Memorials of Old Dorset

by Unknown

MILTON ABBEY

By the Rev. Herbert Pentin, M.A.

HE county of Dorset is one of the few counties in England that contain three great minsters in good repair and in parochial use—Sherborne, Wimborne, and Milton. And each of these minsters is of Saxon and Royal foundation. King Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, founded the Monastery and Collegiate Church of Milton for Secular Canons, in or about the year 938. In the year 964 King Edgar and Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury converted the monastery into an abbey, with forty Benedictine monks, and chose a very able man, Cynewearde (or Kynewardus), as the first Abbot. This Cynewearde, a few years afterwards, to the loss of Milton, was made Bishop of Wells.

The original minster built by Athelstan was a noble stone building of its time, and was very rich in shrines and relics. The King gave a piece of our Saviour’s Cross, a great cross of gold and silver with precious stones, and many bones of the saints, which were placed in five gilt shrines. The bones of his mother were also brought to the church (for burial). We also know that the Saxon Minster was restored and enlarged, if not rebuilt, in Norman times. It has been reasonably conjectured that the size of the Norman Abbey was that of the choir and presbytery of the present church. Some large fragments of Norman masonry have been dug up,[23] which show that the Norman Abbey was a building of some considerable architectural pretensions; and encased in the south wall of the present choir and presbytery are the remains of two enriched Norman arches which escaped destruction in the fire of 1309. In that year the church was struck by lightning, and was almost entirely burnt to the ground. Thirteen years later, however, under Abbot Walter Archer, the present Abbey Church was commenced on the same site, but on a much larger and grander scale; and building operations went on, from time to time, until within a short period before the Dissolution in 1539.

Milton Abbey.

King Athelstan. Founder of Milton Abbey. (From a Painting in the Church.)

“Athelstan’s Mother.” Buried in Milton Abbey. (From a Painting in the Church.)

The following styles of architecture are represented in the main portions of the church, built of stone from Ham Hill and Tisbury:—First Decorated, the choir and presbytery of seven bays, with aisles; Second Decorated, the south transept; Third Decorated, the two western piers of the “crossing”; Perpendicular, the north transept and central tower. The Perpendicular work was undertaken by the penultimate Abbot, William de Middleton, assisted by Bishop Thomas Langton, of Salisbury and of Winchester, the Abbey of Cerne, and the families of Bingham, Coker, Latimer, Morton, and others.

At the Dissolution, the Abbey estates were granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Tregonwell, who had helped to procure the King’s divorce from Catharine of Aragon; but the whole of the Abbey Church was preserved for the parishioners, with the exception of the Ladye Chapel, which was pulled down, although some of its vaulting shafts can still be seen outside the east end of the church. The last of the Abbots (John Bradley, B.D.), after leaving Milton in Tregonwell’s hands, was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of St. Asaph, with the title of Bishop of Shaftesbury,[24] and the Abbey Church of Milton then passed under the sole spiritual control of Richard Hall, Vicar of Milton, and his successors.

Milton Abbey: Interior.

Unfortunately, the Abbey underwent a “restoration” in 1789, when the church was despoiled of many of its fittings; and chantry chapels and other valuable objects of interest went down under the hand of the “restorer.” But Sir Gilbert Scott, in 1865, restored the church at the expense of the late Baron Hambro, and left the Abbey in its present beautiful condition, and, as far as was possible, in its original state.

The Tabernacle.

The view of the church at the beginning of this chapter will save the necessity of a description of its exterior. But the interior contains many things which demand notice.

And first of all must be mentioned the “ornament,” which many antiquaries consider to be a Tabernacle for reserving the Eucharist. This very beautiful and richly carved “Sacrament-house” dates from the fifteenth century, and is made of oak in the form of a spire composed of four storeys, the lowest containing the opening through which the reserved elements may have been passed. It is not in its original position, but is now fastened to the west wall of the south transept beneath the triforium.

