Dorset Ancestors

One miserable morning nine centuries ago a group of despondent monks were trudging forlornly through the village of Thorncombe on their way home to Waverley Abbey in Surrey, a place they had left almost a decade earlier. They had spent the intervening years at Brightley in Devon where in 1136 they established a Cistercian Monastery.

Following the death of their patron Richard de Brioniis and finding the land at Brightley was too barren, the monks abandoned the project and decided to return to their home Abbey. As they passed through Thorncombe they met Adelicia de Brioniis who listened to their tale of woe and told them she was the sister of their patron. Adelicia honoured the wish of her late brother and offered the monks the use of the Manor of Thorncombe and a site by the River Axe at Harescath (Cleveland says: Heresbath), later known as Forde. In that same year the Abbey was re-founded and within seven years the Monastery of Forde Abbey was built.  Boswell says: “it is generally understood that a part of her design was, to make it a place of refuge for those whom the war between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen might have ruined.” The monastery flourished and for four centuries it was well known as a seat of learning.

Abbot Baldwin, the third abbot, had been Bishop of Worcester and from 1184 until his death on the 19th of November 1190 he was Archbishop of Canterbury; he had only been in his role as Abbot of Forde Abbey for a year before his death. King Richard the Lionheart sent Baldwin ahead to the Holy Land; he was present at the fighting with Saladin at Acre, where he fell victim to pestilence and died.

John Devonius was the fourth abbot from 1191 to 1214. He was said to be one of the most learned men of his day and he was confessor to King John. He wrote Sermons on the Final Verses of the Song of Songs a work that has been passed down through the centuries and is still in print today – even being available from Amazon!  Abbot John had previously been Prior at Forde before going to Bindon Abbey at Wool. He died on the 21st of April 1214. Forde Abbey became a wealthy foundation and by the 14th century owned some 30,000 acres of land.

The last abbot, Abbot Chard, was appointed in 1521. He set about restructuring the fabric of the building and spent all the available monastic money repairing and restoring the existing Cistercian building and completing some extensions. The dissolution of the larger monasteries came in 1539, Abbot Chard, after delaying the surrender of the monastery at the end, opted to quietly hand Forde Abbey to Henry Vlll. Chard then became vicar of Thorncombe, a position he held until his death in 1543.

The Abbey and its lands were leased by the Crown to Richard Pollard. During the next century there followed a succession of distant landlords. It was in this period that the Abbey Church, all 190 feet of it, was lost; stone was stolen and the abbey vandalised.

 Then, in 1649 salvation for Forde Abbey came when it was purchased by Edmund Prideaux, who transformed the building into a private home. Prideaux was Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis and a supporter of the parliamentary cause; he became Oliver Cromwell’s Attorney General.

In 1659 Edmund Prideaux died and was succeeded by his son, also Edmund. One night in 1680 Edmund played host to the Duke of Monmouth, an innocent entertainment that was later to cost him his freedom and nearly his life. Five years later after the Battle of Sedgemoor, when James ll defeated Monmouth’s Protestant rebels, Edmund Prideaux found himself suspected of having supported Monmouth. He was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London and the notorious Judge Jefferies demanded £15,000 to avoid an appointment with the hangman and secure his pardon. He returned to Forde Abbey where he lived quietly until his death in 1702.

At Edmund’s death the estate passed to his daughter Margaret and her husband Francis Gwyn, who was to become Secretary of War to Queen Anne. They and their descendants lived at Forde Abbey throughout the 18th century and created the gardens. John Fraunceis, the last of the Gwyns, was unable to afford the upkeep of the house and gardens and rented the Abbey to Jeremy Bentham.

Bentham was a radical philosopher and is known to have entertained some of the greatest minds of the day here including; John Stuart Mill; David Ricardo, the economist, and Sir Samuel Romilly, the legal reformer.

John Fraunceis Gwyn died in 1846. The Abbey’s contents were sold and the house and estate was purchased by a Bristol businessman, John Miles, who reportedly lived in five rooms, letting the rest of the building deteriorate.

In 1863 Forde Abbey was saved again and saw a great revival of its fortunes when it was purchased by Mrs Bertram Evans. She passed away in 1894 when Forde Abbey passed to her son William Herbert Evans and he left it to his cousin Elizabeth, who with her husband Freeman Roper moved into the Abbey in 1905.

