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A Day Out at Blandford

It’s been called England’s finest Georgian rural market town. The streets around the Market Square are very much as they were rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1731 that started in a tallow chandler’s. I quaffed a cider on the site: it’s now the King’s Arms, just off Salisbury Road, 100 yards from the square. Only 150 yards further on, the Ryves Almshouses escaped the fire because the roof was tile instead of thatch. The building was just less than 50 years old at the time of the conflagration: rebuilding of the town took around 40 years.

In Salisbury Road over a cycle shop is an inscription in memory of Alfred Stevens who created the impressive memorial to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul’s Cathedral. (Visit Archived Articles Section and click on ‘Alfred Stevens – Painter and Sculptor.’ Pub. July 2003. Ed.) Nearby, at the entrance to the United Reformed Church, men were converting into flats a butcher’s and a printer’s, evidence of the fast increasing population. People must like Blandford.

After a generous pot of tea in the friendly Half Crown Café, I crossed the Market place to talk to Police Constable Liz Spicer, who patrols the town with a purposeful stride. “I like getting out and talking to people” she told me. But in this Georgian show place, down the road from Bryanstone School with its grand entrance arch and drive, on this day she was talking to magazine sellers, beggars and drifters, of whom I saw less than half a dozen all day.

Well, every town has had beggars and rough sleepers over the centuries. At the end of the afternoon I nearly became one myself, when my Editor was late turning up! In this connection, one of the inscriptions chiselled in professional manner into the kerbs and pavements says: “We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Well, that’s nice to know. The Rogers family are thought to have contributed to the earlier 15th century church. They owned much of Blandford and were Stewards there for hundreds of years.

Another inscription relating to the Bastard family name and a “careless tallow chandler” I would rather not repeat. It was the founders of the famous Blandford School of Architects, John and William Bastard, who rebuilt the church and Town Hall after the fire, which incidentally followed another in 1713. Only primitive ‘fire engines’ were available.

What dominates the town centre as it is on an island of high ground is this parish church of Saints Peter and Paul. Much of its contents survived from earlier times. And in the museum opposite are archaeological finds from a garden dig, which pre-date the church: they go back to the 17th century. Here is a scrap of paper with the draft wording in John Bastard’s own hand for his fire memorial of 1760, the arched construction in one corner of the churchyard. The Bastard family home is said to be nearby.

The museum has pictures of the railway station demolished in the late 1960’s and of “Blandford Forum”, the apple-green express passenger locomotive of the “West Country” class. Happy days! Unusually, there are also stone cuttings from buildings and pavements in the town and a large case entitled “Victorian Blandford.” In charge of the museum when I had a look around was a conversational Jewish lady who told me, on inquiry, that she escaped to Britain as a girl in 1938 from Vienna.

In the Close beyond and uphill from the church is one of the few buildings which survived the fire – the Old House – and the handsome Post Office and helpful library. Around the corner in Dorset Street I took a photograph of the one-time home of an honorary freeman of the borough. He was Jack Counter, who won the Victoria Cross in France in the First World War. If the Bastards were two of Blandford’s 18th century heroes, Jack Counter was one to bring honour to the town in the twentieth. His home is now Dorset House.

The Great Fire caused the deaths of 13 people and 480 families were made homeless. That is a measure of the disaster, which came upon a town, which by the previous century had become an important stage on the Exeter to London coach route. Someone has said: “The location of the town…has made it a natural centre since mediaeval times.”

Approaching it you look down on it lying in a broad valley between the grand rolling chalk downs, which have proved excellent for military exercises, and is why the headquarters of the Royal Corps of Signals is found here and has an excellent museum of its own, tracing the history of military communications.

Once there were cottage industries, making bone lace, buttons and gloves. Today sees expanding light industries, but the town actually depends on its shops and businesses.

Despite the existence of an eastern bypass, opened nearly 20 years ago, there is a constant stream of traffic through the town all day at around 10 m.p.h. which makes crossing the road hard for pedestrians, and this is where the crossings come into their own. A local motorist told me that it’s simply quicker to drive through the town, which stands the reasoning for bypasses on its head.

I asked which way to the river, was directed down a side road and was soon there. What a wonderful sward of grass, with a millstream running through it. And there was the Stour, much covered with green duckweed. Downstream the meadows were once the park of Lord Portman’s Bryanstone House, now a public school, as we have seen. No development is allowed here.

I approached the handsome suspension bridge leading to Blandford St. Mary village and its brewery, which rises up, as all breweries seem to, like some bizarre continental castle with distinctive chimney and smell of malt and hops. About 100 tonnes of barley are trucked in every week, and hops come from Kent or Worcestershire, and even Bavaria. Some 450 people work here, and at full pressure 57,000 cans or 18,000 bottles can be filled every hour. When you think that beer sales are falling as drinkers get older, this factory needs to make the most of its quality products. In fact, soft drinks are also produced, and actually account for 55 per cent of total volume.

