer.

It is probably impossible to exaggerate the sovereign status of Maiden Castle among the 80 known defended prehistoric hillforts in Dorset alone, or to play down its importance in the heyday of this type of site throughout England as a whole. Yet this fortified hill is of no great elevation, being plainly visible from the air as an extensive kidney-shaped enclosure girded about by three great tiered embankments or ramparts with interstitial ditches. From ground level however, this amazing site, barely two miles south west of Dorchester town centre, may appear only as a great linear embankment or ridge.

To re-trace Maiden Castle’s evolution from its earliest antiquity we have to regress some six thousand years to the time of the first farmer’s arrival in England. At that time the Maiden hill would probably have appeared as a plain insignificant low elevation on the tract of lowland between the river Frome to the north and the coastal ridge to the south. It is further likely that the site and its immediate environment was well wooded in those days, or until the agricultural immigrants arrived.

These immigrants were settlers of the New Stone Age (Neolithic) from continental Europe. Finding the hill a favourable location for establishing a communal base, the hill and the surrounding land were clear-felled and the eastern end (knoll) was enclosed by a discontinuous bank and double line of ditches, creating the feature known to archaeologists as a causewayed enclosure. This had an area of about 20 acres, but very little activity took place within it at first. Later the enclosure seems to have served a charnel function for the ritual disposal of the dead, as the deposition of a considerable amount of human and animal bone with some pottery took place in the ditches and pits.

There is then evidence that the site went out of use in the later Neolithic. Following this the bank was razed and partly overlain by the construction of a type of monument unknown from anywhere else outside Dorset. This was an extremely elongated mound known as a bank barrow, which in the Maiden Castle example is 545 metres (1790 feet) long and was found to contain a mutilated burial at one end. This suggests that the bank barrow may have originally been a long barrow, which for some possibly ritualistic reason was greatly extended.

For until the early first millennium BC it appears that Maiden Castle seems to have been a place serving an almost exclusively ritual or funerary function. There is no evidence for any continuation or extension of habitation within the enclosure from the late Neolithic and into the Bronze Age. The only feature to be added during this period being a round barrow, which could well be contemporary with the barrow to be seen in the ploughed field to the north-west.

It has therefore been supposed that towards the end of the Neolithic around 2000 BC the focus of settlement shifted towards Poundbury Camp, the other major prehistoric site near Dorchester, or else into the Frome valley. Certainly during the Bronze Age the land around Maiden Castle was divided up for agriculture by means of lynchets and field systems. This has been taken to indicate increasing pressure on the land from population growth, though there is no evidence that the hilltop itself was ever brought into cultivation.

By the Mid Bronze Age some land became exhausted from over cultivation. A Revival of Maiden Castle as a focus of occupation then appears to take place around the same time, for a bank was constructed from north to south down the middle of the hill, segregating the Neolithic enclosure from the western half. There is some indication that the latter was then used for ranching or grazing sheep. High-caste burials evidently continued locally, as the dividing bank is associated with the appearance of more round barrows.

One of the popular misconceptions about hillforts is that they were wholly an innovation of the Iron Age peoples, and so had no precursors in the earlier period. But it is now recognised that many of these fortified hills had their origin in the Bronze Age, although they were unlikely to have been fully revetted at this time.

The arrival of the Iron Age in Britain is usually taken at around 700 BC, when a new wave of settlers from the continent arrived in southern England. At Maiden Castle possible pressure of population forced the new immigrants to bring the hilltop into use as a place to live and not just for stock-keeping or religious functions. A single rampart was constructed at the east end, using the line of the much earlier Neolithic enclosure bank almost entirely, with a ditch and double portal entrance retained throughout later modifications. This enclosed about 16 acres, but was later enlarged to 47 acres to take in
the west knoll. With this enlargement the original defences were strengthened and double entrances protected by outworks constructed at each end. At the east entrance two defended corridors were also designated.

