THE LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. CCXXII. FOR APRIL, 1862. ART I-1. Hutchins's History of Dorset. | to represent the 'Dwrn-gwys' of the Britons. New Edition. Parts I., II. Blandford. 2. Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. London, 1859. 3. The Bath and West of England Agricultural Journal. Vols. VIII. and IX. 4. Poems in the Dorset Dialect. By William Barnes. London, 1848. 5. Notes on Ancient Britain. By William Barnes. 1858. 6. Hwomely Rhymes. By William Barnes. London, 1859. 7. Celtic Tumuli of Dorset, with Map. (Printed for Subscribers.) By Charles Warne, F.S.A. THE English counties appear from time immemorial to have carried on a quiet and harmless dispute for the title of the garden,' just as the Greek cities used to vie with one another for the credit of having given birth to Homer, and no less than four old topographers have recorded their votes in favour of Dorset. It is hard to say why, seeing that the 'sheepwalk of England' would be in every way a fitter handle to this county's name. Preserving a strict neutrality, however, with reference to the point in debate, we may safely say with Bowen-who wrote a Complete System of Geography' a hundred years ago -that both for rider and abider' there are few pleasanter counties in the land-an opinion which Charles II., who had good reason to remember the neighbourhood of Charmouth, is said to have anticipated with some enthusiasm. What that word signified is a question. It has usually been deemed enough to say that the Belgic Durotriges were so called because they were dwellers by the sea, and 'dwr' stands for water.' But if the Britons of Dorset had a seabord, the Britons of Devon, Hants, and Sussex had one too; and Mr. Barnes, the county poet and antiquary, has stoutly maintained that the name, so explained, is by no means distinctive enough. IIis notion is that Wareham was the chief town of the district, not the mighty hill-fort of Maiden Castle, as it has been the fashion to suppose. He finds that this capital was called Durinum, the town by the little water' or 'little sea,' and sces reason to identify that name with Wareham, at that time a seaporttown on Poole Harbour, the waters of which have long since retreated, and left Wareham high and dry. The Durotriges would then be the men of the little sea,' the people whose chief town was Wareham. This theory is worth the notice of those who are curious in such matters, as the town certainly seems to have been almost a capital long after Dorchester became the chief station of the Romans and the head law-town of the Saxons. The Saxons included Dorset in Wessex, and, even after the absorption of Wessex into the united kingdom, Dorset held up its head among the English counties. Corfe Castle and Kingston Hall were royal residences, and three of Alfred's brothers lie buried at Sherborne or at Wimborne Minster. The Danes worried the county. They seem to have attempted Wareham in 787, which is all in favour of Mr. Barnes's theory of its capital importance; and they were repulsed from the same place by Alfred a hundred years later, coming to great calamity off Peverel Point by Swanage Bay. But Dorset felt the pains of invasion in good earnest in 1002, when Sweyn is said to have utterly demolished the three important towns Dorchester, Sherborne, and Shaftesbury. At Shaftesbury Canute died, some sixteen or seventeen years after his defeat by Edmund Ironside at Pen Selwood, close to the famous Pen Pits. The battlefield lies on the border of Somerset and Dorset, and a point called Slaughter Gate, in the parish of Gillingham, secins to show that the pursuit was carried across the frontier-line. What the Dorset men did at Hastings we are not told; and they seem to have lived ingloriously* or to have missed a vates sacer through whole generations from that date onwards, until we hear of them again in the time of Edward III., when the county sent thirty-one ships to the siege of Calais. The very next year Dorset was unlucky enough to catch and import inland one of the terrific mediæval plagues. The Oxford schools were shut up for some time, and Sir Walter Manny is said to have bought thirteen acres of ground near Smithfield, which were soon occupied by fifty thousand bodies; but the epidemic presently left Dorset, having done little damage in passing through." The third day's running fight with the Spanish Armada was spent off the Dorset coast, between Portland and Handfast Point, at the eastern end of Purbeck. A fair and loyal contribution of ships sailed out from the seaports, and, here as elsewhere, there was a general rush of the younger gentry seaward, the son of Sir Christopher Hatton, who then held Corfe Castle, taking the lead. Corfe Castle was platformed for a battery at