Part 15
The East Weirs, again, were an ideal place for a day’s ramble, with their wild undergrowth, dog-roses and honeysuckle sending their fragrance along the sea-laden breezes. Set off on one hand by the grey, grim cliffs above, and the restless waters on the other, they merge into a chaotic jumble of rocks and grass, terminating abruptly in a ledge overlooking one of the gems of the isle—the beautiful little cove of Church Hope. This cove is guarded above by weather-beaten Bow and Arrow Castle, the old ruined church, and Pennsylvania Castle, the latter lying at the head of a romantic grassy slope studded with trees, and the whole forming a delightful rest for tired eyes in treeless, stony Portland Isle.
Bow and Arrow, or Rufus Castle, is worth more than a mere passing allusion, but space forbids. Its alternative name may show the period of its erection; it was probably built about the same time as the ancient church which preceded the adjacent ruined building. Its original strength is apparent at a glance, and its position on the summit of a crag overlooking the channel is distinctly striking. Old Portlanders believed the above-mentioned crag to have once been near the centre of the island, and the Shambles to have been the site of butchers’ shops. When we recall the great historic land-slides on the north-east in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and remember how the old people are stated to have spoken of them with bated breath, in reference to the terror they had caused the then living inhabitants, who had believed the whole island to be slipping away, the tradition does not seem so wildly impossible.
Recorded history is so silent respecting the early years of Portland, that one fancies it must have inherited its full share of that barbarism into which Britain relapsed after the departure of the Romans, its very name having been lost; for that it was the “Vindilis,” or “Vindilia,” of Roman times, is open to grave doubts, the latest edition of the _Antonine Itinerary_ stating that place to have been Belle Isle. It is much more generally accepted that Portland was referred to in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ as the landing-place of the men “who came in three long ships from Hæretha Land (Denmark), A.D. 787.” Terrible, indeed, must have been the depredations of these wild northmen during this and subsequent periods, for floating traditions to linger on till past the middle of the nineteenth century. It is well within the writer’s memory that rebellious children were sometimes threatened with being carried off by “the cruel wild men, who come over the beach in the middle of the night and carry away naughty children”—a threat which was varied by references to “Old Arripay” or “Boney.” The “wild men” seemed too remote, and “Arripay” too nebulous to a child’s mind to cause much fear; but “Boney” was a real terror to the little conscience-stricken individual, so familiar with frequent allusions to the threatened French invasion under Buonaparte as to consider him still living, and to regard him with a mighty dread.
There is a legend still extant that after the defeat of the Danes at Charmouth they landed at Portland and carried off some maidens, whom they imprisoned in the bottom of their ship. Owing to a fearful storm, the Danes perished, whilst the ship containing the bound girls was driven backwards during the night and cast ashore. When the light of morning broke, to their great joy, they found themselves at the very place from which they had been stolen.
Duke Æthelhelm defeated the Danes here in 837; and in 1052 Earl Godwin landed and plundered the island.
Edward the Confessor granted the manor to the church at Winchester, which grant must have been revoked by the Conqueror, as _Domesday Book_ states: “The King holds the island which is called Porland.” Later on we find the Prior and Convent of Winchester held Portland, which may account for certain lands there still being called Priory. It must not be forgotten that the manor in ancient times included the dependencies of Wyke, Weymouth, and Helwell. Interesting references to grants of the Manor may be seen at the British Museum. Amongst the more noteworthy names in this connection may be cited those of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, Lionel Duke of Clarence, and Cecilia Duchess of York. Later still we find Henry VIII. granting the Manor and Isle to Catherine Howard, and then to Catherine Parr, Portland having formed part of Jane Seymour’s possessions. In a closet over the gun-room at Portland Castle is the following inscription:—
God, save, Kinge, Henri, the viii, of, that, name, and, Prins, Edvard, begottin, of, Quene, Jane, my, Ladi, Mari, that, goodli, Virgin, and, the, Ladi, Elizabeth, so, towardli, with, the, Kinge’s, honorable, counselers.