Before leaving Blandford, the visitor should not miss the Crown Hotel and the Greyhouse and Red Lion buildings. The Great Dorset Steam fair, held near the town for the greater part of a week in the late summer or early autumn, brings crowds to visit the greatest show of its kind not only in the land but in the world, with around 100 fair organs and probably the greatest working display of steam traction and stationary engines anywhere.

In an entirely different sphere is the restored St. Leonard Chapel, a leper hospice in the 13th century as originally built, and which has apparently not been used as a chapel since 1760.

It was in the later mediaeval period that Blandford Forum, as it is generally known, developed as one of the major market towns in eastern Dorset. All through history it has been an important crossing-point of the Stour, at first by ford. Here the main roads from Poole to Shaftesbury and Salisbury to Dorchester meet. In 40 year the population has grown from 3,000 to around 9,000 – a staggering rise. People obviously like the place.

At the end of the day, from its restaurants, bistros, pubs and cafes, I chose a takeaway opposite the parish church and went home with a huge burger, salad and French fries. A cool late September breeze was blowing as we climbed the downs and distanced ourselves from Blandford and in an hour it was quite dark over the Dorset hills.

 

This article was first published on our earlier site in November 2003

Thomas Weld and The Yeomanry

The Yeomanry was formed in 1794. One of the first landowners to raise a troop was Thomas Weld of Lulworth and he became a Captain in the Dorset Yeomanry, as did other troop leaders. Later in 1794 King George III was asked to grant Commissions to all the troop leaders, but in the case of Thomas Weld he was unable to do so as he was a Roman Catholic. The Government had ordered that no Roman Catholic was to be allowed in the Yeomanry, so Thomas Weld had to resign.

The Weld’s were suspected of harbouring French refugees in the cellars of Lulworth Castle and Major James Frampton was ordered to check. Frampton was a friend of the Welds and when he arrived at the castle with his troop he was welcomed most cordially by the butler. “We have come to search the cellars, John; what have you got down there?” The butler replied “only beer, why not come in and try it?”and with that the whole troop dismounted and accepted the butlers invitation.

Major Frampton’s report made no mention of the beer and simply stated “I have visited the Cellars at Lulworth Castle. I found no French refugees there.”

Wimborne St. Giles – The Parish Church

The parish of Wimborne St. Giles extends to nearly 6,000 acres from the East Dorset heath land in the south-east north-westwards to the edge of Cranborne Chase; in the middle is the village that gives its name to the parish and in the middle of the village is the parish church.

Hutchins records that in 1732 the nave and the tower of St. Giles Church were almost entirely rebuilt. Similarities with the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Blanford have led to speculation that the architects were the brothers John and William Bastard, although no documentary evidence exists to support this opinion. In 1887 north and south arcades designed by G.F. Bodley were incorporated into the nave and a north chapel was added. Fire struck the church in 1908 destroying everything except the tower and two walls of the 18th century nave.

A report from the time tells us that on Tuesday the 29th of September workmen had been doing lead soldering work in the tower rafters. At about eleven o’clock on Wednesday evening Thomas Blake, George Bennett and Walter Cutler, all estate workers, noticed smoke coming from the top of the tower; they obtained a key and took buckets of water up and put-out the fire. The fire rekindled itself and at thirty minutes past one o’clock on the morning of the 1st of October  the bells, which had been left in the up position after ringing practice, were released by the flames licking around the belfry; they started ringing and raised the alarm.

Many villagers turned out of bed including the Rev. J. Bouquet and Police Constable Arnold. Mr A.S. Wilbratham (the Shaftesbury’s estate manager) carried out church fittings including some recently purchased new oak benches, the pulpit, altar table and linen, thirty-five chairs and the church registers. First light revealed all that remained was a burnt out shell.

What we see today is a church rebuilt and refitted to the plans of Sir Ninian Comper but his work here has not met with universal acclaim. Pevsner in the Dorset edition of his ‘Buildings of England’ series criticises both structure and fittings. Appearing as an early Georgian building the walls are of Greensand ashlar chequered with panels of squared and knapped flint, and slate covered roofs. The church comprises a west tower, home to eight bells; nave; south porch; chancel; north aisle; north chapel and vestry.

The chancel and nave are structurally one separated by an oak rood screen which continues into the north aisle. Some are critical of the way Comper “tampered” with the inside creating a “preposterously” narrow south aisle separated from the nave by tall round piers. The seating in the nave is by Comper but the benches in the north aisle are those saved from the 1908 fire, as is the carved wood pulpit. The screen, very Gothic in appearance and also by Comper; the adjoining box is the Shaftesbury pew. Also by Comper is the West Gallery of wainscot oak; it has seating for choir and bell ringers and holds a fine organ. The Royal Arms on the front of the gallery are those of George II.