Eliza beth's special desire, which battery was never used, though the platform remains to this day. The gentry were not agreed at the time of the Civil War. They mostly stood for the King against the towns; but Sir Thomas Trenchard of Wolveton acted with Erle; and Colonel Bingham of Melcombe was commander of the forces to which Corfe Castle surrendered in 1646. Corfe had been bought from the Hattons by Sir John Bankes, the ancestor of the present owners, whose chief in the last generation-the late Right Hon. George Bankes-published a very interesting *They were able, however, to sun themselves in the light of King John's favour. He was fond of Cranborne Chace, and caused a perambulation of the boundaries to be made during his regency. He seems afterwards to have sojourned occasionally at Bere Regis, certain instruments (Rymer, quoted by Hutchins) bearing date from that place in 1214. † 1347. historical memoir of the place in 1853.* Sir John was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas to Charles I., and died while attending the King at Oxford in 1644. The castle was besieged during his lifetime, and Lady Bankes had already caused Sir Walter Erle ignominiously to retire, after a six weeks' blockade, accompanied by a vigorous bombardment from the church-roof, which supplied cannonballs and platform as well. After her busband's death Lady Bankes heroically held on; and it was only by the treachery of Colonel Pitman, one of the garrison, that the impreg nable fortress was brought to yield at last. Under colour of reinforcing the garrison, this Pitman contrived to introduce fifty Parlia mentarian soldiers. No sooner did these make their appearance on the castle towers than the besiegers began to advance, and the inmates perceived that they were betrayed. A parley being demanded,' relates Mr. Bankes, the circumstance of a Parliamentary officer being there, with others of that party prisoners in the castle, induced the besiegers to offer conditions, which were accepted; but the truce was broken almost as soon as agreed upon. Two of the besiegers, anxious for the spoil, came over the wall by means of a ladder; some of the garrison fired upon them, and the risk now became imminent of a general slaughter throughout the castle. castle. Colonel Bingham, however, who was no hireling officer, but the descendant of a long-known and highly-respected family in the county, could not but admire the courage of the lady who was his foe, and he succeeded in preserving the lives of one hundred and forty persons then within the castle.' Dorchester can hardly be said to have shone during the war. It was first fortified by the Parliament men, but surrendered without a blow on the approach of Lord Carnarvon; and, being dismantled, it was used as quarters by either party until the end of the struggle. Weymouth was the scene of more excitement; and Portland Castle, which changed hands several times, of more still. The Portlanders-mighty slingers and wreckerst in old days--have always enjoyed a kind of Irish reputation for the love of rows. Sir Fowell Buxton's election for Weymouth af forded them considerable enjoyment, but the Civil War must have been a godsend indeed. "The Story of Corfe Castle, and of many who have lived there.' 8vo. London, 1853. The old wreckers' burthen of 'Blow wind, rise sea, Ship 'shore 'fore day,' is still well known on the island. Their modern representatives are famed for the skill and daring with which they will bring off many a stranded vessel's crew and cargo at the risk of their lives. The 'Clubmen,' who wanted to protect the country from the ravages of Roundheads and Cavaliers both, but especially from Goring's horse, rose in great numbers in Dorset. These 'farmerly men,' as Clarendon calls them, fell upon hard times, for Goring snubbed them, and Cromwell, minding to send them about their business as soon as the King's cause was fairly lost in the county, gave one party a severe beating at Hamilton Hill, and persuaded the rest to go home. 'If you offer to plunder, or take our cattel, Be assured we will bid you battel,' was the quaint device upon their banner.