Amongst the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum is one entitled “Remembrance for Lord Burghly as to certain fixtures of Sir W. Raleigh relating to Portland Castle, 1587”; and in 1625 the name of Gilbert Rawleigh is cited as Governor of the Castle.
We can fancy those stirring times in 1558, when Coker tells us that off Portland, in full view of those on shore, was witnessed a great fight with the Invincible Armada, two of whose treasure-ships were brought into Portland Roads. For long years after, during a ground-swell, dollars and “ducky-stones” were picked up on Portland Beach, and were supposed to be a portion of that treasure which was to have been used in subjugating England. _En passant_, it may be said that the ducky-stone (a piece of solid silver about the size and somewhat the shape of a small saucer) did not derive its name from the ducat, but from the Portland game of “ducky,” which consisted in trying to dislodge a stone poised lightly on the top of a larger stone—a matter eliciting some of that skill in stone-slinging for which the Portlanders (often termed the British Baleares) were once noted.
Again, in 1653, the celebrated running fight between Van Tromp and Blake took place off Portland, memories of which, together with the landing of the Duke of Monmouth “down Lyme way” some thirty odd years later, lingered in the talk of the old people down to our own times. Their memories were also very keen respecting the days of “good” Queen Anne (when certain Portlanders were “touched” for “the Evil”), of “forty-five,” and of the chief battles of Marlborough, Wellington, and Nelson—the victory of the Nile, with its attendant rejoicings, assuming a greater importance than any other, as perhaps was befitting in a coast people who could recognise the value of this French defeat; but most of all were their hearts stirred by tales of the long list of brave ships which had met their doom on the rocks, of hair-breadth escapes and thrilling rescues, and great was the indignation expressed if any allusion were made to the old mainland belief, that the island inhabitants had ever been wreckers.
The Portlanders, ever loyal at heart, probably sided wholly with the King during the contests between Charles and his Parliament; but the place changed hands several times during the struggle. Cromwell must have felt assured of this loyalty, as he appears to have been in vengeful mood towards the old Parsonage House, the “Island Ancient Records” containing the following entry:—
One Personage House in the Villidge of Wakem Demolished and burnt down by the Usurper Oliver Cromwell and hant been rebuilded every since.
The method of quarrying stone is too well known to need comment; but one curious custom which prevailed among the quarrymen until quite recent times may here be cited, known as “jumping the broomstick.” On the marriage of one of their number, the quarrymen all adjourned to the George Inn, where the bachelors were ranged on one side and the married men on the other, a broomstick lying between. Chanting a doggerel couplet, the married men had a tug-of-war with the single men, and, pulling the newly-made bridegroom across the broomstick, he was made to stand “drinks all round.”
The more closely the descent of the Portland people is investigated, the more probable appears the persistent island tradition that three families successively settled in the island amongst the original inhabitants, viz.: the Combens (valley men?), the Pearces from Ireland, and the Whites, “who came from the sea, Dover way.” This corresponds in the main with the Belgic inroads, the Irish incursions in the west during the third and subsequent centuries, and with the Jutish, or mixed Jutish and Frisian settlement at Portland, of which there is considerable proof. Anyway, one strong Frisian characteristic tallied well with the intense independence of the old Portlander, coupled with the occasional phrase, “as free as the air,” and the proudly-repeated assertion, “None over us but the Sovereign; she” (in the case of the late Queen) “is Lady of the Manor.”
