west front was taken down for some reason in the eighteenth century,
and at this time an effigy of a monk in his habit (lying along and
resting on his hands, looking down at the Abbey below) was destroyed.
Some paintings also perished at the same time. The chancel was also
partly rebuilt, and the roof raised, but the Transition-Norman
chancel-arch was preserved. On the south side of the altar is a
pedestal, on which the statue of St. Catherine may have formerly
stood. The encaustic tiles in the chancel were removed from the Abbey
Church in the year 1865. Some of these mediæval tiles are heraldic,
and contain the arms of the See of Exeter, the Earls of Cornwall,
Gloucester and Hertford, and others. A tile manufactured at Malvern has
an inscription and date, 1456.
In pre-Reformation days King Athelstan’s Chapel was possibly used as
the _capella extra portas_—the chapel, that is, outside the gates of
the monastery, at which strangers and women who were not admitted
within the gates might hear Mass. That women used St. Catherine’s
Chapel for another purpose is also possible. St. Catherine is the
patron-saint of spinsters, and in days gone by she was supposed to
have the power of finding a husband for those who sought her aid. The
following Milton rhymes in use to-day may be echoes of the mediæval
Latin doggerels:—
St. Catherine, St. Catherine, O lend me thine aid,
And grant that I never may die an old maid.
A husband, St. Catherine,
A _good_ one, St. Catherine;
But arn-a-one better than
Narn-a-one, St. Catherine.
Sweet St. Catherine,
A husband, St. Catherine,
Handsome, St. Catherine,
Rich, St. Catherine,
_Soon_, St. Catherine.
After the Reformation the chapel was allowed to decay and to become
desecrated. In the eighteenth century there is a record that it was
being used as a pigeon-house. Then, when more houses were needed
in the parish, the “Chapel Royal” was turned into a labourer’s
cottage—the interior was whitewashed, and a ceiling added; the chancel
became a bedroom, and the nave a living room, with a kitchen grate
and chimney affixed. Afterwards the little church was used as a
carpenter’s workshop, and then as a lumber store. But, in 1901, the
neglected building was cleaned out, and a service was held there on
St. Catherine’s night (November 25th). The parishioners assembled in
the building, the roof of which was full of holes (admitting ivy,
wind and wet), the windows had long been broken, and the south wall
was dangerously bulging. Confession of wrong was made for the past
desecrations, and prayers were offered that the Church of St. Catherine
might for the future be reverently treated as a “holy place” (as the
Indulgence-inscription calls it); and, happily, the building has since
been most conservatively restored by Mr. Everard Hambro, the lord of
the manor. Thus, the little church which commemorates a very critical
event in the early history of England has been saved from further
desecration and
[Illustration: THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET OF MILTON.
_Holworth, in 1827, showing the Burning Cliff._]
decay; and King Athelstan’s Chapel is once again used for the service
of God, while remaining a valuable historic relic of Saxon days.
[Illustration: LISCOMBE CHAPEL.]
Another _capella_ belonging to the Abbey, but now in private ownership,
has been less fortunate. Liscombe Chapel,[35] in the parish of Milton,
five miles from the Abbey Church and two miles from Chesilborne, is
still desecrated. This little building, built principally of flint,
stone, and large blocks of rock chalk, is entire, and consists of
chancel and nave, divided by a handsome Transition-Norman arch, with
massive rounded columns. The east window and the two other chancel
windows are Norman, with some later work inserted. But the chapel of
Liscombe has been desecrated for a long time. The nave thereof is now
used as a bakehouse (there is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in
the centre), and the chancel is used as a log-house. A flight of stone
stairs has been erected in the chancel, which leads to the bedrooms
over the bakehouse and log-house. The bedrooms have been ceiled, and
the whole interior of the little church has been whitewashed, including
the handsome chancel arch; the roof of the building is of thatch. An
old stone sundial is preserved in the west wall. Warne, in his _Ancient
Dorset_, states that the chapel is credited with being “tenanted by
a supernatural visitor”; and this is still believed by the country
folk. The house adjoining this desecrated sanctuary is also ancient,
and built chiefly of flint and stone. It possesses several interesting
windows of various dates (including a _loup_ in the east wall), and
an old stone sundial on its south wall. The interior contains some
oak-work, portions of which may be pre-Reformation. This house is now
used as a labourer’s cottage; but there is a tradition that it was
formerly inhabited by the monks, who ministered (“_Divina celebrant_:”)
in the little church. And the building itself, from its position and
evident antiquity, lends colour to the tradition; but there are marks
that it became the manor farmhouse after the Dissolution. There is
also a tradition that the stream which now runs through the hamlet
of Liscombe was formerly larger than it is now, and that there were
fish-ponds close by, and that the monks at Liscombe supplied their
overlord, the Abbot of Milton, with fresh-water fish.
