The lost chapel

Lyscombe Chapel hides in an unspoilt and hidden valley, no signpost marks it out, while the only way to reach it is on your plates of meat. 

Dating from the 13th century, it was connected to the monastery of Milton Abbas, possibly as a stopover for wandering monks with the princely rent of twelve fishes being paid to the landowner. Following the Dissolution the chapel and accompanying priest's house became a bakehouse for several hundred years.

More recently it lay abandoned and was doomed to crumble to nothingness until the enlightened landowner breathed life into it once again.

The resulting restoration meant that in 2007 Mass was celebrated here for the first time in 500 years.

Dorset Churches - St Georges, Portland

Imagine a Wren church lifted bodily from its foundations and placed atop the bleak and windswept heights of Portland. This is the Church of St George.

The incongruity is increased by the fact that it is perched on the very edge of a deep quarry.

The church was erected  between 1754 and 1766 by a local architect and replaced the original church, the remains of which can still be found above the appropriately named, Church Ope Cove.

Killed by lightening

Aside from its windswept beauty, St George's also possesses  an unusually complete graveyard of about 2500 graves containing a number of fascinating and elaborate gravestones.

Shot by the Pressgang

After 150 years St George’s closed for worship in 1914 but was saved from dereliction by a group of volunteers. It now opens during the summer months. The interior is beautifully preserved and includes a twin pulpit for those who preferred to hear the Word in stereo.

Open 10:00-17.00 Until End of October.

10.00-15.00 Winter Months

Died in childbirth

Details over the Border

Straying over the border I believe I may have  discovered a  completely new school of art - The Somerset  School of Medieval Crap Art.
I'm just glad it wasn't me that parted with my hard earned groat to get these jokers to carve my grave stone. Will stick to Dorset in future...
(Actually I think they're great!)

Dorset Churches - Wimborne Minster Church

The Minster  stands at the centre of Wimborne  and is a homely, squat edifice while around it  the town's Georgian buildings gather like an eager congregation. 
No soaring Gothic spires here..though there was a soaring spire, but it collapsed four hundred years ago. 

The fabric of the church is mainly Norman though the site is much older and has been renovated several times in the intervening centuries, including a very thorough renovation in the 1850's.

Remnants of medieval wall painting

Even so there is still a lot to see including an ancient chained library and a colourful 14thC clock, while close to the altar lies the tomb of Margaret Beaufort mother of Henry VII and a benefactor.

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 Roof of the tower

A small fragment of the pre-reformation painting which would have originally embellished the church from wall to ceiling remains; and in one wall stands the sarcophagus of Anthony Ettricke who decreed his burial place be neither in the open or under the church. 

Death amended 

The result being he was buried half in and half out of the church. He also became convinced he would shuffle off 1693. Embarrassingly for him he turned out to be ten years too early in his prediction meaning a last minute amendment to the coffin's inscription.

The 13thC clock

Dorset churches 4 - St.John the Baptist, Bere Regis

Ghostly outline of a Turberville

The church of John the Baptist dates back to the years before the Norman invasion. It has strong connections with Thomas Hardy whose novel, 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles,' hinges on the fate of Turbervilles who huddle together in the vaults below the church.

Supposed portrait of Cardinal Morton

Its chief glory though, is the magnificent medieval roof; a mixture of bold carved roof bosses and near life-sized carvings of the apostles.

It was given by Cardinal Morton in 1485, probably in memory of his parents. The roof is unique.  Stylistically though it has several parallels in Norfolk and to my eye, with the famous corbels of Norwich. Cathedral.

After looking up, look down; for on several of the pillars are medieval carvings which seem to contemporary thinking completely out of place in a church. Characters with toothache and a headache are among them.

Dorset History- A tale of the great slave rebellion

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High on the wall of the St Peter's Church in Dorchester is an unassuming eighteenth century marble memorial commemorating the death in 1774 of John Gordon a member the illustrious Clan Gordon. The inscription then takes a sinister turn when it mentions Gordon's contribution to the quelling of a slave rebellion in Jamaica in 1760 and the humanity he displayed afterwards.
This slave rebellion mentioned so briefly touched on was one of the first serious slave uprisings and from all accounts its outcome far from humane. 

The uprising is remembered as Tacky’s Rebellion, and its memory is preserved in a monument in Kingston, Jamaica. Tacky, a Coromantee chief by birth, was an overseer who, with a group of fellow tribesmen, fell on their British oppressors on Easter Sunday, a time when most whites would have been attending church.

What happened next is related by a contemporary witness:

"The rebellion amongst the Negroes has been of bad consequence to the whole island. Their design was to rise at Kingston and Spanish town, and to have set fire to these towns in several places at once, and to murder everybody in them. 