The west tower is in three stages with the lower two stages having corner buttresses. At the top a plain parapet with a balustraded panel at the centre of each side and at each corner a stone vase with a cast iron finial.  Under the tower is the west door leading into a fine wide vestibule

The east window above the altar, a memorial to the 8th Earl of Shaftesbury and Harriet his wife, is by Comper. The small window at the east endof the south wall above the Shaftesbury family entrance depicts Mary the Mother of Jesus and is a memorial to Mary Sibell, a daughter of the 9th Earl. East of the south porch entrance is a window reconstructed from fragments of German and Flemish glass collected after the fire from a window originally given by the 5th Earl in 1785. To the west of the south porch one small light commemorates the golden wedding of the 9th Earl and his wife Constance in 1949. The other light is a memorial to the Rev. Robert Harkness, Rector here at the time of the 7th Earl.

On the west wall at the back of the gallery a window of five lights is made up of two windows formerly in the north wall; they survived the 1908 fire. On the north wall in the gallery is another window by Comper to commemorate the silver wedding of the 9th Earl and his wife. Under the gallery a small window by Comper serves as a memorial to Miss Edith Milner a friend of the 9th Earl and his wife. The two large north wall windows are in memory of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and his wife Emily and the second is a memorial to Mrs John Ashley. The window behind the large Jacobean tomb in the North Chapel is “A Commemoration of the Coronation of King George V” on June 22nd 1911 and is also by Comper who is also responsible for the window over the Lady Chapel Altar – a memorial to the Duke of Westminster who died at St. Giles House.

To the right hand side of the Altar is an unusual memorial. It seems that during the building of the arcade in 1887 a robin nested here. The workmen of the time placed the nest and a letter in a bottle and this was discovered during the work carried out after the 1908 fire when another robin nested in the same spot. The bottle and the second nest have been replaced in the wall and the spot is known as The Robin Memorial.

Of the many monuments to the Ashley-Cooper family Pevsner says “the Ashley monuments are a splendid series, though desperately displayed. If only a museum-like mausoleum or gallery could be built for them.”

There is a memorial to the 7th Earl in the family pew in the south wall and he is buried in the family vault under the north side of the church. Also in the south wall, a much restored monument of a crusader believed to be Sir John de Plecy who died in 1313. The Plecy’s are Shaftesbury ancestors.

In the north wall is a memorial to the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury complete with a bust of the man. Lower down there are three carved female heads representing the Earl’s three wives. Other memorials recall the lives of the 3rd Earl who was a philosopher and the 4th Earl who was a friend of Handel. It was the 4th Earl who built the 18th century church. The grand tomb in the Lady Chapel is that of Sir Anthony Ashley.

Since 1672 when Anthony Ashley Cooper was created the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury the family have played an important and distinguished part in the history of England. For six hundred years the family seat has been at Wimborne St. Giles and St Giles House, the grand building we see today, was built in the mid 17th century replacing a modest manor house that originally stood on the site. The house is not open to the public but a visit to the parish church of St. Giles will tell you much about the family’s history.

 

 

 

Alfred Stevens – Sculptor

This is the story of how a Dorset house painter became so saturated with the Italian Renaissance, putting it into practice in England, that he is called a ‘descendant’ of Michelangelo himself. Yet he was a modest man.

“Look around you if you would see his memorial” is still said of Sir Christopher Wren, who, as his crowning achievement, rebuilt St.Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of 1666.

If you want to see the memorial to Blandford sculptor Alfred Stevens, you should go to the same place. Wren created the perfect majestic setting for the famous sculptor’s memorial to the Duke of Wellington – the nave of the cathedral is the only place for such a massive construction.

On a visit there in April 2003 I found it coated in white dust, which is understandable as the building is undergoing a facelift expected to last several more years. Thankfully it had not been covered with dust-sheets.

Starting life as a house painter and decorator in his father’s business, art-mad Stevens began a nine-year sojourn in Italy in 1833 at the age of 15, thanks to the patronage of a friendly Dorset clergyman, the Hon. And Rev. Samuel Best, rector of Blandford St.Mary; some people can sense greatness.

There in that sunny land, year after year, he was able to feast his eyes on 14th century paintings and visit Naples, Florence, Pompeii, Capri, Rome and Milan, studying the great painters and the architecture of the land.

It is said that the reversion towards Romanticism which occurred in the 19th century led in the West to an acceptance of conflicting standards and every style and taste, with little regard for skill or talent in the visual arts and literature.

However that may be, the man who was sculptor, painter, decorator, draughtsman, and designer of beer mugs, stoves, lamp posts – and memorials – was to use his Italian experience supremely well for he has even been compared to the greatest artists of the Renaissance suh as Michelangelo. He brought their intuition and skill back to his native land and we have it forever, thanks to a son of Dorset.

Stevens had his own pupils, and much of his work is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in west-central London and is apparent in the construction of the Royal Albert Hall nearby.

