The American Connection

A couple of miles from Creech Folly in Dorset is the small hamlet of Steeple, which is home to the steeple-less Church of Saint Michael & All Angels. This quiet and remote church proudly displays the flag of Washington DC, the capital city of the United States of America. The flag was presented to the church on the 25th July 1977 by Walter E. Washington, the Mayor of Washington DC (January 1975 - January 1979). The letter accompanying the flag reads:

The Rector
Church of St. Michael & All Angels
Steeple, Dorset
England

Dear Rector,

We recently learned through Mr. George Honebon of Poole, that the Church of St. Michael & All Angels has an historic relationship with the family of George Washington, in whose honor our Nations Capital is named.

It was particularly interesting to see drawings of the stone armorial tablet depicting the Washington arms quartered with those of Lawrence. Because they are shown in our flag, the Washington arms are a very familiar sight in the District of Columbia.

Thinking that your parish might appreciate having some token of our mutal heritage, I have asked Mr. Honebon to carry with him on his return to England, this letter and the Flag of Washington, District of Columbia.

I know the citizens of our city join with me in this expression of friendship and best wishes to you and all the people of the community of Steeple, Dorset.

With warm personal regards.

Sincerely,

Walter E. Washington
Mayor
District of Columbia

The letter refers to a “stone armorial tablet” which is probably the engraved coat of arms that can be found in the stone wall of the main porch of the church. The coat of arms is a quartering (an amalgamation) of the coats of arms of the Lawrence and Washington families who were joined in 1390 when the heiress of the Washington family Agnes de Wessington married Edmund Lawrence. The Washington family’s coat of arms is the three stars atop the two stripes and it is this coat of arms that was used by George Washington (an ancestor of Agnes de Wessington) when he became the first president of the United States in 1789. This star and stripes motif was replicated in the flag of Washington DC and also was presumably the inspiration for the design of the US National flag.

A more striking example of the quartered Lawrence/Washington family coat of arms can be found painted in scarlet and white on the bosses on the ceiling of the church. It pays to look up occasionally!

The Church of Saint Michael & All Angels in Steeple.

The stone tablet in the church porch showing the coat of arms of the Lawrence/Washington family.

The flag of Washington DC in the church.

Is the flag upside down? In the coat of arms the stars sit atop the stripes!

The letter from the Mayor of Washington DC.

Looking along the church.

The painted bosses in the church roof, showing the Lawrence/Washington coat of arms.

Pictures: Dorset (May 2015).

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A Bell that came to a Mysterious End

Knowlton is a hamlet in Dorset, on the B3078, which is home to a ruinous 12th century Norman church. What makes the church remarkable is not its ruinous state, but the fact that is was constructed within the earthworks of a much older Neolithic henge monument (circa 2,500 BC).

The Knowlton site is home to three Neolithic henges.  The henge in which the church resides is known as “Church Henge”.  It is the best preserved of the three with the banks and ditches of the henge still visible. Church Henge has a broadly circular footprint and a maximum diameter of an impressive 106m. The other two henges (the “North Circle” and the “South Circle”) have been mostly destroyed over the years by ploughing or by being bisected by the nearby B3078! The North and South Circles can however still be discerned by the tell-tale marks in the crops, which can be readily seen in aerial photographs. The Knowlton site is also known to have been home to at least 35 barrows (burial mounds), the largest being known as the Great Barrow. The Great Barrow is of late Neolithic or early Bronze Age vintage and is the largest barrow in Dorset, measuring in at 40m in diameter and 6m in height. The Great Barrow would have originally been surrounded by two concentric ditches, but again these have been ploughed into obscurity.

This large concentration of barrows points towards Knowlton being an important Pagan religious centre. The prominence of Knowlton in the Pagan landscape is likely to be the reason why the church was built where it was – a Christian attempt to assimilate the Pagans into their religion. This assimilation is unlikely to have just included the local Pagan population, the standing stones that would have once adorned the Neolithic henge were most likely broken up and used in the construction of the new church.

The chancel and nave of the church at Knowlton date from the 12th century.  Further additions and improvements were made to the church over its history, with the latest addition being the north aisle which was added to the church in the 18th century. The church remained in use until the late 18th century when the roof of the building collapsed and the church was eventually abandoned to ruin.

