WIMBORNE MINSTER TO HORTON AND MONMOUTH ASH
IT is by the direct road to Cranborne, and past the Gate Inn at Clapgate,
that one reaches Horton, where, at the intersection of the two broad main
roads from Wimborne to Cranborne, and from Shaftesbury to Ringwood,
stands Horton Inn, a fine, substantial old house, once depending upon a
great coaching and posting traffic, and even now that only an occasional
cyclist stays the night, dispensing good, old-fashioned, solid comforts
in its cosy and comfortable rooms. When Horton Inn was built, let us say
somewhere about the time of Queen Anne (who, poor soul! is dead), those
who designed it, disregarding any temptations to be picturesque, devoted
their energies to good, honest workmanship, with the result that nowadays
one sees a building certainly lacking in imagination, with windows
equidistant and each the counterpart of its fellow, but disclosing in
every quoin and keystone, and in each well and truly laid course of
brickwork, the justness and thoroughness of its design and execution.
Within doors it is the same: unobtrusive but excellent workmanship
characterises panelling and window-sashes, doors and handrails, with the
result that in its old age Horton Inn has an air of distinction and
dignity strongly marked to those who take an interest in technical
details, and attracting the notice of even the least observant, who from
its superior air generally conceive it to be an old mansion converted to
its present use. It is the subject of an allusion in the tale of
_Barbara of the House of Grebe_: the “Lornton Inn” whence Barbara eloped
with the handsome Willowes, and where she was to meet her disfigured
husband, posting along the road from Southampton, on his return from
foreign parts.
The village of Horton, down the road, at some little distance from the
inn, has an oddly German-looking tower to its church, containing the
monument of “Squire Hastings” of Woodlands, who died, aged 99 years, in
1650.
On an eerie hillside near by, in what of old was Horton Park, but sold by
the Sturts in 1793 to the Earl of Shaftesbury, and disparked, stands the
many-storied tower of what was once an observatory built by Humphry
Sturt. It is now an empty shell, through whose ruined windows the wind
sighs mournfully at night, and the moonlight gleams ghostlike. It is an
ugly enough place in daylight, but should you particularly desire to know
what the creepy, uncanny feeling of being haunted is like, why then, walk
up on a windy night to “The Folly,” as the villagers call it, and stand
in it, listening to the wind howling, grumbling or whispering in and out
of the long, shaft-like building, and nocturnal birds fluttering and
squeaking on the upper ledges. It is not a little gruesome.
This is one of the originals whence Mr. Hardy drew his idea of the tower
in _Two on a Tower_, and is certainly the most impressive of them. Very
many years have passed since the old tower was used, and since the park
in which it stands was converted into a farm.
[Picture: The Observatory, Horton]
The Woodlands estate, on the broad acres belonging to the Earl of
Shaftesbury, is a sandy, heathy district of furze and pine-trees, with a
conspicuous ridge in the midst, shaped in a semicircle and crested with
those sombre trees. Here is Shag Heath and the cultivated oasis called
“The Island” where on July 8th, 1685, the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth
was captured, hiding amid the bracken and undergrowth, beneath an
ash-tree. He might possibly have succeeded in stealing away to the coast
and so escaping, despite the thoroughness of the search made by the
Sussex Militia, spurred to it by the reward of £5,000, offered for the
capture of the fugitive, had it not been for the information given by an
old woman who lived in a cottage near at hand. She had seen him,
disguised as a shepherd, threading his way cautiously through the heath,
and he was accordingly discovered near the spot she had indicated by a
militiaman named Parkin. The Duke, half-starved and unkempt from his
hunted wanderings since the fatal Sedgemoor fight of three days earlier,
was found in possession of his badge of the George, a pocket-book and
several guineas. In his pockets were a number of peas, the remains of a
quantity he had plucked, to stave off his hunger.
[Picture: Horton Inn: the “Lornton Inn” of “Barbara of the House of
Grebe”]
[Picture: Monmouth Ash]
A total of £5,500 was divided among Lord Lumley, the officers,
militiamen, and others concerned in the capture. Among these was Amy
Farant, whose information had directly led to it, and she received a sum
of fifty pounds.
Local tradition points out the spot on the hillside where this woman’s
cottage formerly stood, overlooking the field called “Monmouth Close” and
the horror always felt by the rustics at the taking of what they still
call the “blood-money” is seen in the story told of her after-years. The
price of blood brought a curse with it. She fell upon evil times, and at
last lived and died in a state of rags and dirt, shunned by all. After
her death, the cottage itself speedily earned a sinister reputation, and
was at length either pulled down, or allowed to decay. The spot is still
called locally Louse, or more genteelly Slough, Lane.
The “Monmouth Ash”—or “Aish,” in the country speech—still survives, with
a difference. Those who, looking upon the present tree and thinking,
despite its decrepit and propped-up condition, that it cannot be over two
hundred years old—and therefore that this cannot be the precise spot—may,
with the reservation already made, be reassured of its absolute
genuineness. The original trunk grew decayed in the long ago, and was
blown down, but the present tree is a growth from the “stool,” or root,
of that under which the unhappy Protestant Champion was discovered.