They afterward seized what arms and ammunition were to be found, and went to a small fort at Port Maria, where there was only one white man and a Negro; they killed the white man, and took away three barrels of powder, and marched to another Estate, where the overseer was apprised of their intentions. He defended the house for an hour and a half, and the rebels were going away; upon which he opened the door, and wanted to bring them to their duty by speaking to them. Whilst he was doing so, one of his own Negroes shot him in the back. The rest rushed in and killed all the white people except one, whom they mangled in the most awful manner, cutting off his nose, and leaving him for dead. They cut off the overseer's head,  put his blood in a calabath, mixed gunpowder with it, and eat their plantains dipped in it, as they did by every white man they killed. In short their savage barbarity can scarcely be paralleled."

Defeat was inevitable, and retribution swift and cruel...

"...There are about 25 of them made prisoner, who are severally carried to Spanish Town and the places they committed their barbarities. Ion who had not been the rebel actually was burnt alive for having sworn to cut his master's and mistress's heads off and make punch bowls of them. On Saturday I heard trials of four more, who were found guilty of being concerned in the murder of white people. Two were burnt alive the same day; two were hanged, their bodies burnt, and their heads stuck on poles. Two were tried at Kingston for the same offence and found guilty. Their sentence was to be gibbeted alive 20 feet high. One of them lived nine days without a drop of water, hanging in an excessive hot place."

Little evidence is shown of the 'humane treatment' mentioned on John Gordons memorial the account omitting to mention that several rebels were slow roasted in front of open fires.

Tracing John Gordon is all but impossible- there was always a strong Scots presence in Jamaica and a Gordon, even a well connected one is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

A John Gordon, whose dates correspond with the John Gordon of Dorchester, was transported to slavery to a nearby Martinique for taking part in the battle of Culloden in 1745 ( as many Scots, including well connected ones were) so could have well served his time and travelled to Jamaica by 1760 and taken part in this shameful episode...its a romantic notion if nothing else...

Dorset Churches-St Mary's, Puddletown

This church is closely associated with Thomas Hardy, and in fact Puddletown features as Wetherbury of Hardy's novels. It was here that many of his relations worshipped and left their mark as graffiti in the church.

Dating from the late Middle Ages, the church's atmospheric interior houses a set of box pews complete with hooks for top hats, wall paintings which were whitewashed by the Puritans. There is also a wonderful group of marble tombs belonging to the the Martyns of Athelhampton, dating from the 14th century; recently the subject of an extensive renovation project.
The church door was obviously the subject of potshots in the Civil war: lead pellets were dug out of it during conservation and are on display.

Finally, hanging inconspicuously in the gloom, are two items which demonstrate the pleasing eccentricity of church contents: canvas fire buckets dating from 1805 and printed boldly with the name of their provider: Sun Insurance.

Dorset History 1-The Easton Massacre

High above Portland can be found the church of St George, its classical proportions make it an architectural gem worth seeking in its own right but its graveyard is also special.

Its weathered memorials standing just a stone's throw from the very edge of the quarry, are unusually elaborate and evocative.

In the present day and age, when atrocities take place far from home one particular memorial bears witness to a violent sequence of events that took place here on Portland over 200 years ago which ended in the violent death of twenty one year old Mary Way.

 Her gravestone tells of her death as a result of wounds sustained after being shot by the Press Gang. The incident took place April 2 1803, and is remembered to this day as the Easton Massacre.

It all began on the night before her death when men from the Frigate, Eagle, had come ashore and unsuccessfully attempted to press Nicholas Way. He was the captain of a small vessel and therefore exempt from the press (as indeed all the able bodied men on the island were).

Undeterred, at 5.00 am the next morning the Eagle's captain landed at Easton with a heavily armed force of some thirty men and officers. The early hour was chosen to catch the islanders while they slept. One of the first men they apprehended was their previous night’s victim, Nicholas Way along with Henry Wiggat. By this time the villagers, woken by the furore, ran for cover in panic. As the Press Gang chased the villagers uphill they found their way was bravely blocked by Zachariah White. Demanding the source of their authority he discovered that the warrant, signed by a Mayor of Weymouth, had no legal authority on the island.

 

The sailors, though, ignored his protestations and moved on. 
As the situation began to grow ugly they formed a defensive line. When they attempted to snatch yet another islander, the crowd snapped. In the ensuing scuffles a pistol, whether accidentally or not, was fired by the captain. This was the prearranged signal to open fire. In the ensuing chaos three islanders died instantly, shot through the head. Two more, one of them Mary Way, fell fatally wounded to the ground, a bullet lodged in her back. The pressgang who had also sustained casualties then retired to their ship taking their hard-won captives.