Milton Abbey also possessed three other Norman _capellae_—in Woolland,
Whitcombe, and Holworth respectively; but Woolland is now a separate
ecclesiastical parish; Whitcombe is a donative held by the Rector
of Came (it was held for many years by William Barnes, the Dorset
poet); and Holworth, alone of the three, still remains a part of the
ecclesiastical parish of Milton.
Holworth is sixteen miles from the Abbey Church, and now possesses a
modern chapel, on a hill near the “Burning Cliff,” known as the Chapel
of St. Catherine-by-the-Sea. It is said that in days gone by the monks
at Holworth supplied their Abbot, at Milton, with salt-water fish.
The hamlet of Holworth, overlooking Weymouth Bay and Portland Roads,
has been well described as resting in “a most lonely and most lovely
valley by the sea, an earthly paradise, which those who have discovered
cherish and dream about. It is far away from the haunts of men, and
remote from the cares of life; where the newspaper is two days’ old
before it invades the religious calm of a mind attuned by the most
exquisite scenery to rise to thoughts above this world; where one may
walk along the undulating downs that skirt the Channel, held in place
by parapets of cliff that break down straight into the sea; where one
may walk mile after mile on natural lawn and not meet a soul—just one’s
self, the birds, the glorious scenery, and God.”[36]
The hamlet of Holworth is, indeed, worthy of being a portion of the
parish that is acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful places
in Dorset. The village of Milton lies enfolded between richly-wooded
hills, at the foot of a wonderfully picturesque descent. Sir Frederick
Treves, in his _Highways and Byways in Dorset_, says that “there is
nothing like to it in any part of England.” He calls it a “surprising”
village, “a toy town.” The first impression on seeing it “is one of
amazement, for the place is both extraordinary and unexpected.” Each
of the houses is of the same pattern, and each is separated from the
others by a chestnut tree. The builder of this unique village, as will
be seen, was Joseph, Lord Milton (afterwards Earl of Dorchester). The
old town of Milton lay near the south side of the Abbey Church; but
the ancient town was pulled down by Lord Milton about the year 1780,
as it was too close to his new mansion (in which he had incorporated
the magnificent fifteenth century monastic refectory), and proved an
annoyance to him. The death, in 1775, of his wife (“the most noble and
most excellent Lady Caroline, Lady Milton, daughter of Lyonel, Duke
of Dorset, the wisest and most lovely, the best and most virtuous of
women”), to whom he was passionately attached, and the suicide, in
the following year, of his eldest son (the husband of “the beautiful
Anne Seymour Damer”[37]), probably had a hardening influence on Lord
Milton’s character, and made him use his giant’s strength tyrannously
like a giant. At any rate, he swept away the old town, and the “new
town” was then built, further off, as a substitute. Some fragmentary
particulars of the old town of Milton have been gathered together,[38]
which perhaps are of sufficient interest to be reproduced here.
The old town was one of the most ancient in Dorset. It grew up with the
Abbey, and was known as Middleton (of which Milton is a contraction),
because it was the middle town of the county. It contained shops of all
kinds, four inns, a pre-Reformation Grammar School, almshouses built in
1674, and a brewery, which helped to supply Weymouth, Poole, and other
large towns in Dorset. Milton Abbey ales were at one time among the
most famous in the county; they could also be obtained in London. The
tradesmen of old Milton were prosperous, but the “working classes” were
very poor. Their staple food was barley cake; and to keep down expenses
they saved every morsel of fat and made their own candles in pewter
moulds. Two, if not more, of the leading shopkeepers issued “tokens” in
the seventeenth century,[39] specimens of which exist; and among the
old parish papers are a number of apprenticeship indentures which bound
poor boys to various tradesmen in the place. The girls of the parish
were taught to spin.
[Illustration: MILTON ABBEY, IN THE YEAR 1733.