The great altar-screen is a very lofty, beautiful, and peculiarly rich construction, even though the two long rows of ornamental niches now lack the statues of the saints that once stood in them—saints with “very bluff countenances, painted in very bright colours and heavily gilded.” On its lower portion there is a Latin inscription, which bids prayers for the souls of William Middleton, Abbot of Milton, and Thomas Wilken, Vicar of the parish, who worthily decorated (“honorifice depinxerunt”) the screen in 1492. The three stone sedilia in the sanctuary are fine specimens. The bosses throughout the church are of very rich design.

The Abbey also contains two fifteenth century oil paintings of a crude description, one of which represents Athelstan, the founder, giving to the first head of the monastery a model of the minster (with three spires)[25] over which he was to preside. The other painting is supposed to represent Athelstan’s mother—Egwynna, “femina illustris.”[26]

The tombs of the abbots within the Abbey are most interesting. In front of the altar steps there is a Purbeck marble grave-slab of the fourteenth century, which was once inlaid with the brass figure of an abbot clad in pontificalia, with a marginal Latin inscription in Lombardic capitals:

ABBA : VALTERE : TE : FATA : CITO : RAPVERE : TE : RADINGA : DEDIT : SED : MORS : MALE : NOS : TVA : LEDIT.

This is the slab of an Abbot of Milton whose Christian name was Walter, and who was formerly a monk of Reading, probably Walter de Sydelinge, who died in 1315. In the north transept there is a thirteenth century grave-slab of another abbot. This slab is also of Purbeck marble, but the upper portion is broken off. The remaining portion shows part of an incised figure of an abbot, with pastoral staff, chasuble, stole, maniple, alb, and an imperfect marginal inscription in Norman French:

VVS ⁝ KI ⁝ PAR ⁝ I ⁝ CI ⁝ PASSET ⁝ PVR ⁝ LEALME ⁝ PRIE...

...RCI ⁝ LISET ⁝ LE ⁝ PARDVN ⁝ I ⁝ CI[27]

There are other large marble grave-slabs, without inscriptions, in the church, which are supposed to cover abbots, monks, and benefactors. On some there are the matrices of missing brasses. One, in front of the altar steps, shows the outline of a civilian in a plain gown, and his wife wearing a “butterfly” head-dress, with their five sons and four daughters, circa 1490. In St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, at the east end of the north aisle of the church, there is a small fifteenth century brass to John Artur, one of the monks of the Abbey, with a Latin inscription, which bids God have mercy on his soul. In the same chapel, a very fine coloured armorial brass over Sir John Tregonwell’s altar-tomb contains the latest tabard example on a brass in England (1565).[28]

But to mention all the ancient or modern memorials (some of wondrous beauty, such as those of Lord and Lady Milton, and Baron Hambro) would take far too much space. A marble tablet in the vestry informs the reader that John Tregonwell, Esquire, who died in the year 1680, “by his last will and testament gave all the bookes within this vestry to the use of this Abby Church for ever, as a thankfuld acknowledgement of God’s wonderfull mercy in his preservation when he fell from the top of this Church.” This incident happened when he was a child; he was absolutely uninjured, his stiff skirts having acted as a parachute.[29] The chained library of sixty-six leather-bound volumes comprises the works of the Latin and Greek Fathers and other early Christian writers, and some standard theological works of the seventeenth century. The books have been kept at the vicarage for many years.

Abbot Middleton’s Rebus.

The abbey now contains very little painted glass.[30] There is a large “Jesse window” by the elder Pugin in the south transept, and some coloured coats of arms and devices of kings, nobles, and abbots in some of the other windows. The dwarfed east window contains the only pre-Reformation glass in the church.[31] The Abbatial Arms are emblazoned in several parts of the building. They consist of three baskets of bread, each containing three loaves. On one of the walls in the south aisle, near the vestry, there is the carved coloured rebus of Abbot William de Middleton, with the date 1514 in Arabic numerals—the 4 being represented by half an eight. It comprises the letter W with a pastoral staff, and a windmill on a large cask—in other words, a mill and a tun (Mil-ton). The old miserere seats still remain in the choir, but the carving thereon is not very elaborate, and many of them have been renewed. The inscriptions on the Communion plate (which consists of two large silver barrel-shaped flagons, a bell-shaped chalice, and a large and a small paten) tell us that “John Chappell, Sitteson and Stationer of London, 1637,” and “Mary Savage, 1658,” and “Maddam Jane Tregonwell, widdow, 1675,” gave these to “Milton Abby.”