Perhaps for many the crowning glory of the great memorial of St. Paul’s is that a Dorset horse was modelled for the equestrian stature of Wellington, mounted in triumph on the battlefield. It was due to such statesmen-soldiers that the United Kingdom is free today and not under a tyrant. No wonder it was called Great Britain… Yet if for nothing else, many Dorset people must have gone to St. Pauls’s to see the horse. Alfred Stevens never forgot his roots.

However, it is only truthful to add that he died before completion of the work and the horse was added later, to his design, topping the whole gargantuan pile. In creating the monument, he also drew upon mediaeval paintings in Salisbury Cathedral, another local touch.

The monument, including 12 Portland marble columns all the way from his native county, was moved from a side chapel to a more dominant position alongside the central aisle and seating of the great nave. This is one of the great buildings of the world.

Wellington was created duke on the surrender of Napoleon and was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of France. After Napoleon’s escape from the island of Elba, Wellington conducted his last military campaign, which culminated on the field of Waterloo in June 1815.

Stevens has been pictured as a humble man who missed his chance to be really great, but there are not many whose work is on display to millions every year. It was Waterloo that ‘made’ Alfred Stevens. Starting work on the memorial in 1858, he worked on it for the rest of his life.

The central feature is the bronze of Wellington, with two allegorical groups: Valour triumphing over Cowardice, and Truth pulling out the tongue of Falsehood.

By contrast, there are two Stevens mosaics in the huge dome. He was also responsible for the decorations in and around great buildings in the capital, including the impressive lions on the British Museum railings.

A small carved wooden Gothic tower, modelled by Stevens on the tabernacle at Milton Abbey, was bequeathed to the Dorset County Museum, while Chettle House near Blandford has another example of his work.

One writer says “…his ambition was to give London great art in this Renaissance form.” It is that 30-feet-high monument, the biggest indoor monument that most people have ever seen, showing one of the illustrious heroes of England in his prime, that sticks in the mind.

It contrasts with those Latin-style paintings in the dome, where Steven’s work compliments that of another Dorset man, Sir James Thornhill.

For 17 years, while he worked on his great masterpiece at ground level, his health was failing and he suffered a paralytic stroke in 1872, dying three years later at the comparatively early age of 57. His London studio at Haverstock Hill would see his exacting standards no more. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, north London, along with many other well-known figures.

Said ‘The Times’ obituary: “He left neither wife, nor children, nor riches. He was insanely devoted to his art.” Most of his personal papers were destroyed by the executor.

Here was a man who might just have gone in an entirely different direction, perhaps a negative one. During the Reform Bill riots in Blandford, he unhorsed a dragoon; he was in the firing line in skirmishes in Italy; ands he visited villages, which were devastated by cholera. He even saw the inside of political cells.

On his return to Britain from Italy he returned to his home town and spent his time on long walks and over the drawing board. A director of the Tate Gallery said of him that he was the most masterly interpreter of the Classic tradition England has seen.

 

St. Mary’s Church – Sturminster Newton

A marble plaque under the east window in the chancel informs us that the work of rebuilding this place of worship commenced in 1825. Hutchins suggests St. Mary’s was completely rebuilt and records the completion in 1827 – surely an exaggeration. This is a large church and it would have been a remarkable achievement to have completely rebuilt it in two years. However, there is no doubt major rebuilding and additions to the design of William Evans were made in the early 19th century, the cost borne by the Revd T.H. Lane Fox. It is worth noting St. Mary’s had previously been rebuilt and restored by Abbot Selwood of Glastonbury three centuries earlier.

It appears William Evans added to an existing perpendicular building comprising a west tower, the aisle walls, arcades, and the nave with its wagon roof. Evans extended the north and south aisles to wrap around the 15th century tower, which he heightened and restored giving the tower new parapets and pinnacles. Above the tower’s west doorway is an original two light window. During the 1827 works a four light window was installed in the east wall of the second stage of the tower, now inside the nave. The north and south walls of the tower each have a small window and there is a window in the west wall similar to that in the lower stage. In each side of the third stage is a 15th century belfry window but the one in the east wall is masked by the heightened nave roof and the other three by the 1827 clock-faces. There are six bells: two dated to the early 17th century, while the others were new or recast in 1827. On the south wall of the tower is a square stone dial with Roman numerals, possibly 18th century.

The nave has north and south arcades of four bays with two-centred arches, parts of these are 14th century and restored in the 19th century but the eastern most arches appear to be 19th century. Above the arcades are clerestorey windows; those over the east bay opening into the north and south transepts are of 1827 but the others are medieval. The roof of the nave is late 15th or early 16th century.

The north aisle is partly original but the whole of the west end is of 1827. The two north windows each with three lights are 15th century and in the west wall a similar window but from 1827. The stained glass in the north east window is by Webb and was installed in 1911. The south aisle is uniform in size to the north but contains the main entrance from the south porch and a small doorway at the west end of the south wall. The two windows in the south wall are similar to those in the north aisle and of the 15th century; the west window is of 1827. The stained glass in the south east aisle window is by Harry Charles of Dublin (1889-1831) and was installed in 1921.