_Showing the old Monastic house on the left, and the old town on the
right of the church._]
The handsome fifteenth century market cross was one of the finest in
the kingdom, quite worthy of its position near the Abbey Church. It
had an ascent of no fewer than thirty steps. Its site is marked in the
present park by a very massive octagonal socket stone, which is said to
be a portion of the original cross. The parish registers state that,
in the days of the Commonwealth, banns of marriage were published “in
the markett.”[40] The weekly market was well attended, it being the
central market of the county, and was held around the market cross.
The annual fair was held on St. Sampson’s Eve and Day, July 27th and
28th, St. Sampson being the chief patron saint of the Abbey. This fair,
like the market, was granted by King Athelstan; but it was practically
discontinued when the old town was pulled down.
The sports in old Milton were badger-baiting under the cedar trees
in the Abbey churchyard; cock-squailing, cock-fighting, and “fives,”
outside the west end of the church; bowls were played on the bowling
green, and ringing was very popular. The ringers only claimed “bread
and beare” for their services each year—on the Restoration Day of
Charles II. (May 29th), on Guy Fawkes’ Day (November 5th), and on
Christmas Day. They were also paid on special occasions, such as “for
ringing ye Bishope throu Towne”; but episcopal visits were rare. During
Lent the children went “shroving” and “Lent crocking.” On Shrove
Tuesday the children, carrying sticks, knocked at the doors of the
principal residents and repeated this doggerel verse:
Please I’ve come a-shroving
For a piece of pancake,
Or a little ruckle cheese
Of your own making.
If you don’t give me some,
If you don’t give me none,
I’ll knock down your door
With a great marrow bone
And a-way I’ll run.
The result of this threat was that the children were given hot
half-pence, apples, eggs, a piece of pancake, or a hunch of
ruckle-cheese. A ruckle-cheese was a small sour-milk home-made cheese,
weighing about one pound. It could be ruckled—_i.e._, rolled along
the ground. Hence its name. In the evening the “Lent-crocking” began.
Those people who had not given the children anything when they came
“a-shroving” were then punished by having pieces of crockery and pans
and other missiles thrown at their doors. In this way real damage
was often done, and the two parish constables do not seem to have
interfered. The practice of shroving is still continued in the present
village of Milton: it is one of the customs that have survived the
demolition of the old town. It obtains in other Dorset parishes, but is
gradually dying out.
The Abbey churchyard was a very large one. Its area was about three
times the area of the Abbey Church. The sports which took place
therein have been already mentioned. It was also used as a public
flogging-place for offenders against the law. Lord Milton, when he
decided to pull down the old town, had all the headstones in the
churchyard removed, broken up, or buried. In converting the churchyard
into lawns, many bones of parishioners were turned up and irreverently
treated; and the superstitious tradition in the present village is
that, in consequence of this, Lord Milton died of a gruesome disease.
There was an ancient cross in the churchyard called the “Druid’s
Cross,” and also a preaching cross.[41] It is hardly necessary to add
that these perished with the churchyard.
The old Grammar School, founded by Abbot Middleton in 1521, was also
pulled down. It was one of the chief public schools in the south-west
of England, and was known as “the Eton of the West.”[42] It had, as
a rule, between eighty to one hundred boys, mostly boarders, sons of
the leading county families. There were several boarding-houses for
the boys in Milton, and the existence of the school helped on the
prosperity of the town. Two of its most distinguished _alumni_ were
Thomas Masterman Hardy, Nelson’s favourite captain, who in after life
did not forget his old friends at Milton[43]; and Thomas Beach, a
native of Milton, the famous Dorset portrait painter, who from 1772 to
1800 “limned the features of everybody who was anybody.”
It must be admitted, reluctantly, that the Grammar School boys were an
undoubted nuisance to Lord Milton. They lived within a stone’s throw of
his mansion, they broke into his privacy and seclusion, they scoured
his gardens and plantations in every direction, stole his fruit, and
disturbed his game. Records exist of the expulsion of some boys bearing
the most honoured of Dorset names for persistent stone-throwing down
chimneys, and for stealing cucumbers from the Abbey gardens, and
game-fowl eggs for the purpose of rearing birds to compete in fighting.