We would not usually trespass much nearer to the here and now but mention should be made of the fact that when Elizabeth Roper died in 1943 the responsibility for caring for the house and estate passed to her second son, Geoffrey and his wife Diana. Geoffrey Roper lived at the Abbey for close on eighty years; he added the arboretum and planted many of the woods. Nowadays, Forde Abbey is clearly a treasured and well managed property. More recent developments have included the establishment of an acclaimed herd of Devon cattle.

The public can visit the estate, as architecturally there is much to see. The most interesting parts of the Abbey are Abbot Chard’s tower and the Great Hall with its original carved panelled ceiling, which was his refectory. The monks’ dormitory and the grand staircase and its ceiling are the work of Inigo Jones. The Chapel was originally the monastic Chapter House; the 16th century Perpendicular east window of Abbot Thomas Chard and the pulpit and panelling added by Inigo Jones are a delight, as is the famous Mortlake tapestries from Raphael’s original cartoons for the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

The village of Thorncombe is situated close to the border with Somerset and Devon in an area of outstandingly beautiful countryside. The Cottages lining its hilly streets appear to have more in common with Devon than Dorset, which is not surprising as until 1843 the parish, a part of the Axminster hundred, was in Devon. The village is recorded in Domesday as Tomecone and was held by Viscount Baldwin de Brionne. The name derives from the Saxon torn and cumb meaning low ground where thorns grow.

The church is new, built in 1867 on a site about 50 yards north from the old church, largely from the rubble of its predecessor that was demolished eighteen months earlier. The old church, in common with many other ancient churches, had over the centuries been so patched up as to make it unrecognisable from the original design and character of the church first dedicated by Bishop Brewster of Exeter in 1239. At the time of its demolition the old church consisted of a west tower, home to a chiming clock and five bells; a nave; north and south aisles; a chancel and two galleries.

Commenting on the demolition of the old church, a local newspaper report of 1867 says; “The Old Church at Thorncombe was a great antiquity and possessed many features of interest in connection with the ancient faith. It must have been endeared to the parishioners by a thousand sacred associations and we can hardly suppose that its entire destruction can really be the source of unmixed pleasure. The reasons assigned for the destruction of the church are that it has been allowed to fall into so dilapidated a state as to be beyond repair, and that, without the hideous galleries, which it was wisely determined to remove, sufficient accommodation could not be obtained.”

St. Mary’s had served the parish well, although as early as the late 18th century there were rumblings of discontent about its condition and inability to accommodate all the parishioners (apparently a quarter of them could not get in). The new church was designed by J. Mountford Allen of Crewkerne. Included in the new building is a fifteenth century brass representing Sir Thomas and Lady Joan Brook of which Pevsner says: “The best brasses in Dorset.” The present church houses five bells and has a restored 16th century pulpit with linen-fold panelling. The vicar’s pew includes early 17th century panels and figures. Just outside of the village there were two dissenting chapels: the Venn Chapel and the Ebenezer Chapel; we believe both are now private residences.

John Bragge, a member of the Sadborrow family, was rector here and a royalist sympathiser. He was fined so heavily by Cromwell that he was unable to perform his duties towards his parishioners. On his death the post was left vacant and the villagers had to petition Parliament; as a result the Reverend Samuel Hood was the rector here from 1761 to 1777. His two sons Samuel and Alexander both rose to become Admirals.

Thirty-three men from Thorncombe were sought after by the notorious Judge Jeffries for their part in the failed Monmouth Rebellion during the 17th century, though few of them were captured.

The ruins of a fortified manor house, the home of the Brook family, can be found in the hamlet of Holditch; another hamlet within the parish is Hewood. The hamlet of Laymore is the site of a former flax works. In the 18th century Thorncombe was involved in the wool trade and lace-making industry. As these industries moved away the population that had stood at about 1,500 declined; the 2001 census produced a population figure of 714 for the parish.

Also within the parish is Sadborow, a country house of neo-classical design set in a small park, built between 1773 and 1775 by John Johnson. By far the most interesting and important building here is Forde Abbey, which will be the subject of a separate article.