St Georges stands on the very edge of a quarry

An official enquiry into the events was eventually held but no convictions were ever made (plus ca change...!) while the involvement of a Weymouth JP only served to sustain their historical enmity between the two communities.

A short walk to the church

St Georges can be made the destination of a short but rewarding walk. The headstone of Mary Way is here, as is the doubly unfortunate William Hansford who died in the Great Storm of November 1824 when the sea came over the Chesil Beach and broke his leg after which his house fell on him and killed him.
Parking in Chiswell follow the signs for the coast path which takes you steeply uphill giving you breathtaking views of Chesil Bank and the Jurassic Coast. As the path levels out a diversion to the left will take you into the Tout Quarry Sculpture Park where sculptures lie amid the undergrowth like the relics of a lost civilisation. Continue along the path to reach the church.
There and back is just over 3 miles.

Dorset Churches-St Martin's, Wareham

This fascinating church is worth visiting on several counts.

Firstly, it is the only example of a Saxon church in Dorset that survives close to its original state. 

Like most early churches, the focus is the altar round which the mass was celebrated. Indeed, the altar takes up a big chunk of the church. The simple tall, narrow nave as well as a tiny window in the north side of the chancel are original, dating back to 1030. In the northwest aisle is Saxon wall-arcading and traces of a Saxon door. 

Next, there are the 12th century frescoes on the north wall of the chancel depicting St Martin on horseback dividing his cloak to give one half to a beggar.
Finally, the church is home to a life-sized recumbent effigy of T. E. Lawrence in full Arab dress. His friend Eric Kennington,  the official war artist for the First and Second World Wars, carved it out of Purbeck marble and Portland stone. Lawrence is portrayed wearing an Arab headdress and holding camel whips as well as two books: the Greek Anthology of Verse & the Oxford Book of English Verse and a dagger given to him by Prince Faisal.

 The monument was originally intended for St Pauls who rejected along with both Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral. It was their loss as around 10,000 visitors a year come to the church just to see the sculpture. 

Almost Dorset- Church of All Saints, Sutton Bingham

Just across the Dorset border in Somerset close to the reservoir of Sutton Bingham there stands the tiny church of All Saints.

 

Sutton Bingham is mainly known for its pretty reservoir and the birds it attracts. The church hides almost unnoticed at the end of a narrow lane just a stones-throw from the lake, its humble exterior giving no hint of the riches hidden inside.

Acclimatising to the gloom you become slowly become aware that the interior is richly decorated with medieval paintings   dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. Whitewashed over during the reformation they were only rediscovered in the 1860's. They looked particularly beautiful the day I visited. Bright sunlight shone, throwing lattice patterns across these ancient artworks.

The most noteworthy is painted on the north wall of the nave, and shows two scenes from the death of the Virgin, while through the beautifullypreserved Norman chancel arch is a scene of the crowning of the Virgin. Painted figures even decorate the window reveals. It is a timeless moment especially so when in a museum such venerable art would be securely behind glass.

Crowning of the Virgin

Outside take yet more time out for contemplation.

 Of the two bells hanging in the open belfry, the right hand bell has been dated to 1250 and is believed to have been cast by an itinerant bell founder on this very spot 750 years ago. The other bell is but a fresh faced youngster and dates from 1688.

Dorset Churches 1 -St Candida, Whitchurch Canonicorum

Old niche, modern sculpture of St Candida

This church was once the a place of pilgrimage centring on the Anglo Saxon shrine of St Candida. The shrine, a unique pre-Reformation survival is an unassuming, altar-like structure. It is pierced by three oval cavities where pilgrims would place their infected or injured limbs hoping for a cure. St Candida’s is the only such shrine to survive in England except for that of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.

 The origins of St Candida are hazy, though repairs carried out in 1900 revealed the bones of a small women of about forty and the inscription,‘Here lie the bones of St White’. Continuity is maintained to this very day with the three niches filled with parishioners’ petitions for assistance from the saint.

The Shine of St Candida

The church also contains the richly carved Jacobean tomb of Sir John Jeffrey, an interesting mix of Classical style with Elizabethan folk art.

Tomb of Sir John Jeffrey

 Sir George Somers, Lyme Regis’ most famous son also has a memorial. Sir George was into job creation, being both the discoverer and the governor of Bermuda. He was also partial to a bit of pork, he died from consuming a surfeit of pig. 

Outside lie the remains of two famous political animals; Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, famously assassinated by a poisoned-tipped umbrella on Waterloo Bridge  as well as the resting place of political broadcaster and interviewer, Sir Robin Day, whose memorial reads; "In loving memory of Sir Robin Day-the Grand Inquisitor."