Most unusual ancient locations tend to have an associated local legend, and Knowlton Church is no different. At some point in the church’s history its bell is said to have gone missing. Some suggest that the bell was stolen by thieves who, finding it hard to make off with the bell, eventually abandoned their plans and dumped the bell into the River Stour. The residents of Knowlton apparently tried to recover the bell from the river, but ultimately failed. Others suggest that the stolen bell found its way to another nearby church, perhaps nearby Shapwick or Sturminster Marshall. Even stranger, one legend suggests that the bell was stolen by the Devil, who threw the bell into the River Allen and thwarted all attempts by the locals to retrieve it.

Whatever the truth, the legend surrounding the loss of the Knowlton bell was immortalised in the rhyme: "Knowlton bell is stole; And thrown into White Mill hole; Where all the devils in hell; could never pull up Knowlton Bell."

Pictures: Dorset (May 2015).

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Weird Wessex is here!

Weird Wessex: A Tourist Guide to 100 Strange and Unusual Sights is a journey across the English counties of Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Berkshire seeking out the weird and sometimes little known sights that wait to be discovered. Have you ever heard of:

• Somerset's standing stones - the second largest circle of standing stones in Britain?
• The murderous tale behind Berkshire’s Coombe Gibbet?
• The Dorset building with a Civil War cannon ball buried in its wall?
• The Devon village that flips a boulder each year to keep the Devil trapped below ground?
• The Hampshire shop that once fought in the War of 1812?
• The home of Wiltshire’s most famous poltergeist?

If not then let Weird Wessex take you there, and treat you to over 200 full-colour photographs of these weird and wonderful locations. You are certain to discover an unusual location that you never knew existed!

Written by Andrew May (of the Retro-Forteana blog) and myself, Weird Wessex is now available at Amazon here!

Please note this book is printed on demand. So if it shows as being “temporarily out of stock” on Amazon do not be perturbed, the printing press will fire up as soon as your order is placed!

Happy exploring!

St Aldhelm's Chapel

St Aldhelm's Chapel is a Norman chapel which resides inside a low circular earthwork on St Aldhelm's Head near Worth Matravers in Dorset. The chapel is dedicated to a St. Aldhelm (639 AD – 709 AD) who was the Bishop of Sherborne.

St. Aldhelm's Chapel has some unusual features for a chapel firstly it is square (25 feet by 25 feet), as opposed to the rectangular shape of most chapels. The interior space is also odd. Typical chapels have an open interior, whereas  St. Aldhelm's Chapel has a large central column which dominates the interior of the building. The chapel is also oriented in a different manner to more typical chapels. Chapels tend to be laid out based on an East to West orientation, St. Aldhelm's Chapel however is oriented with the corners of the chapel pointing towards the cardinal points of the compass.

The other thing that makes the placement of St. Aldhelm's Chapel so strange is its apparent remoteness. The chapel is around 1.5 miles from Worth Matravers and there has been no evidence found to date of any historic settlements closer to the chapel.

Based on this peculiar feature the original purpose of the building is not certain, it could have been originally built as a chapel or it could have been built for another purpose. Some suggest that it may have originally been built as a watchtower for Corfe Castle, covering the sea approaches to the south. Essentially however, it is not accurately known when the chapel was built, who built it or why they built it!

The first written record of the building being used as a chapel dates from the reign of King Henry III (1207 – 1272) and the chapel appears to have been in use until circa 1625. Following 1625, the chapel slowly fell into disrepair until it was finally restored by the Earl of Eldon in the 19th century, and re-opened for services in 1874. The chapel still holds services to this day, but limited to special occasions, such as Easter.

St Aldhelm's Chapel is not the only eye-catching structure on St Aldhelm's Head. Nearby the chapel is an unusual looking sculpture that serves as a memorial to the pioneering work on radar, undertaken at nearby Renscombe Farm during the Second World War. Work was carried out on the development of radar by a team of researchers including the famous astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell. The stainless steel sculpture represents two radar dishes which are arranged in such a way that they also form a large fire basket. This design is intended to reflect both the ancient and modern methods to warn of invasion - fire beacons were historically used to send messages across the country and warn of impending invasions, and radar took up this role during the Second World War.

Worth Matravers was chosen as a site for the development of radar due to the area’s cliff tops which are relatively flat and thus good for testing radar. In May 1940 there was an influx of around 200 scientists to the area and two years later by May 1942 around 2000 people were actively working on the site. The coastal location did however lead to fears that the research centre could be raided by the Germans and as such the majority of the research effort was moved to Malvern in May 1942. Post 1942 some work on radar did continue in the area and the last radar tower operated by the RAF (a 110m tall tower) was only taken down in the early 1970’s.

