Memorials of Old Dorset

by Unknown

THE ISLE OF PURBECK

By A. D. Moullin

ORTH of the irregular coast-line of Dorset, from Lulworth on the west to Handfast Point and Old Harry Rocks on the east (a distance of twelve miles), and extending inland for some five to eight miles, lies a district of about a hundred square miles in area, known as the Isle of Purbeck. It is an island only in the same sense as Thanet. It is bounded on the north by Poole Harbour and the river Frome; on the west, partly by Luckford Lake, a tributary of the Frome; and an imaginary line running southward to the rugged coast-line forms its southern and eastern boundary.

It is strange to tell that this more or less undefined limitation has had a marked effect on the character and customs of the people who inhabit the Isle of Purbeck, as compared with the dwellers in the other portions of the county. They, like the people of Portland, claim for themselves a distinct individuality, due, possibly, in some measure to the hereditary rights of quarrying which have done much to keep families together, and minimised the introduction of a foreign element into their midst. These quarrying rights have always been jealously guarded, and the unwritten laws regulating this industry stringently enforced.

The centre of the island is dominated by Corfe Castle; and such importance was centred in this old-world town and fortress that the lord of the manor of Corfe was also Lord-Lieutenant of Purbeck.

Originally the whole of this interesting district was a royal deer-warren, and much of it was covered with forest. Here Norman and Plantagenet kings enjoyed the chase; and summary justice was meted out to those who infringed the Forest laws.

In early times, one of the most important towns in the county was Wareham; and although it is on the north bank of the river Frome, one of the boundaries of Purbeck, still it is usually considered to belong to the island. Of its great antiquity there is, fortunately, ample record. King Alfred set up a mint in the town; and it was here that, in 876, he attacked the Danes who had sailed up the Frome to Wareham, where they soon took possession of the Castle and entrenched themselves in a strong position behind the walls and earthworks, and found it a convenient centre for ravaging the neighbourhood at their leisure. Alfred had meanwhile defeated these Scandinavian pirates in a sea-fight, which possibly was the first naval victory gained by the English. Probably disheartened by this defeat, the Danes agreed to terms of peace, promising to sail away quietly to their own country; instead of which some of them rode off towards Exeter, hoping to be joined by the rest of their men in the ships which lay off Wareham. Their treachery was not destined to succeed, for a mighty storm arose, and wrecked about a hundred of the Danish ships off Old Harry Rocks, near Swanage. This loss temporarily broke the power of the northern foe.

The Church of Lady St. Mary in Wareham was in 978 the temporary resting-place of the body of Edward the Martyr, although the pre-Conquest Church which occupied the same site has passed away. It is interesting to think that for more than a thousand years religious services have been conducted on this spot. Of the several ecclesiastical buildings once possessed by this town there remain only three: St. Mary’s, just mentioned, and two others now no longer regularly used for service.

The Purbeck Hills, which nearly bisect the Isle from east to west, divide the heathland with its china clay and marshes on the north from the stone measures known as the Purbeck beds on the south. The chalk hills of the range attain in places to a height of nearly 700 feet, and form an imposing barrier when viewed either from land or sea. The Romans were not slow to discover the properties of the china clay, from which they made pottery on an extensive scale, and tiles and tesserae with which to adorn their houses.

Of the many old manor-houses with which this district abounds, space will only admit the mention of a few. Some three miles to the south of Wareham is Creech, a very ancient manor, with the house rebuilt in the seventeenth century. According to Hutchins, the manor is mentioned as early as Edward the Confessor’s time, and in the Domesday Book it is said to belong to the Earl of Morton; afterwards, until the dissolution of the monasteries, it was held by Bindon Abbey, after which it was given to Sir John Horsey, and towards the end of the seventeenth century it was purchased by an ancestor of the Bond family, its present holders. Crossing the densely wooded slope of the Purbeck Hills, and descending on the other side towards the sea, we find another ancient manor-house, that of Great Tyneham, built about 1570. It is one of the largest of the many old manor-houses of that period.

East and West Lulworth, although, strictly speaking, outside the confines of the Island, are so closely associated with it that a passing comment may not be out of place. At West Lulworth is a Cove almost encircled by the distorted and upheaved strata of the Purbeck beds. These form a natural harbour, which, when once seen, is not easily forgotten. There is a tradition, which forms the basis of one of Mr. Hardy’s stories in Life’s Little Ironies, that the great Napoleon was seen here in 1804 seeking a suitable landing-place for the flat-bottomed barges in which he hoped to bring his legions across the channel to invade England. If this story is true, how he must have gazed with interest at the beacon-fires on each promontory and hill-top ready to be lit to give warning of the impending peril.

About half a mile to the east of the Cove, well above the action of the sea, are extensive remains of a “Fossil Forest,” with many of the tree-trunks in position.

