I, who am a pagan child,
Who know how dying Plato smiled,
And how Confucius lessoned kings,
And of the Buddha's wanderings,
Find God in very usual things.
Toller Porcorum (Toller of the Swine) has a railway station on the Bridport branch line and is two miles from Maiden Newton. The name is explanatory, and great herds of swine were once bred here. The affix serves to distinguish this Toller from its next neighbour, Toller Fratrum (Toller of the Brethren, i.e. monks), which is one mile from Maiden Newton station. The mansion of Sir Thomas Fulford still stands and is a fine instance of early seventeenth-century domestic architecture. The very first things I noticed about this house were the tall, narrow, thick windows—windows that any man might look upon with covetous eyes. Such tall stone-mullioned windows are an enchantment, and, as Hilaire Belloc says, it is the duty of every man to keep up the high worship of noble windows till he comes down to the windowless grave. A building with a thatched roof near the house is a refectory, and appropriately cut in stone on the wall will be noticed a monk eating bread.
At Wynford Eagle, two miles south, the church still preserves a curious tympanum of a Norman door. It shows two ferocious and unspeakable-looking beasts, who are about to fight. They are said to be wyverns—which are heraldic monsters with two wings, two legs and tapering bodies. The most remarkable discovery ever made in the vicinity of Wynford Eagle was recorded by Aubrey in connection with the opening of a barrow at Ferndown. The diggers came upon "a place like an Oven, curiously clay'd round; and in the midst of it a fair Urn full of very firm bones, with a great quantity of black ashes under it. And what is most remarkable; one of the diggers putting his hand into the Oven when first open'd, pull'd it back hastily, not being able to endure the heat; and several others doing the like, affirmed it to be hot enough to bake bread.... Digging further they met with sixteen Urns more, but not in Ovens; and in the middle one with ears; they were all full of some bones and black ashes."
The house of the Sydenhams still stands at Wynford Eagle. On the highest point of the central gable a fierce-looking stone eagle arrests our attention, and under it is carved the date 1630.
Rampisham is three miles south of Evershot, and the churchyard contains an ancient stone cross, the decayed condition of which will test the patience and ingenuity of those who desire to satisfy themselves of the accuracy of Britton's description of the sculpture—namely, that it represents "the stoning of St Stephen, the Martyrdom of St Edmund, the Martyrdom of St Thomas à Becket, and two crowned figures sitting at a long table, to whom a man kneels on one knee."