There are several other interesting things in the church, albeit not ancient—e.g., the rood-loft, the font, and the pulpit.

The rood-loft, although not entirely ancient, is composed of ancient materials. When the party-walls of St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, the chantry of Abbot William de Middleton, and other side-chapels, were destroyed or mutilated at the “restoration” in 1789, some of the materials were used to reconstruct the rood-loft. The eastern cornice, for instance, is probably a portion of Abbot Middleton’s chantry, and bears thirteen coats of arms, including those of the Abbeys of Milton, Sherborne, and Abbotsbury, and the families of Chidiock, Latimer, Lucy, Stafford of Hooke, Thomas of Woodstock, and others.

The font of the Abbey, in the south transept, is modern, but of unusual design. It is composed of two beautiful life-sized white marble female figures, representing Faith and Victory, with a baptismal shell at their feet.

Near the font is an oak case containing a fourteenth century coffin chalice and paten, and fragments of a wooden pastoral staff and sandals, discovered during the restoration of the church in 1865.[32]

The pulpit is also modern, of carved oak; but it is interesting, because it contains statues of all the patron saints connected with the Abbey and the parish, and of these there are no fewer than six, viz.: St. Sampson of Dol, St. Branwalader,[33] St. Mary the Blessed Virgin, St. Michael the warrior-archangel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. James the Great.

St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patron-saint of “King Athelstan’s Chapel,” which stands in the woods at the top of the hill to the east of the Abbey. And this little church has also had a history well worth the telling. When Athelstan was fighting for his throne he had to pass through the county of Dorset, and he encamped on Milton Hill, and threw up an earthwork, or made use of one already existing there, the remains of which can still be seen beyond the east end of the chapel. During the night he believed that some supernatural revelation was made to him, assuring him that he would conquer his many enemies and become King of all England. He pushed on, and at Brunanburh, “Christ helping him, he had the victory, and there slew five kings and seven earls” (Saxon Chronicle). The song commemorating this important and decisive victory is given in the Old English Chronicle; and the first stanza of Professor Freeman’s version and that of Lord Tennyson reads thus:

Now Æthelstan King, Of Earls the Lord, In warriors the ring giver And his brother eke, Eadmund Ætheling, Eld-long glory Won in the fight With the swords’ edge By Brunanburh, The boardwall they clave, And hewed the war-linden, With hammer’s leavings Offspring of Eadward. Freeman.

Athelstan King, Lord among Earls, Bracelet bestower and Baron of Barons, He, with his brother Edmund Atheling Gaining a life-long Glory in battle, Slew with the sword-edge There by Brunanburh, Brake the shield-wall, Hew’d the linderwood, Hack’d the battle-shield, Sons of Edward, with hammer’d brands. Tennyson.

St. Catherine’s Chapel.

Athelstan, being a thoroughly religious man, as well as a great warrior, expressed his thankfulness to God in the way usual in those times. He founded the monastery at Milton, and erected the ecclesiola, afterwards dedicated to St. Catherine, within the entrenchment where he received the remarkable revelation. Chapels on the top of hills were often dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, on account of the legend which tells that St. Catherine’s body was buried by angels on Mount Sinai. Other instances, in many places, of this dedication with its connection still remain—in Dorset, for example, at Abbotsbury and Holworth. The little church at Milton did its work in Saxon times, and then underwent a considerable restoration in Norman days. It also underwent a lesser restoration in the early part of the sixteenth century. As it stands at present, it consists of a nave and chancel. The main walls, which are very thick, and the door arches are Norman. On the west jamb of the south door there is a curious and rare inscription in Lombardic capitals relating to an indulgence:

INDVLGENCIA ⁝ H’ ⁝ SC̄I ⁝ LOCI ⁝ C ⁝ E ⁝ X ⁝ DIES ⁝[34]

The windows in the nave are Early Norman and Perpendicular. The old west front was taken down for some reason in the eighteenth century, and at this time an effigy of a monk in his habit (lying along and resting on his hands, looking down at the Abbey below) was destroyed. Some paintings also perished at the same time. The chancel was also partly rebuilt, and the roof raised, but the Transition-Norman chancel-arch was preserved. On the south side of the altar is a pedestal, on which the statue of St. Catherine may have formerly stood. The encaustic tiles in the chancel were removed from the Abbey Church in the year 1865. Some of these mediæval tiles are heraldic, and contain the arms of the See of Exeter, the Earls of Cornwall, Gloucester and Hertford, and others. A tile manufactured at Malvern has an inscription and date, 1456.

In pre-Reformation days King Athelstan’s Chapel was possibly used as the capella extra portas—the chapel, that is, outside the gates of the monastery, at which strangers and women who were not admitted within the gates might hear Mass. That women used St. Catherine’s Chapel for another purpose is also possible. St. Catherine is the patron-saint of spinsters, and in days gone by she was supposed to have the power of finding a husband for those who sought her aid. The following Milton rhymes in use to-day may be echoes of the mediæval Latin doggerels:—

St. Catherine, St. Catherine, O lend me thine aid,

And grant that I never may die an old maid.

A husband, St. Catherine,

A good one, St. Catherine;

But arn-a-one better than

Narn-a-one, St. Catherine.

Sweet St. Catherine,

A husband, St. Catherine,

Handsome, St. Catherine,

Rich, St. Catherine,

Soon, St. Catherine.

After the Reformation the chapel was allowed to decay and to become desecrated. In the eighteenth century there is a record that it was being used as a pigeon-house. Then, when more houses were needed in the parish, the “Chapel Royal” was turned into a labourer’s cottage—the interior was whitewashed, and a ceiling added; the chancel became a bedroom, and the nave a living room, with a kitchen grate and chimney affixed. Afterwards the little church was used as a carpenter’s workshop, and then as a lumber store. But, in 1901, the neglected building was cleaned out, and a service was held there on St. Catherine’s night (November 25th). The parishioners assembled in the building, the roof of which was full of holes (admitting ivy, wind and wet), the windows had long been broken, and the south wall was dangerously bulging. Confession of wrong was made for the past desecrations, and prayers were offered that the Church of St. Catherine might for the future be reverently treated as a “holy place” (as the Indulgence-inscription calls it); and, happily, the building has since been most conservatively restored by Mr. Everard Hambro, the lord of the manor. Thus, the little church which commemorates a very critical event in the early history of England has been saved from further desecration and

The Sea-Side Hamlet of Milton.
Holworth, in 1827, showing the Burning Cliff.

decay; and King Athelstan’s Chapel is once again used for the service of God, while remaining a valuable historic relic of Saxon days.

Liscombe Chapel.