The chancel has a two-centred window of five lights in the east wall and the north and south walls have arcades of two bays opening to the vestry in the north and the south chapel. Above each arch is a clerestorey window. The north vestry and south chapel each have east windows of three lights and the north and south walls each have two similar windows. The stained glass in the south window in the chapel is by M. Lowndes and I.L. Gloag and dates from 1901.  The north and south transcepts each contain windows similar to the east window in the chancel and in the west walls are three-light windows. The window in the west wall of the north transept is by Gibbs and is dated 1865.

Inside the church are a number of monuments and floor slabs. In the north vestry on the south wall a monument to Hamnet Ward 1705 and on the west wall a stone tablet to Rebecca Stephens 1723. In the north transcept on the east wall a white marble tablet to Elizabeth and Susan Marsh 1839 and there are monuments to Charles Salkeld 1776; Selena Salkeld 1756; Thomas and Selena Dashwood 1817 and 1828; Joseph Bird and other members of that family; John Sweet 1756; Jane Ward 1709 and others.

The Ploughman Poet

Thomas Hardy once observed that:  “…here in Dorset, there are so many poets.”  Many of them, however, more deserving of recognition have drifted into the shadows created by the spotlight being on the likes of Barnes and Hardy.

Albert Charles Bailey was born at Osmington in 1859. He was the son of Thomas and Angelina Bailey, being one of eight children. The family was poor and Albert had to teach himself to read and write; growing-up he studied the works of all the literary giants of the time. His first book of poems was published in 1896 and sold very well.

The Bailey family moved from Osmington to Sutton Poyntz. Albert married Mary Cox of Puncknowle in 1886 and we learn from the 1891 census that the couple lived at Prospect Cottage, Preston, with their four children and one of Albert’s sisters, Evangelina. The census  describes Albert as a Poulterer, Egg Dealer and Market Gardener.

Ten years on the family had grown: Albert and Mary then had four sons and three daughters and the census return suggests that his literary work was being recognised: he is described in the 1901  census as an Author and Market Gardener.  However, in 1911 he is again described simply as a Market Gardener but we should not conclude he had abandoned his literary career.

In 1911 he became known as ‘The Ploughman Poet’ following a chance meeting with a special correspondent from a national daily newspaper who was on his way to Dorchester.  The journalist was so impressed with Albert’s work that when he arrived in Dorchester he sought out Thomas Hardy to ask if he knew him. Hardy replied “Yes, I have met him,” and added that had Albert Bailey been born in any county other than Dorset, he would have been acclaimed a prodigy.

Albert died in 1914 at the age of 55.

After the Georgian Summers

King George III’s enthusiasm for Weymouth was the making of the resort but it was the Duke of Gloucester who had first brought Royal patronage to the town when he built what was known as Gloucester Lodge on an open field facing the sea between what was then the northern limit of the town and the new Royal Hotel. In 1789 the king was advised to try the newly recognised ‘cure’ of sea bathing and the Duke lent his seaside home to his elder brother the King. In 1805 the King and the Royal Family stayed at Royal Lodge (as it had become known) from July until October but the holiday atmosphere was marred when news arrived of the death of the Duke of Gloucester, an event that deeply affected the King. On October 4th the King and his Court departed from Weymouth; he was never to return.

In the autumn of 1809 three of the King’s children returned to Weymouth and stayed from September until early November. The Princesses Amelia and Mary arrived ahead of their brother Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. This was a quiet holiday: Amelia was already seriously ill and she died the following year. The local press reported that Amelia benefited from her stay and was taken into the bay in a bathing machine “for the purposes of inhaling the sea air in its greater purity.” Princess Mary spent most of her time with her sister, just occasionally taking short walks on the esplanade and sands, accompanied by Adolphus or other members of the Royal Family who paid brief visits to Royal Lodge during this time; they included the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York, Clarence and Kent.

The Price of Wales – Prince Regent from 1811 onwards – did not share his father’s affection for Weymouth. His daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales had, while still a small child, accompanied her grandparents to Weymouth. She returned to the resort in 1814 and 1815 for long holidays at Royal Lodge. There exists a report of the eighteen-year-old Princess on one occasion referring to the town “as this odious place;” perhaps she was out of sorts because she seems generally to have enjoyed her stays at Weymouth.

She enjoyed the welcome given to her by local people and found the scenery around Weymouth much to her liking, as her grandfather had. The princess would travel in her carriage to the local villages and often stopped to talk to the inhabitants, as well as visiting the houses of the leading Dorset families. She seems to have inherited her grandfather’s love of the sea and used a naval guard ship as a Royal Yacht. This was in contrast to most female members of the Royal Family: a diarist in Weymouth in the 1790’s commenting on the royal trips in the channel wrote: “The King never seemed afraid of the weather. The Queen and the Princesses always wore dark blue habits on these occasions and I have often seen them looking very miserable and bedraggled on their return.”