The village of East Lulworth, where once stood a monastery, is about a mile inland from the sea. Near this is Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family, a conspicuous object looking like a fortress, with its four massive corner towers, which give the grey stone structure a grim appearance from the sea. It was built between 1588 and 1609, largely of stone brought from the ruins of Bindon Abbey; and there is still to be seen at the Castle an exquisitely carved oak door which is said to have belonged to the Abbey. The Castle has had many royal visitors—James I., Charles II., the Duke of Monmouth, George III., and Queen Charlotte among the number. The unhappy Mrs. FitzHerbert, morganatic wife of George IV., was first married to Mr. Weld, and lived here; her portrait and diamond and pearl necklace are still kept at the Castle.

From Tyneham towards St. Ealdhelm’s Head extend the shallows of the dangerous Kimmeridge Ledge, with its interesting formation of bituminous shale underlying the Portland Beds, a kind of coal which may be easily burnt, and is, indeed, used for fuel by many of the cottagers of the district, notwithstanding the unpleasant smell it emits when burning, and the dense shower of soot that falls from the smoke. In the early part of last century a fire broke out and smouldered for many months, at Holworth, on a continuation of this outcrop further to the west, and was known as the Burning Cliff. At times volumes of smoke arose, the pungent smell of which was distinctly perceptible as far off as Weymouth when the wind was blowing from the east.

From the days of Sir William Clavel, in the reign of Charles I., the minerals of Kimmeridge have from time to time been worked, and many and various have been the schemes for exploiting this bituminous deposit, and even at the present day samples are occasionally sent for with the view to extracting mineral oil. But one must go back to a much more remote period for the first evidence of early workings. The Romans, during their occupation of this part of the coast, were not slow to discover the value of this supply of fuel, which may possibly have been worked long before their arrival.

The expert Roman craftsmen found also that the shale was capable of being turned and fashioned into various kinds of ornamental articles resembling those made of jet; so they set up lathes on the spot to turn out these articles, which, no doubt, met with a ready sale among the fashionable dwellers in Durnovaria (Dorchester). That the existence of these lathes was an actual fact is proved by the hundreds of discs or cores which remain to this day, and are found in and with the Roman pottery fashioned from the Wealdon clay of the district. These discs are usually from 1¼ to 2½ inches in diameter, with central holes to attach them to the lathe mandril, and were the discarded centres of rings and other ornaments made from the shale. By local tradition these discs have always been known as “Kimmeridge coal money,” and although present-day antiquaries laugh at the idea of their ever having been used as money, the writer ventures to suggest the possibility of the correctness of such a theory. They are found in considerable numbers securely hidden away a short distance below the surface of the ground, usually between stones placed on edge and covered over by another flat stone. The care with which they were secreted indicates that they were considered of some value to the owner. May not the Celts have collected and used them as tallies or tokens? These discs, bearing the tool marks of the turner, would have been impossible to counterfeit by the uncivilised races of that day, to whom the use of the lathe was unknown. The value of local traditionary names is considerable, and the foregoing appears to be a feasible suggestion as to the authenticity of the name, “Kimmeridge coal money.”

This part of the coast has a desolate and forbidding appearance, due to its black, shaley formation.

Looking eastward, St. Ealdhelm’s Head stands out in majestic grandeur, rising out of the sea more than 350 feet in height, and crowned at its seaward end by the Norman chapel dedicated to St. Ealdhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne.

About a mile and a half inland we come upon the little church of Worth Matravers, in the centre of the village of that name; it is probably the most ancient building in Purbeck of which anything now remains. Here we find traces of Saxon work, with that of Norman added; the chancel arch is a good example of the latter. It is now generally considered possible that here was one of the two sacred edifices built by St. Ealdhelm in Purbeck and mentioned in ancient records. The divided buttress on the north wall, and the grave-stone of Benjamin Jesty are objects of interest. On the latter is the following inscription:—

Sacred to the memory of Benjamin Jesty of Downshay, who departed this life April 16th, 1816, aged 70. He was born at Yetminster in this county, and was an upright honest man, particularly noted for having been the first person (known) that introduced the cowpox by inoculation, and who from his strength of mind made the experiment from the cow on his wife and two sons in the year 1774.

From Worth Church to Swanage there is a track or path known still as Priestway, originally used by the priests of Worth passing backwards and forwards between Swanage and Worth churches, the latter of which is said to have been the mother-church. Sir Charles Robinson says that Worth is the Saxon word for village, and that the second half of the name was added because it was owned by Sir John Matravers, who had charge of Edward II. during his imprisonment at Corfe Castle.

“Kimmeridge Coal Money.”