Another capella belonging to the Abbey, but now in private ownership, has been less fortunate. Liscombe Chapel,[35] in the parish of Milton, five miles from the Abbey Church and two miles from Chesilborne, is still desecrated. This little building, built principally of flint, stone, and large blocks of rock chalk, is entire, and consists of chancel and nave, divided by a handsome Transition-Norman arch, with massive rounded columns. The east window and the two other chancel windows are Norman, with some later work inserted. But the chapel of Liscombe has been desecrated for a long time. The nave thereof is now used as a bakehouse (there is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre), and the chancel is used as a log-house. A flight of stone stairs has been erected in the chancel, which leads to the bedrooms over the bakehouse and log-house. The bedrooms have been ceiled, and the whole interior of the little church has been whitewashed, including the handsome chancel arch; the roof of the building is of thatch. An old stone sundial is preserved in the west wall. Warne, in his Ancient Dorset, states that the chapel is credited with being “tenanted by a supernatural visitor”; and this is still believed by the country folk. The house adjoining this desecrated sanctuary is also ancient, and built chiefly of flint and stone. It possesses several interesting windows of various dates (including a loup in the east wall), and an old stone sundial on its south wall. The interior contains some oak-work, portions of which may be pre-Reformation. This house is now used as a labourer’s cottage; but there is a tradition that it was formerly inhabited by the monks, who ministered (“Divina celebrant:”) in the little church. And the building itself, from its position and evident antiquity, lends colour to the tradition; but there are marks that it became the manor farmhouse after the Dissolution. There is also a tradition that the stream which now runs through the hamlet of Liscombe was formerly larger than it is now, and that there were fish-ponds close by, and that the monks at Liscombe supplied their overlord, the Abbot of Milton, with fresh-water fish.

Milton Abbey also possessed three other Norman capellae—in Woolland, Whitcombe, and Holworth respectively; but Woolland is now a separate ecclesiastical parish; Whitcombe is a donative held by the Rector of Came (it was held for many years by William Barnes, the Dorset poet); and Holworth, alone of the three, still remains a part of the ecclesiastical parish of Milton.

Holworth is sixteen miles from the Abbey Church, and now possesses a modern chapel, on a hill near the “Burning Cliff,” known as the Chapel of St. Catherine-by-the-Sea. It is said that in days gone by the monks at Holworth supplied their Abbot, at Milton, with salt-water fish. The hamlet of Holworth, overlooking Weymouth Bay and Portland Roads, has been well described as resting in “a most lonely and most lovely valley by the sea, an earthly paradise, which those who have discovered cherish and dream about. It is far away from the haunts of men, and remote from the cares of life; where the newspaper is two days’ old before it invades the religious calm of a mind attuned by the most exquisite scenery to rise to thoughts above this world; where one may walk along the undulating downs that skirt the Channel, held in place by parapets of cliff that break down straight into the sea; where one may walk mile after mile on natural lawn and not meet a soul—just one’s self, the birds, the glorious scenery, and God.”[36]

The hamlet of Holworth is, indeed, worthy of being a portion of the parish that is acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful places in Dorset. The village of Milton lies enfolded between richly-wooded hills, at the foot of a wonderfully picturesque descent. Sir Frederick Treves, in his Highways and Byways in Dorset, says that “there is nothing like to it in any part of England.” He calls it a “surprising” village, “a toy town.” The first impression on seeing it “is one of amazement, for the place is both extraordinary and unexpected.” Each of the houses is of the same pattern, and each is separated from the others by a chestnut tree. The builder of this unique village, as will be seen, was Joseph, Lord Milton (afterwards Earl of Dorchester). The old town of Milton lay near the south side of the Abbey Church; but the ancient town was pulled down by Lord Milton about the year 1780, as it was too close to his new mansion (in which he had incorporated the magnificent fifteenth century monastic refectory), and proved an annoyance to him. The death, in 1775, of his wife (“the most noble and most excellent Lady Caroline, Lady Milton, daughter of Lyonel, Duke of Dorset, the wisest and most lovely, the best and most virtuous of women”), to whom he was passionately attached, and the suicide, in the following year, of his eldest son (the husband of “the beautiful Anne Seymour Damer”[37]), probably had a hardening influence on Lord Milton’s character, and made him use his giant’s strength tyrannously like a giant. At any rate, he swept away the old town, and the “new town” was then built, further off, as a substitute. Some fragmentary particulars of the old town of Milton have been gathered together,[38] which perhaps are of sufficient interest to be reproduced here.