The inbred distrust of strangers, called _kimberlins_ (pointing, perhaps, to a comparatively pure-blooded community), coupled with his insularity, gave a certain reserve to the old Portlander; but, once his confidence won, none more communicative or hospitable than he. True alike to his preferences and aversions, full of prejudices, but loyal, brave and manly, proud of his word of honour, he was by no means to be despised either as friend or foe. Quarrelsome he certainly was if his sense of right were in any way disturbed; otherwise he was peaceful and law-abiding, except as regards smuggling; and it was, perhaps, this probable old Frisian love of freedom which made him consider that what came by the sea was free to all, and to resent tax or toll thereon. Not long since an underground passage was unearthed between two old houses, one of which had secret recesses behind two sideboards. This may have been a fair sample of many such houses in the old smuggling days.
The Portlander was also proud of his old Saxon customs, of his Court Leet and his Reeve (Anglo-Saxon, _gerefa_), of his “share and share alike” system (_gavel-kind_) regarding division of property, and of his pre-feudal method of conveyance of land, viz.: by church-gift, a method still frequently adhered to.
In a MS. account of Portland Isle (1696) Stowe has left an amusing account of the way in which land was set apart for daughters during the parents’ lifetime. The father, with some of the principal inhabitants, would stand in the church porch after Evening Service, and declare aloud his intention, naming his daughters in full, and specifying the exact boundaries of each piece of land, after which all the congregation would rise up and bless the daughters by name.
An old-time Portland wedding was an amusing ceremony. The bride and bridegroom always walked to church, followed by their friends in couples. After the wedding-feast the whole party perambulated the island, calling at their friends’ houses _en route_. The well-to-do kept up festivities perhaps for two or three days. It was the proud boast of an old lady of the last century that she had had more couples follow her at her wedding in 1809 than had ever been known in the island, and that her wedding had been kept up longer than any other. She had been followed by nearly seventy couples, and the wedding festivities had been celebrated for a week afterwards.
An island funeral was a peculiarly mournful sight, the coffin being carried by relays of bearers, followed by a long procession of mourners, walking slowly two by two, clad in garments of the deepest woe. If, however, the deceased were an infant or very young child, the bearers would consist of young girls dressed completely in white.
The fourteenth of May, when the cows were turned into the Common, was kept as a gala day. Girls dressed in white, and club-walking, and general rejoicing took place. There was also a very old custom of keeping the household fires going from November to May, and not permitting them to be lit again (except for necessary cooking) from May till November. An old Portlander who died about 1830 was the last to adhere rigidly to this rule.
Superstition of all kinds was rife, and so akin were some of the old beliefs to those of Devon and Cornwall as to betray a common origin. Numerous and varied were the healing remedies employed by the old people; whilst, coupled with many cooking recipes, which would be regarded to-day with feelings akin to disgust, are some which can still be appreciated, such as Royal Pudding, roast Portland lamb, and the most approved method of cooking wheat-ears—all dishes beloved by King George III., and prepared for him at the old “Portland Arms,” when His Most Gracious Majesty visited the Island.
THE ISLE OF PURBECK
BY A. D. MOULLIN
North of the irregular coast-line of Dorset, from Lulworth on the west to Handfast Point and Old Harry Rocks on the east (a distance of twelve miles), and extending inland for some five to eight miles, lies a district of about a hundred square miles in area, known as the Isle of Purbeck. It is an island only in the same sense as Thanet. It is bounded on the north by Poole Harbour and the river Frome; on the west, partly by Luckford Lake, a tributary of the Frome; and an imaginary line running southward to the rugged coast-line forms its southern and eastern boundary.
It is strange to tell that this more or less undefined limitation has had a marked effect on the character and customs of the people who inhabit the Isle of Purbeck, as compared with the dwellers in the other portions of the county. They, like the people of Portland, claim for themselves a distinct individuality, due, possibly, in some measure to the hereditary rights of quarrying which have done much to keep families together, and minimised the introduction of a foreign element into their midst. These quarrying rights have always been jealously guarded, and the unwritten laws regulating this industry stringently enforced.
The centre of the island is dominated by Corfe Castle; and such importance was centred in this old-world town and fortress that the lord of the manor of Corfe was also Lord-Lieutenant of Purbeck.