In the Abbey Church the Grammar School boys sat in a large gallery
which stretched from the rood-loft to the west wall. This gallery was
pulled down by Lord Milton’s orders as soon as he had removed the
school. The headmaster and assistant-masters of the school, being in
Holy Orders, frequently held the position of Vicar or Curate of the
Abbey Church. Among them was John Hutchins, the Dorset historian, who
was Curate of the Abbey and “usher” of the school.[44]
It must not be thought that Lord Milton’s “fine quarter-deck
high-handedness” aroused no outcry. The parishioners regarded his
action as a cruel piece of tyranny, and they resisted it with stubborn
and obstinate opposition.[45] For over twenty years his lordship was
involved in considerable trouble and expense while gradually getting
all the houses into his possession, in order that he might raze them
to the ground. Mr. Harrison, a resident solicitor, refused to sell his
lease, although he was offered three times its value; so Lord Milton
let the water from the “Abbot’s Pond” (a small pond which then lay just
below the Abbey Church) creep around the premises. Mr. Harrison at once
entered an action against his lordship for flooding his house, and the
lawyer won the case. A few days afterwards Lord Milton went to London,
and on his way to Blandford he heard the Abbey bells ringing. This he
interpreted as a sign of parochial joy at his defeat and departure;
and nothing would satisfy him but the sale of the offending bells.
The bells were really ringing to commemorate Guy Fawkes’ Day: it was
November 5th. But the bells had to go: “the autocrat” had spoken.
And his friend, the Dean of Norwich, had said that “bell-ringing
caused much idleness and drinking.” There is a record that, when
the parishioners saw their bells carted away, they stood at their
house-doors weeping, even though two of the bells were saved for the
new Church of St. James.
In pulling down the old town Lord Milton preserved the Abbey Church,
and employed James Wyatt to restore it. Much havoc was then wrought
in the interior, but at the same time the vast building underwent a
thorough repair, which it needed very badly. There is a tradition that
this restoration cost Lord Milton no less than £60,000; but this seems
a fabulous sum.
With the materials from the demolished buildings of the old town
Lord Milton built the present village of Milton (he also built some
ecclesiastical-looking sham “ruins” in the park, which are still
standing);[46] and the stone and timber from the old Abbey tithe-barn
were used to construct a new church in the new village. The few
interesting things in this church, which is dedicated to St. James
the Great, were originally possessions of the Abbey—two bells of the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively, a thirteenth century
Purbeck marble octagonal font, an old pulpit, two pewter plates, two
oak coffin-stools, and three elaborately-bound volumes, in black
letter, of Fox’s _Acts and Monuments of the Christian Martyrs_ (1632),
which aforetime were chained in the Abbey to a desk covered with “red
shagg” and studded with 200 brass nails.
But although St. James’ Church suffers loss by comparison with the
other more ancient churches in the parish, its churchyard is remarkable
in that it is higher than the church itself. The dead are buried not
below the level of the church, but above the level of its roof. This is
certainly unusual.
Yet it may be regarded as a fitting _finale_ for the inhabitants of a
parish that has been described truly as “a curiosity, surprising, and
remarkable.”
[Illustration:
THE SEAL OF THE TOWN OF
MILTON IN AMERICA.
_Incorporated 1662._]
WIMBORNE MINSTER
BY THE REV. THOMAS PERKINS, M.A.
Wimborne Minster, as it is called to distinguish it from the village
of Wimborne St. Giles and Monkton-up-Wimborne, is at the present day
a bright, clean, prosperous-looking little market town, showing few
remains of olden times save in its church. There is no doubt that its
name is connected with the little river or “bourne” on which it stands,
for the two villages mentioned above, bearing names of which Wimborne
forms a part, stand on the same stream, which, like some other Dorset
rivers—the Var or Frome, the Piddle or Trent—bears two names, the Wim
or the Allen.
