There is one other ancient ecclesiastical foundation in the neighbourhood of Wimborne, about a quarter of a mile from the town on the road to Blandford. It is now an almshouse, where three poor married couples, three poor single men, and the same number of unmarried women, are maintained; but its original purpose was to relieve only such of the poor as were suffering from leprosy. It is generally said to have been founded by John of Gaunt, and so to have been another connection between that family and Wimborne. There is, it may be said, an old kitchen at Canford which is still called “John of Gaunt’s Kitchen”; whether he had anything to do with the building of the kitchen or the endowment of the Lazar-house we do not know, but it is certain that he did not found the latter, for, in the reign of King John, Hugo of Lingiveria gave to it an acre of land, and in 1282 the Bishop of Exeter gave an indulgence to any who would contribute to its support. A deed of the date of Henry VIII. refers to a Bull of Innocent IV., dated 1245, in which this hospital is mentioned. Various gifts of land, vestments, plate, etc., were bestowed on the hospital, to which a small chapel dedicated to St. Margaret and St. Anthony is attached. A chantry was founded here by one John Redcoddes, in order that a priest might daily say masses for his soul’s welfare. The chapel, the architecture of which shows that it was originally built in the thirteenth century, still stands, and is fitted up for service. Hither once a week one of the clergy comes from the Minster to conduct a service, which the almshouse people attend.
Other than the buildings already mentioned, there is little mediæval work to be seen in Wimborne. The old Free Grammar School buildings have given place to modern ones erected in 1851, and the school is now managed by a governing body appointed under a scheme drawn up by the Charity Commissioners. So “the old order changeth, giving place to the new”; but, seen from far or near, the two-towered Minster, with its parti-coloured walls of deep red and drab stone, rises grand and old amid its modern surroundings—a noble memorial of the mediæval builder’s art.
FORD ABBEY
By Sidney Heath
ARIOUS authorities agree with Camden in stating that Ford Abbey (originally in Devon, but now included in the county of Dorset), near Chard, was founded in the year 1140, for Cistercian monks, by Adeliza, daughter of Baldwin de Brioniis, and a grand-niece of William the Conqueror. The circumstances of its origin are interesting and romantic. It appears that Adeliza’s brother, Richard of Okehampton, had given, in 1133, certain lands at Brightley, within his barony, to an Abbey of the Cistercian Order, and had secured twelve monks to dwell therein from Gilbert, Abbot of Waverley, in Surrey. This small community remained at Brightley for five years, when they, “by reason of great want and barrenness, could abide there no longer,” and commenced a return journey to their original home in Surrey. On their way they passed through Thorncombe, the parish wherein Ford is situated, where they encountered Adeliza, who, hearing with great regret of the failure of her brother’s enterprise, exclaimed: “Behold my manor where you now are, which is very fruitful and well wooded, which I give you for ever in exchange for your barren lands at Brightley, together with the mansion-house and other houses. Stay there until a more convenient monastery may be built for you upon some other part of the estate.” The site selected by the monks for the erection of the Abbey was in a valley, on the left bank of the river Axe, at a place called, according to Leland, “Hertbath” (balneum cervorum), and which, from its nearness to a ford crossing the river at this spot, subsequently became known as Ford.
Such is the accepted origin of the splendid pile of buildings which sprang up in this fertile and sequestered valley in 1148, and which still, notwithstanding the pillage at its dissolution, and its many structural alterations, commands our admiration and our attention; although, if we except some small portion of what is known as “the chapel,” at the eastern end of the south front, nothing now remains of the original foundation erected by the pious Adeliza.
The original purpose of this ancient part of the building, known as “the chapel,” is somewhat obscure. It has been commonly regarded as that portion of the religious house which its name indicates, and as being the burial-place of its founder and other benefactors. Dr. Oliver, however, in the supplement to his Monasticon, speaks of it as the “Chapter House”—a likely suggestion. In his Memoir of Thomas Chard, D.D., Dr. J. H. Pring writes:
That except in the deed of surrender, and a short reference made to it by Hearne, I have not been able to discover the slightest notice of “the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Ford” in any of the numerous accounts which have been given of the abbey; though when we read of frequent interments, some on the north, others on the south side of the choir—others, such as that of Robert Courtenay, who, we are told, was buried on the 28th July, 1242, in the chancel, before the high altar, under a stately monument exhibiting the figure of an armed knight—there can be little doubt, I think, that these took place, not in what is now known as the Chapel, but in the Abbey Church, which stood at the east end of the abbey, about two hundred feet above the chapel.