Originally the whole of this interesting district was a royal deer-warren, and much of it was covered with forest. Here Norman and Plantagenet kings enjoyed the chase; and summary justice was meted out to those who infringed the Forest laws.
In early times, one of the most important towns in the county was Wareham; and although it is on the north bank of the river Frome, one of the boundaries of Purbeck, still it is usually considered to belong to the island. Of its great antiquity there is, fortunately, ample record. King Alfred set up a mint in the town; and it was here that, in 876, he attacked the Danes who had sailed up the Frome to Wareham, where they soon took possession of the Castle and entrenched themselves in a strong position behind the walls and earthworks, and found it a convenient centre for ravaging the neighbourhood at their leisure. Alfred had meanwhile defeated these Scandinavian pirates in a sea-fight, which possibly was the first naval victory gained by the English. Probably disheartened by this defeat, the Danes agreed to terms of peace, promising to sail away quietly to their own country; instead of which some of them rode off towards Exeter, hoping to be joined by the rest of their men in the ships which lay off Wareham. Their treachery was not destined to succeed, for a mighty storm arose, and wrecked about a hundred of the Danish ships off Old Harry Rocks, near Swanage. This loss temporarily broke the power of the northern foe.
The Church of Lady St. Mary in Wareham was in 978 the temporary resting-place of the body of Edward the Martyr, although the pre-Conquest Church which occupied the same site has passed away. It is interesting to think that for more than a thousand years religious services have been conducted on this spot. Of the several ecclesiastical buildings once possessed by this town there remain only three: St. Mary’s, just mentioned, and two others now no longer regularly used for service.
The Purbeck Hills, which nearly bisect the Isle from east to west, divide the heathland with its china clay and marshes on the north from the stone measures known as the Purbeck beds on the south. The chalk hills of the range attain in places to a height of nearly 700 feet, and form an imposing barrier when viewed either from land or sea. The Romans were not slow to discover the properties of the china clay, from which they made pottery on an extensive scale, and tiles and tesserae with which to adorn their houses.
Of the many old manor-houses with which this district abounds, space will only admit the mention of a few. Some three miles to the south of Wareham is Creech, a very ancient manor, with the house rebuilt in the seventeenth century. According to Hutchins, the manor is mentioned as early as Edward the Confessor’s time, and in the _Domesday Book_ it is said to belong to the Earl of Morton; afterwards, until the dissolution of the monasteries, it was held by Bindon Abbey, after which it was given to Sir John Horsey, and towards the end of the seventeenth century it was purchased by an ancestor of the Bond family, its present holders. Crossing the densely wooded slope of the Purbeck Hills, and descending on the other side towards the sea, we find another ancient manor-house, that of Great Tyneham, built about 1570. It is one of the largest of the many old manor-houses of that period.
East and West Lulworth, although, strictly speaking, outside the confines of the Island, are so closely associated with it that a passing comment may not be out of place. At West Lulworth is a Cove almost encircled by the distorted and upheaved strata of the Purbeck beds. These form a natural harbour, which, when once seen, is not easily forgotten. There is a tradition, which forms the basis of one of Mr. Hardy’s stories in _Life’s Little Ironies_, that the great Napoleon was seen here in 1804 seeking a suitable landing-place for the flat-bottomed barges in which he hoped to bring his legions across the channel to invade England. If this story is true, how he must have gazed with interest at the beacon-fires on each promontory and hill-top ready to be lit to give warning of the impending peril.
About half a mile to the east of the Cove, well above the action of the sea, are extensive remains of a “Fossil Forest,” with many of the tree-trunks in position.