* bury's Woodlands estate, and Judge Jeffreys' The farm-labourers took to burning ricks and breaking machines with great enthusiasm in 1830 and 1831; but one is almost justified in saying that the next thing after the advent of Judge Jeffreys that gave the county a downright shake from end to end was the crusade of S. G. O. It was during the session of 1846 that the House of Commons was startled by rumours of distress among Dorset labourers equalling the distress in Ireland. The Times employed a commissioner during the summer months to investigate the state of matters; and his report, contained in six letters, was followed by a paper-war in the columns of the same journal respecting the sanitary condition of particular parishes, in one of which, Ryme by name, an inquiry was instituted into S. G. O.'s allegations, without effectually driving him from any one of them. All this gave the county an unpleasant notoriety at the time, and a bad name, not easily shaken off, of being chronically behind the age. This * Anglia Rediviva, England's Recovery, &c. was hard measure; for, bad Compiled for the Publique Good. By Joshua as things were, the march of agricultural Sprigge, M.A. London, 1647. The whole of the improvement had been, even in 1846, well following is worth extracting:-These [one set of begun, and it has advanced with rapidity and clubmen] being thus quietly sent home, the lieute- steadiness ever since. Large tracts of waste nant-general advanced further to a meeting of a lands and sheep downs have been broken up, greater number of 4000, who betook themselves to Hambledon Hill, near Shrawton. At the bottom machinery has been brought into use on all of the hill we met a man with a musquet, and sides, and thoroughly good systems of farmasked whither he was going; he said to the club- ing have become naturalized, especially on army; we asked what he meant to do; he asked the hill districts. Better cottages have been what we had to do with that. Being required to lay down his arms, he said he would first lose his built in many places. The price of labour is life, but was not so good as his word, for, though he on the whole rising, though scarcely in the cocked and presented his musquet, he was pre- same proportion. In some of the sheep and vented, disarmed and wounded, but not killed. led corn-growing neighbourhoods wages Then we marched up the hill, which had been an old Romane work, deeply trenched. The lieute- according to Mr. Darby, two or three shillings nant-general sent before a lieutenant with a party higher than they did twenty years ago. of horse to require an account of their meeting. He many of these farms he tells us--writing in was answered with half-a-dozen shot, and could get the Bath and West of England Journal'no other answer. Thereupon one Mr. Lee, who upon our approach came from them, was sent in that the money payments range from eight requiring them to submit to the power and protec- to eleven shillings a-week, and that the tion of Parliament, and lay down their arms; they allowances' generally represent the value of refused to leave their arms, and gave us a shot as three and sixpence more in the week. A we were drawing up; the lieutenant-general, un- well-known agriculturist, occupying 600 acres willing to bloodshed, sent Mr. Lee again to tell in West Norfolk and 1200 acres near Dorthem that if they would not lay down their arms he would fall upon them; they refused this third message also, through the instigation of Mr. Bravell, minister of Crompton, who told them they must stand to it now rather than lose their arms, and that he would pistol them that gave back. Thereupon order was given to the general's troop to fall on, who did so, and received a repulse and some losse through the disadvantage of the place, for the club-men shot from the bank of the old work, and kept the passage with musquets and other weapons, which was no broader than for three horse to march abreast. Upon this attempt we lost a man or two, had eight or nine wounded, six or seven horses killed. Upon this, Major Desborough, with the general's regiment, went round about a ledge of the hill and made a hard shift to climbe up and enter on their rear; which they no sooner discerned but after a short dispute they On ran, and the passage formerly assaulted was opened, and all the clubmen dispersed and disarmed, some slain, many wounded; the rest slid and tumbled down that great steep hill to the hazard of their necks. There were brought away 400 of them to Shrawton, of which number 200 were wounded in this skirmish. Captain Pattison was sore hurt on our side, of which afterwards he dyed, and about 12 more. We found among them 16 of our men, whom they had disarmed and taken prisoners, and threatened to hang some of them; but the tables were then turned. We quartered that night at Shrawton, and kept the clubmen in the church, and with them four vicars and curats, which were taken with them upon the hill; whereof Mr. Talbot of Milton, and Lawford of Aukford, the worst, another.' chester, does not hesitate to affirm that the farm-labourers are actually in the receipt of higher wages in Dorset than on the fertile plains of Norfolk.' In some districts, on the other hand, wages remain exactly where they were twenty years ago; that is to say, the labourer still gets no more than seven and eight shillings in money besides the allowances. The truth on this head of