Dorset Cookery with a twist

Whilst cycling the sleepy lanes near Sturminster Newton I chanced upon the village of Manston. Being a sucker for churches I soon found myself standing in the churchyard intrigued by the rather grand mausoleum that stood there. On further investigation I found like most things in Dorset it had an interesting tale to tell.
For here in 1882 began a revolution. A revolution in the British way of death.
The story starts in 1876 with the death of the of the lord of the manor's first wife  She was adamant that her resting place would not be the flood-prone family vault. 

So her husband devised a novel solution, cremation. 

Strange as it may seem, no cremations had taken place in Britain since Roman times and were in fact illegal in Victorian Britain.
Because of this, it took her husband six years to overcome all the obstacles and most importantly, to build a crematorium in the grounds of Manston Manor. During this period the body of his first wife and third wife (who also happened to be his first wife’s sister!) were placed in lead lined coffins in the specially built mausoleum  mentioned above, an elegant classical structure belying its mid Victorian date.
When all was at last ready the cremations were-

“...carried out without the slightest unpleasantness to those who stood within two feet of the white flame and promptly resolved the bodies to harmless elements”
Captain Hanham's letter to the Times Oct 30 1882

In a typical Victorian fashion Hanham was moved to describe in detail the exact appearance and composition of the ashes,

...“fragments of the (bone) looked like frosted silver and broke at the touch”

He was obviously a convert as in 1883 he too was cremated in a new improved crematorium. 

All three urns were then placed in the elegant mausoleum under the trees.