The village of East Lulworth, where once stood a monastery, is about a mile inland from the sea. Near this is Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family, a conspicuous object looking like a fortress, with its four massive corner towers, which give the grey stone structure a grim appearance from the sea. It was built between 1588 and 1609, largely of stone brought from the ruins of Bindon Abbey; and there is still to be seen at the Castle an exquisitely carved oak door which is said to have belonged to the Abbey. The Castle has had many royal visitors—James I., Charles II., the Duke of Monmouth, George III., and Queen Charlotte among the number. The unhappy Mrs. FitzHerbert, morganatic wife of George IV., was first married to Mr. Weld, and lived here; her portrait and diamond and pearl necklace are still kept at the Castle.
From Tyneham towards St. Ealdhelm’s Head extend the shallows of the dangerous Kimmeridge Ledge, with its interesting formation of bituminous shale underlying the Portland Beds, a kind of coal which may be easily burnt, and is, indeed, used for fuel by many of the cottagers of the district, notwithstanding the unpleasant smell it emits when burning, and the dense shower of soot that falls from the smoke. In the early part of last century a fire broke out and smouldered for many months, at Holworth, on a continuation of this outcrop further to the west, and was known as the Burning Cliff. At times volumes of smoke arose, the pungent smell of which was distinctly perceptible as far off as Weymouth when the wind was blowing from the east.
From the days of Sir William Clavel, in the reign of Charles I., the minerals of Kimmeridge have from time to time been worked, and many and various have been the schemes for exploiting this bituminous deposit, and even at the present day samples are occasionally sent for with the view to extracting mineral oil. But one must go back to a much more remote period for the first evidence of early workings. The Romans, during their occupation of this part of the coast, were not slow to discover the value of this supply of fuel, which may possibly have been worked long before their arrival.
The expert Roman craftsmen found also that the shale was capable of being turned and fashioned into various kinds of ornamental articles resembling those made of jet; so they set up lathes on the spot to turn out these articles, which, no doubt, met with a ready sale among the fashionable dwellers in Durnovaria (Dorchester). That the existence of these lathes was an actual fact is proved by the hundreds of discs or cores which remain to this day, and are found in and with the Roman pottery fashioned from the Wealdon clay of the district. These discs are usually from 1¼ to 2½ inches in diameter, with central holes to attach them to the lathe mandril, and were the discarded centres of rings and other ornaments made from the shale. By local tradition these discs have always been known as “Kimmeridge coal money,” and although present-day antiquaries laugh at the idea of their ever having been used as money, the writer ventures to suggest the possibility of the correctness of such a theory. They are found in considerable numbers securely hidden away a short distance below the surface of the ground, usually between stones placed on edge and covered over by another flat stone. The care with which they were secreted indicates that they were considered of some value to the owner. May not the Celts have collected and used them as tallies or tokens? These discs, bearing the tool marks of the turner, would have been impossible to counterfeit by the uncivilised races of that day, to whom the use of the lathe was unknown. The value of local traditionary names is considerable, and the foregoing appears to be a feasible suggestion as to the authenticity of the name, “Kimmeridge coal money.”
This part of the coast has a desolate and forbidding appearance, due to its black, shaley formation.
Looking eastward, St. Ealdhelm’s Head stands out in majestic grandeur, rising out of the sea more than 350 feet in height, and crowned at its seaward end by the Norman chapel dedicated to St. Ealdhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne.
About a mile and a half inland we come upon the little church of Worth Matravers, in the centre of the village of that name; it is probably the most ancient building in Purbeck of which anything now remains. Here we find traces of Saxon work, with that of Norman added; the chancel arch is a good example of the latter. It is now generally considered possible that here was one of the two sacred edifices built by St. Ealdhelm in Purbeck and mentioned in ancient records. The divided buttress on the north wall, and the grave-stone of Benjamin Jesty are objects of interest. On the latter is the following inscription:—
Sacred to the memory of Benjamin Jesty of Downshay, who departed this life April 16th, 1816, aged 70. He was born at Yetminster in this county, and was an upright honest man, particularly noted for having been the first person (known) that introduced the cowpox by inoculation, and who from his strength of mind made the experiment from the cow on his wife and two sons in the year 1774.