Many hut dwellings were constructed, but from around 200 BC some abandonment of the site for smaller settlements outside seems to have taken place, for some of the defences were eroded and some huts collapsed. Then in about 150 BC the main rampart was doubled, additional lines of defence were built, and the outworks around the east entrance were greatly increased in complexity. Though curiously, the ramparts on the south side were never finished properly. Here they are of the type called ‘glacis’ i.e. the counter scarp of the bank sloped straight down into the ditch. But by the Mid Iron Age settlement within the enclosure was well organised, with areas for living, religion and animal husbandry.

Between 100 and 75 BC the site underwent another major reconstruction. The inner rampart was modified and the outer ones strengthened. (Initially these ramparts were of the box type, i.e. they were revetted by timber on both sides.) The inner gates were left unaltered, but both entrances were completely re-modelled with greater depth and complexity. This persistent reinforcing of the ramparts has been interpreted as an expression of civic pride or as a defence against rival tribes beyond the hill or, ultimately, the Romans.

But the arrival of the Romans in the area was a whole century in the future when Maiden Castle was at its peak, though anticipation of a Roman invasion could have been rife by the early 1st century. Nevertheless the threat seems to have prompted last minute fortifications at the entranceways in readiness, but to no avail. The threat became a brutal reality in 45 AD when a cohort of the 2nd Legion under the command of Vespasian (a future emperor) laid siege to the hillfort at the east entrance. Despite the complexity of the interlocking outworks, the Roman’s superior arsenal and tactics easily surmounted the obstacles.

Those survivors from among the many slain in the ensuing conflict are thought to have abandoned the site for settlements below, as their way of life in primitive timber hovels would have been out of keeping with the Roman way. After the conquest of the hill a square, roofed shrine with accompanying priest house was built in the north-central part of the enclosure.

With this temple the retraceable history of Maiden Castle is concluded and then lost for another 19 centuries. In the 1930 the eminent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler undertook his famous excavation of the east entrance area and revealed to the world the grizzly fate of the hillfort’s defenders. He excavated a cemetery of the fallen, many showing broken bones and in one instance the skeleton of a man with the Roman ballista-bolt which killed him still embedded in his spine! The finding of mounds of ammunition showed that the defenders had collected pebbles from Chesil Bank to use as sling stones.

Interestingly, it has been said that Wheeler, in concentrating on the late Iron Age and Roman phases of the hill’s history, disturbed the causewayed enclosure without having any idea of what it was or that it was there – in other words he discovered it by accident.

More recently in 1985 and 1986 new excavations were undertaken with the aim of extending Wheeler’s trenches to extract new data. But in conclusion it can be said that much about the earlier part of the Maiden Castle story is based on flimsy evidence, and is therefore not above re-appraisal should more information be forthcoming in the future.

One of Dorset’s Elizabethan gems is Kingston Maurward Manor, a rare E-plan house, of which only Parnham, Chantmarle and Anderson Manor bear some comparison. But the latter had their origins some one hundred years later than the manor at Maurward, so making its ground plan unique for the Dorset of its century.

It was in about 1597 that Christopher Grey, a descendant of a county family who had married into the Maurward family some two centuries earlier when they inherited the estate named after them, built the house in Maurward Park that would become known as The Old Manor. Little information about the building of this house has been handed down, and virtually nothing is known about where the Greys had been living up until then. However, it has been noted that a particular architectural detail of the house – window mullions with moulded bases – also occurs in Wolfeton House near Dorchester, suggesting that the same mason had been employed on both houses.

Angel Grey, grandson of Christopher, then built an extension onto the south-east side of the Old Manor early in the 17th century, though his reason for doing so is not exactly known. Three quarters of a century later in 1700 George Pitt married Laura Grey, a descendant of Angel, and they commissioned the building of a new house on a site across the park from the manor. This is now Kingston Maurward House.

Structurally, the attic of the Old Manor comprises eight great A-frames and some of these still bear numbers carved into them by the Tudor carpenters. The joists supporting the first and second floors are 15” x 15” oak beams. The house is entered through the middle wing of the west front, where the screens passage would originally have been. The Great Hall would have been off to the right with the Great Kitchen opposite, occupying the north wing of the ‘E’.