The old town was one of the most ancient in Dorset. It grew up with the Abbey, and was known as Middleton (of which Milton is a contraction), because it was the middle town of the county. It contained shops of all kinds, four inns, a pre-Reformation Grammar School, almshouses built in 1674, and a brewery, which helped to supply Weymouth, Poole, and other large towns in Dorset. Milton Abbey ales were at one time among the most famous in the county; they could also be obtained in London. The tradesmen of old Milton were prosperous, but the “working classes” were very poor. Their staple food was barley cake; and to keep down expenses they saved every morsel of fat and made their own candles in pewter moulds. Two, if not more, of the leading shopkeepers issued “tokens” in the seventeenth century,[39] specimens of which exist; and among the old parish papers are a number of apprenticeship indentures which bound poor boys to various tradesmen in the place. The girls of the parish were taught to spin.

Milton Abbey, in the Year 1733.
Showing the old Monastic house on the left, and the old town on the right of the church.

The handsome fifteenth century market cross was one of the finest in the kingdom, quite worthy of its position near the Abbey Church. It had an ascent of no fewer than thirty steps. Its site is marked in the present park by a very massive octagonal socket stone, which is said to be a portion of the original cross. The parish registers state that, in the days of the Commonwealth, banns of marriage were published “in the markett.”[40] The weekly market was well attended, it being the central market of the county, and was held around the market cross. The annual fair was held on St. Sampson’s Eve and Day, July 27th and 28th, St. Sampson being the chief patron saint of the Abbey. This fair, like the market, was granted by King Athelstan; but it was practically discontinued when the old town was pulled down.

The sports in old Milton were badger-baiting under the cedar trees in the Abbey churchyard; cock-squailing, cock-fighting, and “fives,” outside the west end of the church; bowls were played on the bowling green, and ringing was very popular. The ringers only claimed “bread and beare” for their services each year—on the Restoration Day of Charles II. (May 29th), on Guy Fawkes’ Day (November 5th), and on Christmas Day. They were also paid on special occasions, such as “for ringing ye Bishope throu Towne”; but episcopal visits were rare. During Lent the children went “shroving” and “Lent crocking.” On Shrove Tuesday the children, carrying sticks, knocked at the doors of the principal residents and repeated this doggerel verse:

Please I’ve come a-shroving

For a piece of pancake,

Or a little ruckle cheese

Of your own making.

If you don’t give me some,

If you don’t give me none,

I’ll knock down your door

With a great marrow bone

And a-way I’ll run.

The result of this threat was that the children were given hot half-pence, apples, eggs, a piece of pancake, or a hunch of ruckle-cheese. A ruckle-cheese was a small sour-milk home-made cheese, weighing about one pound. It could be ruckled—i.e., rolled along the ground. Hence its name. In the evening the “Lent-crocking” began. Those people who had not given the children anything when they came “a-shroving” were then punished by having pieces of crockery and pans and other missiles thrown at their doors. In this way real damage was often done, and the two parish constables do not seem to have interfered. The practice of shroving is still continued in the present village of Milton: it is one of the customs that have survived the demolition of the old town. It obtains in other Dorset parishes, but is gradually dying out.

The Abbey churchyard was a very large one. Its area was about three times the area of the Abbey Church. The sports which took place therein have been already mentioned. It was also used as a public flogging-place for offenders against the law. Lord Milton, when he decided to pull down the old town, had all the headstones in the churchyard removed, broken up, or buried. In converting the churchyard into lawns, many bones of parishioners were turned up and irreverently treated; and the superstitious tradition in the present village is that, in consequence of this, Lord Milton died of a gruesome disease. There was an ancient cross in the churchyard called the “Druid’s Cross,” and also a preaching cross.[41] It is hardly necessary to add that these perished with the churchyard.

