The Weathervane George Mortimer Fire!
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MAGAZINEWelcome to the fifth issue of the Cerne Historical Society’s Magazine. The Weathervane George Mortimer Fire! Fire! Fire! George Mortimer How Old is the Giant? Katherine Barker 4 It Happened This Month Den Denness Sept Lost and Found Andrew Popkin 2020 Earl Shaftesbury and the Giant Brian Edwards 1 Welcome to the fifth issue of the Cerne Historical Society’s Magazine. Regrettably, Covid 19 has forced us to cancel the remaining meetings and talks arranged for this year. Fortunately most of the speakers are able to give the talks next year instead so we already have a full programme planned for 2021. We can only hope that the pandemic will be over by then and we can use the Village Hall again. If we cannot, we will investigate the possibility of holding “virtual” meetings online via Zoom. Please let us know whether or not you would welcome that. In the meantime we shall continue to publish our magazine, although we have decided to publish it quarterly rather than monthly from now on and, by popular request, to continue doing so even after we have resumed our usual activities. The issue after this will be the Winter one published in early December and the next ones after that will be the Spring one in March and the Summer one in June. As well as the considerable variety of articles in this Autumn issue that we hope you enjoy, we also have two new columns called “It Happened This Month” and “Lost and Found” We hope they will become regular features of the magazine. “In This Month”, Den Denness will recount many interesting and amusing events which occurred in the area at the same time of the year in the distant or not so distant past. If you know of such events which you think we should feature please let us know. In “Lost and Found” Andrew Popkin will present photos and descriptions of various objects discovered in or near the village in the recent past which were obviously lost or buried many years, and often centuries ago. This column will be dependent on you, the reader, to provide us with details and photos of objects of interest you have found. We will be happy to take photos of them for you if you would like us to do that. Gordon Bishop – Chair of the Cerne Historical Society This magazine may be viewed and read online or downloaded from cerneabbashistory.org 2 George Mortimer Restoration of the Weathervane on St Mary’s Church The weathervane on the top of the vice turret on the North West corner of the tower of St Mary’s Church has been renovated and restored to its normal commanding position thanks to the Friends of St Mary's and the generosity of Caroline Tisdall. The weathervane had become sadly dilapidated, with the ‘E’ arm missing and the ‘S’ arm turned back on itself. The gilt on the weathercock had lost its sheen Photos © Jane Tearle and much of the ironwork was corroded. Now it gleams in the sunshine as an instant guide to the vagaries of the wind. On occasion, however, the winds have been particularly unkind. The ‘great whirlwind’ that struck Cerne Abbas on 31 October 1731 necessitated extensive repairs to exposed areas of the church, including the weathervane. This 2020 restoration provided the opportunity to study the weathervane more closely. The weathercock has the initials RB studded into it and the date 1711 cut into its tail. The initials are those of Richard Bartlett, who was churchwarden in 1711. He had been elected churchwarden the previous year. An entry in the Churchwardens Accounts for 1711 reads ‘item: paid Roger Hodder for 6½ [lbs?] of brass used about ye weathercock Colouring’…[plus other work] …’£1.15s.8½’. The tradition of the weathercock on churches goes back to the earliest Christian times, seen as an emblem of St Peter and Christ predicting that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed. 3 The tower of St Mary’s dates from about 1530 and there may have been an earlier weathercock, but it was Richard Bartlett who put his name to the one we see today. Who was Richard Bartlett? Bartlett was baptised in St Mary’s Church on 15 March 1655. He married Ann Ryal at Up Cerne on 29 May 1703. Richard died in 1715 aged 50 and Ann in 1742 aged 70. They are commemorated on a brass plaque on the north wall inside the church, under which they are buried; a sure sign of their status in the church and village. There were no children from the marriage. In his Will dated 4 February 1715 he is described as a ‘Yeoman’. Amongst other bequests, he gave and bequeathed to his wife, Ann, ‘all those farms and tenements called or known by the names of Notten Farm, Notten Mill and Droup Farm situated lying or being in ye Parish of Maiden Newton….’ It is known that the Abbey had properties in Maiden Newton at the time of the Dissolution and it is quite possible that Richard had acquired these lands and properties in the years that followed. There is a hamlet called Notton just south of Maiden Newton on a bend in the River Frome. The coincidences are perhaps too much to ignore and this hamlet may be where Richard had his farm and mill. It is also reputed that Richard was the licensee of the Nag’s Head, now 9 Abbey Street, but this has not been proved. Prominent victuallers were certainly active in village life well into the 19th century and served as churchwardens for St Mary’s. They have similarly left their names for posterity in the church, one example to be found on the wooden screen dated 1749 at the west end of the nave. About Roger Hodder who was paid for work on the weathercock in 1711 we know nothing, except that he was buried here in 1743. In Roger Hodder’s footsteps some 309 years later, the restoration of the weathercock in 2020 was carried out by Sally Strachey Historic Conservation (SSHC), whose Director is James Preston. The foreman on-site was David Anderson, assisted by stone mason Dan Bottomley. Tess Clogstoun did the gilding to the weathercock. Their names will also be recorded for posterity in the Churchwardens Accounts. Caroline Tisdall Photos © Jane Tearle 4 George Mortimer ‘23 Nov 1694: Item. Gave to a woman being undone by fire - 6d’ (Extract from ‘The Account of Thomas Coombs 1694’) Thomas Coombs was the Churchwarden for St Mary’s in 1694 and responsible for recording amounts paid from the poor rates. The poor rate was a tax on property levied in each parish, which was used to provide poor relief. The above quote was but one of three entries for 1694 alone, giving relief to individuals burnt out of their homes. The going rate appears to have been 6d per person affected! The 17th century was a traumatic one for fires. On the afternoon of 6th August 1613 a blaze broke out in a shop in High East Street in Dorchester that caused considerable damage to the town. In the same year, the Globe Theatre in London burnt down, the thatch roof ignited during a performance of Shakespeare’s play 'King Henry VIII. But this was eclipsed by the Great Fire of London in September 1666 which gutted the medieval City of London. Following this fire, Acts of Parliament were passed which put restrictions on house design, for example the upper floors of houses were no longer permitted to jut out over the floor below. Fortunately for the medieval houses in Abbey Street, the ban on jetty construction came too late. However, more importantly, the 1667 Act stated: ‘No man whatsoever shall presume to erect any house or building, whether great or small, but of brick or stone.’ The traditional Dorset cottage was built with ‘cobb’ walls, a largely West Country building medium used for centuries. It was made by pounding together locally available clay, cow dung, horsehair and water. In Cerne the locally available clay was the lower Chalk and this had an advantage of self-hardening after construction. The cobb walls were built up in ‘lifts’ or layers, from a thick base, 24” was common, and narrowing to 18” or so at the top. This would be completed with a thatch roof. Whilst the use of cobb and thatch was traditional, functional and relatively cheap, it was also vulnerable to fire. The use of brick thereafter became more common. It was safer, but also served to demonstrate the relative wealth of the house owner. How fashion changes! The Great Fire of London also introduced the concept of fire insurance and by 1720, for example, the Sun Fire Office had underwritten some 17,000 policies totalling £10million. Ironically perhaps, the Sun Fire Insurance company suffered a serious fire itself, damaging or destroying the records of some of those who had taken out fire insurance policies. The insurers created ‘fire mark’ plates in order to identify for the fire brigade with which company a house was insured. This fire mark was not for the rather ghoulish reason stated in the Cerne Abbas First School 1987 Village Guide: ‘The knocker is for insurance, if your house was on fire and you did not have a sun knocker you were left to burn, but if you had a knocker they knew who would pay the fireman’! Cerne Abbas and Fires in the 19th Century The 1798 Admeasurement Survey, which can be seen on the Historical Society website, has two short but intriguing entries.