Tag: English Civil War

The Retirees go Abroad – Dorchester, Piddlehinton, Puddletown, Corfe, Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacey

It’s Wednesday, another sparkling day and its market day in Dorchester. After breakfast we bundle into the car and travel the few miles to Dorchester and its markets. Disappointing in that it is more flea market and very little else. Not to worry we stroll the mall in Dorchester.  The author and poet Thomas Hardy based the fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester, and his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is set there.  So is the book Far from the Madding Crowd.

Hardy’s childhood home is to the east of the town, and his town house, Max Gate, is owned by the National Trust and open to the public. Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford one mile east of Dorchester.

As we walked around the town we found in one alley a historic plaque claiming that Hardy was born in that very lane and another plaque claimed the building was the house on which Hardy based the Mayor’s house in Casterbridge. We also found the museum, Judge Jeffries coffee shop and an old arcade claiming by inscription on it facade to be built in 1661.

I was fascinated by some of the town names in the surrounding area and it was all because of a river – the River Piddle. Piddlehinton sits on the river and is a few minutes east of Dorchester. The village has one public house called The Thimble, but no shop or post office. It is quite picturesque. Like many of the surrounding villages it takes its name from the river running through it.

Then we went a few miles to the east and came to Puddletown also on the River Piddle but the wise folk of this village had the good sense to change the name from Piddle to Puddle. Many times larger than Piddlehinton, Puddletown was still very quaint and had many thatched roofed houses. We took a walk around the town, took a photo of the River Piddle flowing through it some of the thatched houses and notable buildings. Thomas hardy used Puddletown as the basis for Weatherby in his book Far from the Madding Crowd.

It was lunch time. We had purchased a small loaf of corn bread at the markets in Dorchester and we were looking for somewhere green and out of the wind to make a sandwich and have a cup of tea. Nothing offering in Puddletown we moved onto Corfe Castle, Dorset’s most recognised ruin. We found a spot off the main road between the visitors centre and the castle and beside a field of sheep with their new black lambs. No lamb chops for lunch – a little too close to the bone.

After lunch we walked the quarter mile to the visitors centre only to be told that we had to produce our pass at the castle village. So we walked back to the car then walked the quarter mile to the village and the National Trust office to be told that we had to produce our card at the castle gate. Fortunately the castle gate was only 50 metres away but the castle was atop a hill – a big hill. A little bit of the history of the castle.

Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates back to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries.

In 1572, Corfe Castle left the Crown’s control when Elizabeth I sold it to Sir Christopher Hatton. Sir John Bankes bought the castle in 1635, and was the owner during the English Civil War. His wife, Lady Mary Bankes, led the defence of the castle when it was twice besieged by Parliamentarian forces. The first siege, in 1643, was unsuccessful, but by 1645 Corfe was one of the last remaining royalist strongholds in southern England. In March that year Corfe Castle was demolished on Parliament’s orders. Owned by the National Trust, the castle is open to the public. It is protected as a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

What this short extract does not tell you is that the family built a home at Kingston Lacey when the castle was destroyed on a parcel of land that came with the 8,000 acres purchased from Hatton. Included on the land are villages the castle and farms. On the death of the last Bankes to live in the house, he bequeathed it (the whole 8,0000 acres, house, castle, villages and farms) to the National Trust – the single largest bequest received by the Trust. So after a short trip around the village of Corfe, we ventured off to Kingston Lacey.

Kingston Lacey is an ornate manor home set in wonderful gardens which we did not have time to visit. Inside the house is the original furnishings and art work – nothing sold all just given to the Trust. The artwork includes originals by the Venetian painter Tintoretto.

A snapshot of the history  is as follows. Kingston Lacy is a country house and estate near Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England, now owned by the National Trust. From the 17th to the late 20th centuries it was the family seat of the Bankes family, who had previously resided nearby at Corfe Castle until its destruction in the English Civil War after its incumbent owners, Sir John Bankes and Dame Mary joined the side of Charles I. They owned some 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of the surrounding Dorset countryside and coastline.

We finished with a cup of coffee in the cafe and then after a tiring day made the trip back to Weymouth.

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The Retirees go Abroad – Living in Tudor Times

 

If you have been following my blogs then you may well be sick of manor houses and gardens. But before you turn off, this is a tale of a manor house built in wood that has been in the same family ownership since 1500 and was last added to or changed in 1610. When you see the photographs you may agree with me – how is it still standing?