The old Grammar School, founded by Abbot Middleton in 1521, was also pulled down. It was one of the chief public schools in the south-west of England, and was known as “the Eton of the West.”[42] It had, as a rule, between eighty to one hundred boys, mostly boarders, sons of the leading county families. There were several boarding-houses for the boys in Milton, and the existence of the school helped on the prosperity of the town. Two of its most distinguished alumni were Thomas Masterman Hardy, Nelson’s favourite captain, who in after life did not forget his old friends at Milton[43]; and Thomas Beach, a native of Milton, the famous Dorset portrait painter, who from 1772 to 1800 “limned the features of everybody who was anybody.”

It must be admitted, reluctantly, that the Grammar School boys were an undoubted nuisance to Lord Milton. They lived within a stone’s throw of his mansion, they broke into his privacy and seclusion, they scoured his gardens and plantations in every direction, stole his fruit, and disturbed his game. Records exist of the expulsion of some boys bearing the most honoured of Dorset names for persistent stone-throwing down chimneys, and for stealing cucumbers from the Abbey gardens, and game-fowl eggs for the purpose of rearing birds to compete in fighting. In the Abbey Church the Grammar School boys sat in a large gallery which stretched from the rood-loft to the west wall. This gallery was pulled down by Lord Milton’s orders as soon as he had removed the school. The headmaster and assistant-masters of the school, being in Holy Orders, frequently held the position of Vicar or Curate of the Abbey Church. Among them was John Hutchins, the Dorset historian, who was Curate of the Abbey and “usher” of the school.[44]

It must not be thought that Lord Milton’s “fine quarter-deck high-handedness” aroused no outcry. The parishioners regarded his action as a cruel piece of tyranny, and they resisted it with stubborn and obstinate opposition.[45] For over twenty years his lordship was involved in considerable trouble and expense while gradually getting all the houses into his possession, in order that he might raze them to the ground. Mr. Harrison, a resident solicitor, refused to sell his lease, although he was offered three times its value; so Lord Milton let the water from the “Abbot’s Pond” (a small pond which then lay just below the Abbey Church) creep around the premises. Mr. Harrison at once entered an action against his lordship for flooding his house, and the lawyer won the case. A few days afterwards Lord Milton went to London, and on his way to Blandford he heard the Abbey bells ringing. This he interpreted as a sign of parochial joy at his defeat and departure; and nothing would satisfy him but the sale of the offending bells. The bells were really ringing to commemorate Guy Fawkes’ Day: it was November 5th. But the bells had to go: “the autocrat” had spoken. And his friend, the Dean of Norwich, had said that “bell-ringing caused much idleness and drinking.” There is a record that, when the parishioners saw their bells carted away, they stood at their house-doors weeping, even though two of the bells were saved for the new Church of St. James.

In pulling down the old town Lord Milton preserved the Abbey Church, and employed James Wyatt to restore it. Much havoc was then wrought in the interior, but at the same time the vast building underwent a thorough repair, which it needed very badly. There is a tradition that this restoration cost Lord Milton no less than £60,000; but this seems a fabulous sum.

With the materials from the demolished buildings of the old town Lord Milton built the present village of Milton (he also built some ecclesiastical-looking sham “ruins” in the park, which are still standing);[46] and the stone and timber from the old Abbey tithe-barn were used to construct a new church in the new village. The few interesting things in this church, which is dedicated to St. James the Great, were originally possessions of the Abbey—two bells of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively, a thirteenth century Purbeck marble octagonal font, an old pulpit, two pewter plates, two oak coffin-stools, and three elaborately-bound volumes, in black letter, of Fox’s Acts and Monuments of the Christian Martyrs (1632), which aforetime were chained in the Abbey to a desk covered with “red shagg” and studded with 200 brass nails.

But although St. James’ Church suffers loss by comparison with the other more ancient churches in the parish, its churchyard is remarkable in that it is higher than the church itself. The dead are buried not below the level of the church, but above the level of its roof. This is certainly unusual.

Yet it may be regarded as a fitting finale for the inhabitants of a parish that has been described truly as “a curiosity, surprising, and remarkable.”

The Seal of the town of
Milton in America.
Incorporated 1662.