And yet it is an ancient place. Here, early in the eighth century,
Cudburh, or Cuthberga, sister of Ine, the famous King of the West
Saxons, whose laws were the foundation of the liberties of his
subjects, and show a spirit of tolerance hitherto unknown towards the
conquered Celts, founded a nunnery. Here, in 851, the then Earl of
Devon is said to have defeated the Danes; here Æthelred, the brother
and immediate predecessor of Ælfred on the West Saxon throne, having
died of a wound received in battle with the Danes, we know not where,
was buried in 871. Hither came the Danes again, plundering the town
and destroying the convent. Hither, too, after the death of Ælfred, in
901, came Æthelwold, the Ætheling (son of Ælfred’s brother, Æthelred,
who had been passed over as too young to rule when his father died)
rebelling against the new King, Ælfred’s son, Eadward the Unconquered,
and possessed himself of Wimborne. Eadward marched from the south
against him, and encamped within the rampart of Badbury Rings, a few
miles to the west of Wimborne; hence he sent a message to Æthelwold,
bidding him surrender. To this Æthelwold returned stout answer that
he would either live or die in Wimborne. But after the messenger had
gone back he took counsel with himself, and decided that as the first
alternative was impossible, and the second unpleasant, he would see if
a third course were not open to him—namely, to live elsewhere. So he
fled to Normandy, and thence to Northumberland, which was then under
Danish rule, and, throwing in his lot with the enemies of Wessex, he
collected a band of freebooters from beyond the sea, and received some
assistance from the East Anglian Danes. But all to no purpose, for the
“Unconquered” King overthrew him and his Danish allies in many fights,
and recovered all the booty they had carried off.
But it is the church that is the centre of interest of Wimborne.
Ine, King of the West Saxons, had two sisters, perhaps more, but
only two are connected with Wimborne. Cuthberga was betrothed to the
Northumbrian King, Æcgfred, or Osric, as he is often called, but when
she met him she found his rough northern manners and his intemperate
habits little in harmony with her more refined disposition and mode of
life. Therefore, she persuaded him to allow her to devote herself to a
religious life, and retired to the nunnery at Barking; and afterwards,
at what exact date we do not know, but probably not later than 705, she
founded a nunnery at Wimborne, her sister being associated with her in
the work. Both of these royal ladies were buried within the precincts,
and in due time canonised as St. Cuthberga and St. Cwenberga; the
former was commemorated as a virgin on August 31st. A special service
appointed for the day may still be read in a Missal kept in the
Cathedral Library at Salisbury.
[Illustration: WIMBORNE MINSTER.]
The convent of Wimborne can boast of another illustrious lady among
those who took the veil within its walls—St. Walburga, or Walpurgis.
Somewhere about the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth
century, she was born in Sussex, and was educated at the newly-founded
nunnery at Wimborne, and became in due course a nun; here she stayed
for yet another twenty-seven years. Then, by the desire of her uncle,
St. Boniface, and her brother Wilibald, she set out with thirty other
nuns to found religious houses in Germany. She first settled at
Bischofsheim, in the diocese of Maintz, and in 754 became Abbess of the
Benedictine house at Heidenheim, which was situated within the diocese
of Eichstädt, in Bavaria, of which her brother, Wilibald, was Bishop.
Another brother, Winebald, was head of the Benedictine monastery in
the same place; and when he died, in 760, Walburga received the charge
of this house in addition to her own, and continued to rule both until
her death in 779. She was buried in a hollow rock at Eichstädt, from
which a bituminous oil, afterwards called Walpurgis’ oil, exuded. This
was supposed to possess miraculous powers of healing, so that her grave
was much visited by pilgrims, and a church was built over it. She is
commemorated at different times in different places, but chiefly on May
1st, a day originally celebrated with heathen ceremonies, emblematical
of the birth of Summer. Hence some of the heathen rites still lingered
on, just as certain of our Christmas customs are of heathen origin. The
readers of Göethe’s _Faust_ cannot help remembering the revels of the
witches on the Brocken on Walpurgis’ night.
The nunnery at Wimborne perished in some plundering raid of the Danes
some time during the ninth century. Whether Ælfred did anything to
restore it we do not know, but a king of the name of Eadward, either
Ælfred’s son, the “Unconquered,” or the Confessor, founded a college
of secular priests at Wimborne. Again, we know not whether the church
of this college occupied the site of the old convent church or not. The
names of the deans from 1224 until the Dissolution, in 1547, have come
down to us. The only one of these whose name is known in history is the
last but one—Cardinal Pole, who held this position from 1517 till 1537,
being only seventeen years of age at the time of his appointment. When
the deanery was abolished, Wimborne Minster became a Royal Peculiar,
under the administration of three priest-vicars. The arrangement was
a somewhat unusual one; each of the three was responsible for the
services for one week, one of the other two acted as his curate in
the Minster, and the other took charge of the chapelry of Holt. The
next week they changed places; and so on continually. This curious
arrangement continued in force till 1876, when one vicar retired on
a pension, another removed to Holt, where a parsonage had been built
for him, and the third became sole vicar of the Minster and the parish
attached to it.