Little Moreton Hall at Congleton Cheshire is a National trust property. It is moated. It is built of wood and daub plaster. It is the ancestral home of a family of yeoman farmers named the Moretons. The earliest parts of the house were built for William Moreton in about 1504–08, and the remainder was constructed in stages by successive generations of the family until about 1610. The building is highly irregular, with three asymmetrical ranges forming a small, rectangular courtyard. The house’s top-heavy appearance, is due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of the south range’s upper floor which was built in about 1560–62 for William Moreton II’s son John It includes the Gatehouse and a third storey containing a 68-foot (21 m) Long Gallery, roofed with heavy grit stone slabs, the weight of which has caused the supporting floors below to bow and buckle. I could not remember all this so I have extracted what I thought would explain to you the uniqueness of this house from Wikipedia. If you wish to read more go to http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/little-moreton-hall/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Moreton_Hall.

Wikipedia has this comment which I thought was important for your understanding: “Architectural historians Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz describe it as “a gloriously long and crooked space (the Long Gallery), the wide floorboards rising up and down like waves and the walls leaning outwards at different angles.” The crossbeams between the arch-braced roof trusses were probably added in the 17th century to prevent the structure from “bursting apart” under the load.”

A small kitchen and Brew-house block was added to the south wing in about 1610, the last major extension to the house. The fortunes of the Moreton family declined during the English Civil War. As supporters of the Royalist cause, they found themselves isolated in a community of Parliamentarians. Little Moreton Hall was requisitioned by the Parliamentarians and used to billet Parliamentary soldiers. The family survived the Civil War with their ownership of Little Moreton Hall intact, but financially they were crippled. The family’s fortunes never fully recovered, and by the late 1670s they no longer lived in Little Moreton Hall, renting it out instead to a series of tenant farmers.

Elizabeth Moreton, an Anglican nun, inherited the almost derelict house following the death of her sister Annabella in 1892. She restored and refurnished the Chapel, and may have been responsible for the insertion of steel rods to stabilise the structure of the Long Gallery. In 1912 she bequeathed the house to a cousin, Charles Abraham, Bishop of Derby, stipulating that it must never be sold. Abraham opened up Little Moreton Hall to visitors, charging an entrance fee of 6d (equivalent to about £8 as of 2010) collected by the Dales who had taken over the tenancy in 1841, who conducted guided tours of the house in return. Abraham carried on the preservation effort begun by Elizabeth Moreton until he and his son transferred ownership to the National Trust in 1938. The Dale family continued to farm the estate until 1945, and acted as caretakers for the National Trust until 1955.

Little Moreton
the Bridge over the moat into the Gatehouse
the south range
the north range and the bays
formerly the kitchen now the coffee shop
the carpenter’s mark
how is your roman numerals

Tours of the house are available and they are really worth it. In the course of the tour our guide told us the house originally had a dirt floor and as the chooks and other animals would also be running through they threw a grass like product called “thresh” onto the floor and to keep the thresh in the house they erected a bar at the foot of each door called a “hold”. Hence our word “threshold” There is a chair in the main hall and we were told this was probably the only chair as everyone bar the elder of the house (the chairman) had stools or benches.

The house still contains a little furniture from the end of the 16th century. Apart from the chair there is the table top. We were told that in the 16th century this was called the “board” and it was not affixed to legs like today but rather sat on trestles. When the servants cleaned the room and everyone retired the board would be turned over because many servants received “board and lodging” instead of pay. There would have been other boards at the side of the room for other eating utensils – “side boards” and “cup boards”. If minstrels were visiting they would receive food in exchange for entertainment. So the boards would be taken into the courtyard and placed on the cobbles for the minstrels and troubadours to perform or “tread the boards”. Amazing where our vocabulary comes form.

Hall
Chapel
Great Parlour
Wall paper in Little Parlour
Little Parlour
Fireplace in Great Parlour

Our tour included a visit to a room where we saw 16th century wall paper. In maintaining the house the National Trust has uncovered original “wallpaper” form that same time. The fashion was to draw patterns on the walls and colour them in but between the top of the wall and the ceiling is a fresco of biblical scenes drawn on paper affixed to the wall.

The Chapel is a sight to behold. It must have been constructed out of square to be so obviously crooked. The tour ends in the Chapel (which is still consecrated and used for short services). Walking around the remaining rooms there are picture boards with information on various aspects of the house. The “garderobes” are simple benches with holes and a drop into – you guessed it – the moat. Even so some poor sod had the job of cleaning out the mess and spreading it on the fields.

Chapel chamber
Making a Tudor floor
Hold on Kerry
garderobe – phew
more useful information
Bridge Chamber
Long Gallery looking west
Long Gallery – looking east

There is a good little café here with reasonable prices a warm fire and tasty food. We both recommend a visit to live in Tudor times.

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