From the elevated road along the cliffs may be seen a series of terraces, known locally as Lynchets, cut out on the slopes of the hills facing the sea; as to the use and origin of these escarpments there have been many theories and much discussion. That they are artificial and not natural there can be little doubt, and the labour expended in their formation must have been enormous. From their position, facing south-east, south, and south-west, one may fairly assume that their object was for agricultural purposes. They are to be found in several other parts of Dorset, as well as in other counties.

Dr. Colley March[54] says the word lynchet is derived from the Anglo-Saxon hlinc, meaning a ridge of land. He tells us that in the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was passed compelling all farmers with sixty acres of pasture or arable land to cultivate one rood, where the soil was suitable, for growing flax or hemp for cordage for the needs of the navy, and concludes as follows:—

In fine the law that compelled farmers to cultivate flax, the permission to do so in any place they were able to secure, the importance of suitable soil, and the necessity of prompt and efficient drainage, that could but be obtained on a sloping surface will account for a good many of the numerous lynchets of Dorset.

Fully to appreciate the rugged features of the cliffs between St. Ealdhelm’s and Durlston Head, they should be viewed from the sea, for the indentations and caverns of this iron-bound coast are indeed wonderful. All along the sea-board quarrying was carried on for centuries, and some of the caves are due to the hand of man. Many of these caverns fulfilled a double duty, providing blocks of stone by day and sheltering cargoes of smuggled goods by night. This part of the coast enjoyed quite a notoriety for its contraband trading during the early part of the last century, and the stories told of the daring Purbeck smugglers would fill a volume.

Mr. William Hardy, of Swanage, has published an interesting little book called Smuggling Days in Purbeck, in which he tells of many curious hiding-places for the illicit goods; one he mentions, which long remained undiscovered, was under the roof of Langton Church, a most unlikely place to attract suspicion. It became necessary at one time to double the number of revenue men, or coastguards; and it must have been a strange sight to see these men setting out for the night’s vigil carrying a one-legged stool, so that in the event of their falling asleep they might topple over and wake up. Smuggling became such a profitable business that most of the inhabitants of the district were more or less engaged in it.

Although less exciting, and perhaps less profitable, the quarrying industry was extensively carried on—as, indeed, it had been from very early times. A walk over the hills from Swanage to Worth discloses vast numbers of disused quarry shafts, and a few others still being worked. These hills are literally honey-combed with old workings, which occasionally fall in, leaving curious depressions on the surface. The stone lies in thin beds of varying quality, some of the upper ones being full of fossil remains. The higher stratum of Purbeck marble has been extensively quarried, and in bygone ages provided the elegant shafts which adorn the columns of many of our great monastic churches. The outcrop of marble may be seen in the reef of rocks which extends beyond Durlston Bay and forms Peveril Point.

Whilst on the subject of quarries, it is most interesting to note the conditions said to have been granted to Purbeck by an ancient charter. No man is allowed to open or work at a quarry who is not the son of parents who were themselves both children of marblers, as they were called, and this rule was rigidly enforced. Once a year, on Shrove Tuesday, all the marblers of the district repaired to Corfe Castle to register their names in the books of the Company of Marblers, and to pay an annual tribute of a pound of pepper and a football to the lord of the manor of Ower, as acknowledgment of a certain ancient right-of-way to that place for the purpose of shipping stone, this being necessary before there were any facilities at Swanage for so doing. A good description of this ancient custom is given in Sir Charles Robinson’s Picturesque Rambles in the Isle of Purbeck.

Looking down from the lofty hills upon the little town, a man who had been absent for twenty or thirty years would hardly recognise in the Swanage of to-day the village that he had left. Swanage, with its up-to-date pier, its esplanade and sea-wall, its red-brick villas, and the various requirements of the modern residents, resembles the isolated little town of fifty years ago as little as the garden of a London square resembles a primeval forest. The quaint old stone houses, with porches supported by pillars, projecting over the foot-way, and roofed with massive slabs of split stone, the narrow and winding streets, have nearly all disappeared, but fortunately there are still some few left to delight the eye of the artist.

The twelfth century tower of the parish church, built originally as a refuge, and as a means of defence from sea pirates, was standing long before the rest of the church was built. The Town Hall, although erected in recent times, is of some historic interest, the front having been partly built of stones taken from the old Mercers’ Hall in London, pulled down for street alterations; and this edifice itself is said to have been mainly composed of material taken from one of Wren’s early churches, destroyed in the great fire of London in 1666. So, after many vicissitudes, these weather-worn stones have found a resting-place very near to the source from whence they were originally taken.