More recently the foundations of what appears to have been a staircase tower once occupying the space between the Tudor house and the Grey extension were discovered, though nothing else remains of the original tower today. Of course, there must have once been a means of access to the upper storeys which was later destroyed. As it happened Angel Grey, the builder of the 17th century extension, was a staunch Royalist, and it has been supposed that the destruction of the staircase occurred during the Civil War by a troop of local Roundheads, perhaps in an attempt to render the upper floors of the house uninhabitable.

By the time the new house built by Pitt in 1700 was completed the Old Manor had become subordinate and largely un-maintained as the estate then passed through other owners. Dorset County Council eventually bought this house in 1947 and converted it into five private residences for council tenants, but by the late 1950’s it had again fallen into disuse. By 1947 however, the new house had become the home of the county’s agricultural and horticultural college.

After the Old Manor had fallen derelict the County Council, with the support of the agricultural college, came to an agreement to have the building demolished, a decision which led to a public outcry. For a while nothing was done, but then a chance meeting at a London party between the manager of a Bedfordshire plastics company and the secretary of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings proved to be the critical fulcrum.

Rohan Sturdy had a sound personal reason for being enthused by what he heard about Maurward Old Manor from the SPAB secretary. He belonged to a scion of the Sturdys of Trigon near Wareham and accordingly felt his roots to lie in Dorset.
Sturdy was then living in Bedfordshire to be near his business, but in 1962 Dorset County Council leased the manor to him at a peppercorn rent, in return for an obligation on his part to restore it. For the next six years until 1968 contractors were at work on restoring the house almost every day. Sturdy’s daughter, who had a second home at Lulworth, also threw herself into this labour of love, taking on an assistant supervisory role.

Upon completion a grateful County Council even granted Sturdy a freehold on the property, though the businessman never lived there himself; neither did his son, a farmer in Gloucestershire, when in turn the house was bequeathed to him. For the next decade the house would be sub-let to tenants before being privately sold to the predecessors of the present owners.

During its years of dereliction the Old Manor suffered extensive deterioration in its structure and ground management. When the work of restoration began most of the windows had lost their glass and floors had collapsed from being infested with death watch beetle. Outside, the peace of the grounds was disturbed by the sound of clucking and crowing from henhouses on an adjoining chicken farm.

In his restoration, sturdy incorporated imitations and fittings from other houses. For example, restoration of some of the panelling was modelled on original panelling in Stinsford Church. The 17th century stairway tower was restored, recycling masonry from a demolished Tudor house in Weymouth, while the re-installed spiral staircase, which comes into use on the 1st floor, is said to have been made from the timber of a single oak grown on the Trigon estate. Another staircase was brought from Haddon Hall in Suffolk and installed in a new hall built into the space formerly occupied by the screens passage and part of the Great Kitchen. Sturdy also converted much of what had been the Great Hall into an L-shaped drawing room in which the original Tudor fireplace was re-exposed after removing eight layers of lathe and plaster.

The remaining space – actually the ground floor of the north wing – is now a spacious comfortable dining room. The new kitchen was installed between the drawing room and the large room occupying most of the ground floor space in the Greys extension wing. Access to the drawing room is through an imposing archway that Sturdy called ‘Angels arch’. He further re-inforced some of the original oak beams with girders or steel cradles and installed several bathrooms.

Under the present owners the voluminous and long-deserted attics have been modernised, and one has been converted into a luxurious bed sitting room. Maurward Old Manor is now in the formative years of a new life as a guesthouse, with three superb bed-and-breakfast suites installed on the 1st floor. For one of these suites a custom designed and made four-poster bed in Elizabethan style was commissioned, reproducing the family crest of the Maurwards on one side and that of the Greys on the other. Rusting glazing bars in the windows have been replaced with ones made of stainless steel, and in the garden an Elizabethan yew hedge has been planted.

The Old Kingston Maurward Manor is therefore effectively an “Elizabethan” manor built in the 1960’s! And on inspection it would be hard to imagine a reproduction more faithful to the original anywhere. Under the present owners devoted labours it has been given a new lease of life, and one in which it is earning a living for itself. The Old Manor is indeed a credit to Maurward Park.