Quirky Dorset

Have I found, here in Dorset, evidence of the most boring sermon ever?  One so dull that the preacher sent even himself to sleep? In the gorgeous medieval church at Tarrant Crawford, on the chancel floor, right in front of the altar, is this brass cross and plaque:  “On this spot, the Rev. Francis Alfred Smith fell asleep July 15 1877” Being right in front of the altar, he must have fallen asleep during the service, and presumably whilst conducting it. To fall asleep during your own sermon suggests a level of dullness that would have attracted the attention of Narcolept , Peter Simple’s reporter on the fabled tournaments organised by the British Boring Board of Control.   Definitely a world-class bore.   So what really happened? Of course he didn’t really start snoozing, and the Victorians would certainly not have commemorated it had he done so. Yes, I know, “fell asleep” was a standard Victorian euphemism for dying, and by the 1870s was a common phrase...

 I never need an excuse to visit a pub, but if you do then the Square & Compass in Worth Matravers has its own museum.  And yes, it’s odd as you might expect from a museum attached to a pub.  Go into the pub, head for the serving hatch (pausing to buy a pint of HBA, the excellent Hattie Brown’s Ale), then take a left and down the corridor to the museum:  Note the payphone; mobiles have a habit of not working out here (although my old one would occasionally connect to France if I sat out the front).  The museum was started by the landlord, Charlie Newman, in 1998, but includes the extensive fossil collection started by his father (and predecessor as publican) Raymond.  The fossils are mostly local, from Purbeck (including from the Kimmeridge shales ) but there are also archaeological finds, things washed ashore from shipwrecks and other items of historical interest.  The Newman family have run the Square & Compass for more than a century, and ...

Worry not; despite the post's title, this is not some ghastly Victorian workhouse adoption centre, but instead was the place to show off the skills of one of Georgian Dorset’s pre-eminent construction firms. The unfortunately-named Bastard Brothers was a family firm of builders, carvers, furniture makers (and, as is still seen in Dorset, occasional funeral directors) and experts in decorative plasterwork. The brothers, John & William Bastard of Blandford Forum, were not illegitimate; their father, Thomas Bastard, who had founded the firm, was married to the sister of Thomas Creech  (classicist, sometime Headmaster of Sherborne School, and Fellow of All Souls ).  But presumably one of their ancestors had been, and the name stuck. The brothers’ big moment came in 1731, when Blandford Forum burned to the ground and the Bastards were hired to rebuild most of the centre.  The result forms a delightful town centre, described by Pevsner (generally a hard man to please) as...

Take a trip to the Dorset Museum * to see a monument to Dorset civilisation and a symbol of the county's place at the forefront of human progress - the Moule lavatory. No, this is nothing to do with the toxic aftermath of eating mussels, but was the invention of   Rev. Henry Moule (1801 - 1880), vicar of Fordington (now a suburb of Dorchester, but previously a separate village and its own Liberty). During the mid nineteenth century cholera outbreaks, Rev. Moule not only cared for his parishioners but also bent his mind to how to improve their situation, and so invented the ‘dry earth closet’. Dry earth and/or ash was loaded into the hopper.  Once one had done one’s business into the bucket, pulling the handle at the bottom (if I may) of the hopper would dispense a layer of fine earth to cover the detritus.  This prevented contamination and smells, and encouraged it to decompose.  Once full, the contents of the bucket could be hygienically buried, probably in the veg...

The font at St. Basil ’s church, Toller Fratrum , is one of the most fascinatingly odd things in Dorset. No-one knows what it represents (there are plenty of theories, but your own guess is likely to be just as good), or how it got there, or even how old it is ( 1066 is usually a good dividing line in England, but experts can’t even agree whether this is Saxon or Norman). It is said that the artist John Piper was interested in it, to the point that he would talk excitedly about it to friends over dinner and then insist on immediately driving them the 100+ miles from his home in Oxfordshire to see it, arriving in the early hours of the morning.  In my book that’s not ‘interested’; that’s ’obsessed’. Just what is going on here?  There seems to be a sloth climbing a tree in the middle (pretty sure there are no sloths in the Bible), and a strange creature with two bodies but only one head at the top, balancing on pillars.  Your guess is not only as good as mine, but for this...