Princess Charlotte’s visit in 1815 was such a success it prompted the author of one Weymouth Guide to optimistically predict “…it is generally believed that Weymouth will be the future summer residence of Her Royal Highness.”  The following year Princess Charlotte Augusta married Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg and in 1817 she died in childbirth.

On the 25th of October 1809 – the King’s Jubilee – Weymouth celebrated by laying the foundation stone to the statue of King George III, an event that was attended by the Duke of Cambridge and Princess Mary. Newspaper reports make no mention of any members of the Royal family being present when the completed statue was unveiled the following year. Later Princess Mary married her cousin the Duke of Gloucester, the son of the builder of Royal Lodge, and she was in residence there in November 1817, when the news of the death of the young  Princess Charlotte of Wales came. This was the last visit to Weymouth of any member of the family of King George III.

Following the death of George III, the Royal Lodge was sold on the 19th July 1820 for £4,000 and the Royal Pew in St. Mary’s Church was sold for £220.10s at the same time. Houses adjoining the Royal Lodge that had been used to accommodate members of the Royal family were also sold-off and reportedly fetched high prices. The furniture was sold separately and the enormous prices paid reflected the added value achieved with each piece being considered a relic of departing royalty.

The economic benefits gained by the town from the occasional royal visits after 1805 would have been small but the benefits of many years of patronage by the King were considerable. Thomas’s Weymouth Guide of 1815 says “…the inhabitants by such an influx of money have been encouraged to rebuild, beautify, and greatly enlarge the town, which in little more than twenty years has undergone a considerable transformation.”

Weymouth was now established as a seaside resort and the expansion begun in the days of ‘Royal Weymouth’ continued throughout the rest of the nineteenth century, considerably helped by the coming of the railway in 1857.

Dorset: a Woman’s View (Part 2)

Woodbury Hill and Charborough House

Celia Fiennes travelled home by way of Blandford and then headed southwards. She describes how “…we pass Woodbery (Woodbury) Hill eminent for a great Faire that is kept there of all things”. The fair dates from the times of Henry III and was once an important event that extended over several days. This is the Greenhill Fair of Thomas Hardy’s novels. Sir Frederick Treves in his Highways and Byways in Dorset tells us: “Since the time of Henry III, a fair has been held on this hill, commencing on September 18th, near about the festival of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This fair was at one time the most important in the South of England”. Treves was writing at the start of the 20th century, by which time the fair had declined and was reduced to a local event of little importance. In the heyday of the fair it had lasted five days and presented the lord of the manor with an income from tolls and fees totalling £100 a day.

Celia tells us “The road passed by Cherbery (Charborough), the foot of the hill; on the stop stands a pretty seate of Mr Earles my relation, the house is a new built house on the brow of a hill, whence you have large prospects of 20 mile round, you may see Shaftesbury 16 mile off”. Of Charboorough House she comments “…good gardens walled with plenty of fruit, good fish and decoy ponds”. Celia describes the fine entrance hall that “…leads you to a large parlour and drawing room and another parlour for smoakening, all well wanscoated and painted”. General Thomas Earle (or Erle) (1650-1720) fought in William III’s Irish campaigns and later in France and Spain. In times past the Earles held the manor for pouring water on the King’s hands on Easter or Christmas Day.

Another Visit to Dorset

In 1698 Celia Fiennes set off on another journey, which she describes as “My Great Journey to Newcastle and to Cornwall”. Along the way she comes again to Dorset entering the county by way of Chard and Leigh, where again she stays at a property owned by her relation, Mr Henly. It is not clear if this is the same Mr Henly of Colway, Lyme Regis, who she stayed with on her earlier visit to Dorset; the family owned both places at the time. Her next stop must have been a great disappointment for her – she called upon Mr Prideaux of Forde Abbey, which she says is “…a fine old house and well furnish’d but they permit none to see it…So I saw it not. Only drove by it to see my Cozens little girle at nurse”.

She then travelled to “…a little town called Maiden Newton and thence to Dorchester town 6 miles more, all a fine hard gravel way and much on the downs, this is good ground much for sheep: thence I went to Blandford 12 long miles through Piddletown and Milborne and Whitchurch there I staid with my relation Cos’n Collier, Husys and Fussells”. Celia pronounces it “good ground for sheep”. At the time sheep farming was a major activity in Dorset. A century later it was reported there were 800,000 sheep in the county of which 150,000 were sold annually and despatched out of the county.

What an adventurous woman Celia was! She travelled hundreds of miles, although her estimation of distance between places is not always accurate and her journey’s were made easier by the abundance of relations she had all over the country. Her comments about the pleasant prospects, trade and manufacturing, descriptions of buildings, and the sports and recreations of the communities she passed through provide a valuable social history of the time.

