ORSET is by no means rich in the number of its monumental brasses. Haines, in his list (1861), gives their number as thirty-three, distributed over twenty-four churches; but recent researches and alterations in the county boundaries have rendered his list no longer strictly accurate. Yet only about one hundredth of the brasses to be found in England are preserved in Dorset, though its area is about one fiftieth of the area of England; and so it will be seen that the number of its brasses is considerably below the average, although it must be remembered that brasses are very unequally divided, the Eastern counties having by far the largest proportion.
The earliest known brasses in England date from the latter part of the thirteenth century; and for three centuries this form of memorial was in great favour. Brasses had many advantages over carved effigies in stone; they occupied less space, formed no obstruction in the churches, were more easily executed, and possibly cheaper. Fortunately, also, they have lasted longer, and have preserved a wealth of valuable detail relating to costume and heraldry far in excess of any other form of monument.
Monumental brasses may be divided roughly into two classes: those in which the figure is engraved on a rectangular plate, the background being plain or filled in with diapered or scroll work, which is seen to such great advantage on many Continental brasses, and those in which there is no background, the plate being cut around the outline of the figure, and fastened down into a similarly shaped shallow matrix or casement in the stone slab. Examples of both kinds are found in Dorset; but none of our examples are of very early date. One of the oldest, commemorating Joan de St. Omer, dated 1436 (an engraving of which may be seen in Hutchins’ Dorset, vol. ii., p. 380, and a rubbing by the late Mr. Henry Moule in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, London[18]), has disappeared from St. Peter’s Church, Dorchester, although the matrix still remains. The Oke brass at Shapwick, if of contemporary workmanship, may be older.
Sometimes brasses were pulled out and sold by the churchwardens for the value of the metal.[19] Sometimes, indeed, brasses which had commemorated some warrior, priest, or worthy of former times were taken up, turned over, re-engraved, and made to do duty in honour of someone else, as may be seen in the retroscript brasses at Litton Cheney; but in several cases the brass, after weathering the stormy times of the civil wars, and escaping the greed of those whose business it was to guard their church from the mutilation, were lost through the gross neglect of the nineteenth century restorer. The writer knows of several specimens now loose and in danger.
The following is a list of all the known brasses in Dorset:—
Beaminster.—Ann, the wife of Henry Hillary, of Meerhay, 1653.
Elizabeth, the wife of William Milles, and daughter of John Hillary, of Meerhay, 1674.
Mrs. Ann Hillary, died 1700.
William Milles, Esq., of Meerhay, and Mary, his wife. He died 1760, aged 82; she died 1771, aged 95.