labourpayment seems to be, that the county is in a state of transition, but of transition only, as yet. Certain districts on the hills may challenge comparison anywhere; but much remains to be done in the low-lying districts and on the hills. Dorset is tripartite: the three sections being felix, petræa, deserta; clay, chalk, sand; vale, down, and heath. The chalk region is, and is likely to remain, the 'crack' region of Dorset farming; nor will it ever be fair to judge of the entire county by the condition of the chalk-farms alone. ances. way * One word should be said before passing on about the truck-system, or system of allowAs long as the labour-payment is made from various sources in in this up kind, so long there will be the liability to abuse, and often the certainty. It has been well pointed out in the Times, that the labourer is in this manner kept entirely dependent upon his master's caprices. When the fuel is something more than mere furze, and the bushel of tailing wheat or gristing is sound and of good quality, the man is well off; but where the fuel has to be used primarily in drying the grist which has been served out too damp for the miller-a case which has actually appeared in published evidence or where the man's own labour is employed without compensation in cutting the fuel, words are indeed weak to expose and to censure enough the injustice done to the poor. We may now turn to some of the details of progress in the cultivation of the soil. The broad backs of the downs were already beginning to be furrowed up as long ago as 1840, when the use of artificial manures was also beginning to be recognised. But this was the day of small things. The farmers of Dorset now spend more than forty thousand a year on artificial manures, above half that sum going for superphosphate alone. A single agriculturist, on 400 acres of arable, expends 2001. a-year on manures appropriated to green crops only. Another finds that the wear and tear of iron on his farm costs him an annual hundred pounds; and the labour * See the letter of an able correspondent, March 6, 1861. Darby.-Bath Agricultural Journal, IX., Part bill commonly exceeds the rent in amount. The artificial food market is said by one of the ablest judges in the county to show still greater advances than the manures. Between 3500 and 4000 tons of oilcake are now (1861) annually required in Dorset: the value of which, reckoned at last year's average prices, will reach a proximate total of 35,000 Then there has been a radical reform measure in the modes of cropping. Only seven years back the Norfolk four-course was nearly universal; it has now given way on the better class of soils to a seven-course shift, much more fitted to meet modern requirements, and to secure the advantages of autumn cultivation. Among the root crops, mangels have very largely taken the place of swedes, and Dorset farmers incline to the belief that the turnip-plant is about to follow the potato on the road to ruin. On the flinty chalks of the Blandford district sainfoin is rapidly winning its way. We are assured by an Sainfoin delights in a loose rubbly subsoil: it will remain in the soil seven or eight years, and the aftermath is invaluable for securing the high and rapid proof of lambs. This is the quality which chiefly recommends it in the eye of the Dorset farmer, who rightly regards his sheep-husbandry as the basis of all agricultural progress in the county. observer whose position gives him the best possible right to make an estimate of the kind, that the sheep and wool markets of Dorset more than double in value the same markets of any equal area in England. This source of revenue all but, if not entirely, clears the rental of the county; and reckoning that at an average of 20s. an acre, we arrive at an annual return from the sheep and wool of 631,680l. Taking one part Dorset with another, we may think of the labour-bill also as being annually discharged by the sheep. Noble water-meadows are kept up in some parts of the Vale of Blackmoor, and in the Maiden Newton Valley watered by the Frome, which feeds a line of similar meadows, though not all of the same quality, reaching away seaward far below Dorchester. A very splendid breed of Devon cattle is reared by Mr. Pope at Great Toller, in the Maiden Newton District. Every one has heard of Dorset butter; but it is not so widely known that the Holstein and Holland farmers have stolen a march upon our English dairies by the use of common-sense in packing their butter. Badly packed in shaky casks, butter of the best quality will go to grease; and the market-reports during the summer months * The breed is said, however, rapidly to degene rate in Dorset unless there be a frequent infusion of fresh blood from the native district. |