At the conclusion of her Journeys Celia urges both ladies and more so gentlemen to travel in their native land and suggests doing so would preserve them from the diseases of the vapours and laziness, and cure the “…evil itch of over valuing foreign parts”.  She had especially strong words for those gentlemen who represent the people in Parliament and she was of the opinion too many of them were ignorant about what was happening outside of the place they represented.  She thought they had a duty to familiarise themselves with what was happening in the rest of the country and should know of the “Genius of the Inhabitants, so as to promote and improve Manufacture and Trade and to encourage all projects tending thereto”.  Celia encourages ladies to take more notice of their neighbours to see how they may help them, especially the poor. This, Celia suggests, would alleviate the boredom and the burden of time spent tediously when not at the card or dice table and, she goes on, the fashions and manners of foreign parts will be less attractive.

Finally she says “…with a hearty wish and recommendation to all, but especially my own sex…to study those things which tends to improve the mind and makes our lives pleasant and comfortable as well as profitable in all the stages and stations of our lives and render suffering and age supportable and death less formidable and a future state more happy”.

 

Tolpuddle Personalities

The dates for this year’s Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival are the18th to 20th of July. There will be speeches, entertainment and marches, It is a useful and fascinating exercise to look into the personalities of some of the considerable number of people who were in an important way caught up in the drama of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Methodism, founded on an evangelical basis in the previous century, was in the early 19th. century becoming also a social force for the working class, and it meant everything to George Loveless, a man with a charismatic name and the foremost of the Martyrs. George had a strong character and was persecuted for his faith. He taught himself to read and write and was a lay preacher in the Weymouth circuit. There is no evidence that he mixed politics with his addresses in church, however.

One of a family of 10 surviving children, he was a few inches over five feet, with red whiskers and a strong chin. His wife was from Dewlish, a nearby village. He was 37 on his arrest.

James Loveless, his brother, was 25 and married with two children, Like George, he gave Methodist addresses. Thomas Standfield (44), was again a strong Methodist. James Brine, an Anglican, eventually married Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Standfield. John Standfield was, like Brine, only 21. James Hammett, born in 1811, was married three times and was not a Methodist.

It has been said the Celtic strain was visible in the physical characteristics of most of the men.

Fashionable Lord Melbourne, Home Secretary, was educated at Eton, Cambridge and Glasgow University. Earlier in life, he often ended his day at the gaming tables. He had a mentally deficient son. But what concerned him at the time of the Tolpuddle affair was the rise of trade unionism, despite the fact that the unions had been made legal. He had a family connection with Dorset, so was extraordinarily interested in the county.

The magistrate James Frampton, of Moreton House, not far from Tolpuddle, was a member of the upper class, believed in the monarchy, Great Britian, Church and Constitution. He had been to Paris and seen the Revolution at first hand. He was to be laid to rest in his home village at the age of 77.

Edward Legg, who gave evidence of a secret oath being administered, only did so under pressure. He apparently did not go to the meeting intending to become a spy.

So the six were sent out to New South Wales and Tasmania. George Loveless did not want his wife and family brought out, to the “distress and misery of this colony…” On his return to his cottage at Tolpuddle, and before leaving the district for good, he wrote the publication: “The Victims of Whiggery”. Tasmania and the separation from his family had done their worst, but his enthusiasm was undimmed. No doubt about it, here was a real union man, and it is difficult to over-emphasise his importance to the movement in general, and the significance of the annual memorial events at Tolpuddle.

But what of the judge? King William IV knighted Judge Baron Williams shortly after he had sent the Martyrs to the prison ships, and he was appointed to the King’s Bench. He died in 1846 aged 69, at his country seat in Suffolk.

 

 

Dorset: a Woman’s View

Celia Fiennes was born on June 9th 1662 in the manor-house at Newton Toney near Salisbury and died in 1741 at the age of 79. She inherited Puritan and Parliamentary sentiments from her parents: her father was Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes who served Cromwell as a member of the Council of State and as Keeper of the Great Seal. Her grandfather, who died the year she was born, was William Fiennes the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele; he had been a staunch Parliamentarian but he was also in favour of negotiating a settlement with the King. He accepted the Restoration in 1660 and was appointed a Privy Councillor to King Charles II.

Celia Fiennes is remembered today largely because of a travelogue she wrote as she toured the country on horseback. Travelling the length and breadth of the country from Hadrian’s Wall to Land’s End and from Yarmouth to Shrewsbury her words were intended for her near relatives but in 1888 Robert Southey and Mrs Emily Griffiths published Celia Fiennes work as: “Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary”.

Poole and Brownsea

In Part 1 of her Journeys (c. 1685-1696) she comes to Dorset from Salisbury and Wilton and on arrival has this to say: “I went to Blandford in Dorsetshire 18 miles through a hare warren and a forest of the kings – (Cranbourne Chase) – Blandford is a pretty neate country town – thence to Merley by Wimborne over a great river called the Stoure by a large arched bridge to a relation’s house, Sir William Constantines – thence to Poole  a little sea-port town 4 miles off where was a very good Minister in the publick church Mr Hardy”.