The plaque on the memorial reads:  THIS MEMORIAL COMMEMORATES THE RADAR RESEARCH CARRIED OUT AT WORTH MATRAVERS FROM 1940 - 1942 WHICH WAS CRUCIAL TO THE WINNING OF THE WAR AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Even with the area being home to the development of radar, it seems that the powers that be were still unable to prevent the Daleks invading nearby Winspit Quarry in 1967 and 1979.

Pictures: Dorset (May 2015).

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Creech Folly

The stone archway shown below is Grange Arch (also known as Creech Folly) which sits atop Ridgeway Hill, near Steeple in Dorset. The folly is essentially a stone wall inset with archways and surmounted by battlements, which was built around 1745 by the then owner of Creech Grange, Denis Bond. It is said that Bond built this folly atop the hill so he could look up upon it from the Grange, and survey the surrounding countryside from the folly. The structure was never apparently built with any practical purpose in mind other than being an eye-catcher and demonstrating Bond's not-inconsiderable wealth.

The Grange itself dates from the second half of the 1500s, when the original house was built by Sir Oliver Lawrence (1507–1559). Lawrence was an ancestor of the first American president, George Washington, and this area of Dorset has connections to the nascent United States of America. I will explore some of these connections in a later post.

Creech Folly.

Looking from the folly down towards Creech Grange.

The Grange.

Pictures: Dorset (May 2015).

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Finding Frankenstein in Bournemouth

Having been to Bournemouth numerous times over the years I was surprised to find out recently that Mary Shelley (the famous author of Frankenstein) is buried in St. Peter's Churchyard near the centre of the town.

Most people will be familiar with the story behind how the idea for Frankenstein was conceived. The outline of Frankenstein was written during the Year Without Summer (1816), when Mary Shelley was part of a group visiting the poet Lord Byron at his villa near Lake Geneva. The visit was not the sun-drenched holiday that people might expect it to be. An ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Indonesia had shrouded the northern hemisphere in darkness and led to 1816 having a very cold and wet summer. Because of this unusual weather Mary and her friends spent a lot of time indoors and amused themselves by developing ghosts stories. It was during this dark wet summer that Frankenstein was born.

What most people won't know about Mary Shelley however is how tragic and beset with hardship the majority of her life seemingly was.

Mary Shelley (née Godwin) was born in London in 1797 and just ten days after her birth her mother died from complications resulting from childbirth. In 1814 at the age of sixteen Mary fell in love with a married man, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the pair eloped to Europe. During this sojourn Mary became pregnant and when the couple's money eventually ran out they were forced to return to London with their tails between their legs. Because Percy was a married man with his own young family, upon her return to London Mary became a social outcast and was disowned by her father. The couple's financial situation was somewhat dire and Percy was forced to abandon Mary for a while to go into hiding to escape his numerous creditors. The couple's first child was born in 1815, but was sadly two-months premature and soon died. The couple's second and third children also died young with one dying in 1818 of dysentery and the other dying in 1819 from malaria at the age of three. 1816 was also a bad year for the couple, with Mary's half-sister (Fanny Godwin) committing suicide by an overdose of laudanum, and Percy's pregnant wife (Harriet Westbrook) committing suicide by throwing herself into London's Serpentine River.

The couple's relationship was also relatively short, with Percy drowning in 1822 whilst out sailing off the Italian coast. It seems that Percy and his two companions were caught out by a storm and the three never made it to their destination. Their bodies were eventually found on a beach 10 days after the storm and Percy's corpse was cremated near to where he was found.

Mary herself eventually died in 1851 at the age of 53 after a long illness, which was possibly caused by a brain tumour. After her death a silk parcel was found in Mary's possessions that was said to contain some of Percy's ashes along with the remains of his heart - which legend suggests refused to burn when he was cremated. Percy's incombustible heart was eventually interred with Mary's remains in St Peter's Churchyard in Bournemouth. Their tomb can be seen in the following pictures.

St. Peter's Church in Bournemouth.

Mary Shelley's grave.

The nearby pub - "The Mary Shelley" - a dead giveaway that there is some Mary Shelley related heritage nearby.  Pubs names often offer clues to nearby interesting history. The "Herbert George Wells" in Woking is another good example. 

Pictures: Dorset (May 2015).

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