Immediately at the rear of the Town Hall is a curious little structure of solid masonry, with an iron-studded oak door, resembling a powder magazine. This formerly stood close to the south door of the parish church within the graveyard, and was used as a lock-up. Over the door is the following inscription:—“Erected for the prevention of vice and immorality, by the friends of religion and good order. A.D. 1803.” A small hole may be observed in the oak door, and it is said that through this aperture the boon companions of the incarcerated man were in the habit of inserting the stem of a long clay pipe, which they used as a means of supplying him with strong drink, and the bowl of which they also at times filled with tobacco, in order that he might find some solace for his weary hours in smoking.

About a mile and a half from Swanage, in the direction of Corfe Castle, is the manor of Godlingstone, with its interesting old house. This estate is said to have been part of the hide of land given by William I. to Durandus the Carpenter, in exchange for certain repairs to be executed at Corfe Castle. The round tower at the western extremity of the house is believed to be of Saxon origin, and was probably built as a place of refuge from the ruthless Danes, who so frequently harried this part of the coast. Sir Charles Robinson mentions Godlingstone as having belonged successively to the families of Talbot, Rempston, Chaunterell, Carent, Pole, Wells, and Frampton.

The manor-house at Whitecliff on the slope of Ballard Down is another fine old building, and is sometimes credited with having been one of King John’s hunting lodges; but no trace of so early a building now remains, unless it be the massive garden walls, with the protecting tower.

Forming one of the horns of Swanage Bay is Peveril Point, with its coastguard signalling station, from which extends, in a south-easterly direction for a considerable distance, a ledge of rocks composed of Purbeck marble. These rocks follow the general dip of the formation observable for some distance along the coast—viz., from the south, sloping down towards the north; but at the extremity of Peveril Point one observes that the strata to the north of the ledge slope in exactly the opposite direction.

The beautiful and deeply indented bay of Swanage forms a harbour with good anchorage, sheltered from all but easterly gales. The northern arm of the bay, known as Ballard Head, is formed of lofty chalk cliffs, rising nearly sheer from the sea. The convulsions of nature have played some curious pranks in this locality, for side by side with the natural horizontal stratification one may see the layers of chalk and flints standing vertically. This has enabled geologists to estimate the probable thickness of these chalk beds, which, according to some authorities, was nearly a thousand feet. The human mind is staggered by the contemplation of the ages necessary to accumulate this stupendous deposit of microscopic foraminifera, of which the chalk is composed, before it was upheaved from the bed of the sea. The upper greensand, which is exposed at the western boundary of the chalk, contains many interesting fossils. The cliffs of Ballard Head terminate at Handfast Point with several chalk pinnacles and curiously formed caverns. Of the former, “Old Harry and his Wife” are well known, but, unfortunately, the upper half of “Old Harry’s Wife” was washed away some years ago, leaving little more than the base remaining.

The old-world village of Studland, at the foot of the northern slope of Ballard Down, still retains much of its primitive and picturesque beauty, and the old manor-house and the little Norman church dedicated to St. Nicholas are of great interest. This church, like many others, no doubt took the place of an earlier building, for there are still traces of Saxon work to be seen in the north wall.

A mile or so to the north-west of Studland, across the swampy heathland, we come to a conical hill some eighty or ninety feet high, surmounted by an irregularly shaped mass of sandstone, formed from the neighbouring Bagshot beds, which, having been cemented together by some ferruginous substance, has withstood the disintegrating action of the elements better than its surroundings. It is known as the Agglestone Rock. Sir Charles Robinson, in his Rambles in the Isle of Purbeck, estimates the weight of this rock at four hundred tons, and gives the probable derivation of the name from the Anglo-Saxon “hagge” (witch or hag), or “heilig,” meaning holy, and “stan” (stone).

This barren heathland, spreading over the Bagshot sands, extends for many a mile, and stretches out to the deeply indented coast-line of Poole Harbour, forming the northern limit of the Isle of Purbeck. The wild beauty of this low-lying district can only be enjoyed by those who are prepared to explore it on foot, for carriage-roads there are none, and the cart-tracks are not always passable.

The important deposit of china-clay found in this neighbourhood, which is exported in considerable quantities to many parts of the kingdom, and even to foreign countries, is chiefly shipped from the little quay at Ower, which is on an arm of Poole Harbour. Hutchins says that Ower was once the chief port in the Isle of Purbeck for the export of stone and marble, and for the importation of timber from the New Forest; but in 1710 Swanage seems to have superseded it.

The little village of Arne, near to which is Russell Quay, where clay and peat are shipped by small trading vessels, is merely a cluster of a few cottages and a plain-looking thirteenth century church, which, however, contains an object of interest in its stone altar with the five consecration crosses.

In the woods near Arne is one of the few heronries to be met with on the south coast; and in the solitude of this remote spot the birds have bred undisturbed probably for centuries.

From Arne to Wareham, a distance of some four miles, there is a rough road, by following which we complete our circuit of this interesting district—the Isle of Purbeck.