From Poole, Celia went to Brownsea Island, about which she has this to say: “We went by boate to a little Isle called Brownsea where there is much Copperice made, the stones being found about the Isle in shore in great quantetyes, there is only one house there which is the Governours, besides little fishermens houses, they all being taken up about the Copperice works…This a noted place for lobsters and crabs and shrimps, there I eate some very good”. The Copperice that Celie Fiennes refers to is a sulphate of iron or green vitriol which was used in the dyeing industry and the manufacture of inks.

The Isle of Purbeck

From Merly we went to the Isle of Purbeck. At Warrum (Wareham) we passed over a bridge where the sea flowed in and came by the ruins of Corfe Castle,which stands on a hill yet surrounded by much higher hills that might easily command it, and so in the Civil wars was batter’d down with Granadeers, thence you rise a great ascent of hills called the Linch (Lynch), or rather the ridge, being so for 3 or 4 miles, rideing to Quare (Quar) which was 16 miles from Merly to a relations house Cos’n Colliers”.

From the ridge Celia looked out over the Isle of Purbeck with its “pleasant meadows and woodlands” and she tells us of “many quarys in these hills of that which is called the free stone, from hence they dig it”. She tells us most of the houses on the island are built of stone.

Continuing, she says: “the shores are very rocky all about the island, we went three miles off to Sonidge (Swanage) a sea faire place not very big;… they take up stones by the shores that are so oyly as the poor burn it for fire, and it’s so light a fire it serves as candle too, but it has a strong offensive smell”.

From Swanage she journeyed on to “a place 4 miles off called Sea Cume (Seacombe) where she observes “it being a spring tide”; she saw the “craggy rockes” lashed by the billows of a turbulent sea and heard the caves of that coast reverberate the sound of the waves “like some hall or high arch”. Celia notes that “In this Island are several good houses” and mentions  “At Kingston Sir William Muex (Meux) has a pretty house and att Income (Encombe) Mr. Coliffords, Doonshay (Downshay), Mr Dollings, and 7 miles off Quare  at Tinnum (Tyneham) Lady Lawrences there is a pretty large house but very old timber built”. This place was especially agreeable to Celia and she tells us: “there I eate the best lobsters and crabs being boyled in the sea water and scarce cold, very large and sweet”.

From Tyneham she travelled north-west to Bindon, Piddletrenthide, “…where was a relation Mr Oxenbridge” and then on to Dorchester which “stands on the side of a hill, the river runs below it, the town looks compact and the streets are very neately  pitch’d (paved) and of a good breadth, the Market-lace is spacious, the Church very handsome and full of galleryes”.

Bridport and Lyme Regis

She continued travelling westward until she came to Burport (Bridport). “The ways are stony and very narrow, the town has a steep hill to descend through the whole place: thence to Woolfe(?) to a relations Mr Newbery”. She describes this gentleman as “a man of many whymseys, would keep no women servants, had all the washing, ironing and dairy etc., all performed by men: his house looks like a little village when you come into the yard, so many little buildings apart from each other”. One of these was a “stillatory” (still-house), another a “long building for silk wormes”. But, she says, all was “in a most rude confused manner”.

From Mr Newbery she travelled to another relation, Mr Henlys, at Colway near Lime (Lyme Regis). In her writing Celia Fiennes wrongly places Lyme Regis in Somersetshire. For her the most interesting feature of this “seaport place open to the main ocean” was the “Cobb or Halfe  Moon”.

She observes the residents of the town have to contend with “…so high a bleake sea that to secure the Harbour for shipps they have at a great charge to build a Mold from the town with stone, like a halfe moon, which they call the Cobb, its raised with a high wall and this runns into the sea a good compass, that the Shipps ride safely within it: when the tide is out we may see the foundations of some part of it; that is the tyme they looke over it to see any breach and repair it immediately, else the tide comes with so great violence would soon beate it down”. Celia mentions that the Springtide “does sometimes beate up and wash over the walls of the forte and so runns into the town”.

After taking a step into Somerset she starts her return journey commenting as she often does on the condition of the roads: “From Lime the ways are difficult by reason of the very step hills up and down, and that so successfully as little or no plaine even ground, and full of large smooth pebbles that make the strange horses slip and uneasye to go; the horses of the country are accustomed to it and travel well in the rodes…”

 

Footnote: George Roberts in his History of Lyme Regis (1823) traces the history of the manor of Colway and says: “It has become the property of the Henly family who lived there in great style for many years. The house was large, and a road between two rows of stately trees, which have been long since cut down, led to the church, to which some affirm there is now a subterraneous passage. The house has gone to decay – some of the ruins are visible at the back of the present farmhouse. No courts are held nor any symbols of a manor preserved”.

To be continued…