Index

A HISTORY OF OSMINGTON VILLAGE.  
On the 900th Anniversary of Doomsday.  

The area around Osmington was extensively settled during the Stone and Bronze ages.  Evidence of which is provided by the many burial mounds in the district. The long barrows are the oldest, containing Neolithic people from the period 3250 to 1000 BC. They used tools of stone and flint, their skulls were elongated and they were of short stature. During this period the land was occupied by parties of farmer immigrants, probably speaking different languages.  

The round barrows belong to the later Bronze Age people, living between 550 and 200 BC.  Averaging 5' 8" in height, they brought with them new weapons such as the sling and the war chariot.

About 150 B.C. a new series of migrations began. The Belgic settlers were technically more advanced, being able to produce wheel turned pottery and a range of iron tools. Their advent together with the increase in population led to tribal warfare. Represented by the hill forts and fortified villages such as Maiden Castle which, in Old English was: 'Mai' - a fort and  'Dun' a personal name.  Hence, literally: 'Dun's Fort'.

Thus, while the greater history of England emerges, Osmington formed a part and unfolds from the mists of time as the following chronology suggests.

British society before the Romans was anything but primitive and was a complex civilisation with many progressive elements. There were laws that governed the running of tribal hostels. Travellers were afforded the utmost hospitality and each tribe had its public hostel, looked after by a full time manager. He maintained the 'roads' leading to the hostel and kept a light burning all night to aid travellers, in accordance with the law.

The British were already showing an addiction for ale. The lower classes drank wheaten beer, prepared with wild honey, the forerunner of Mead. The common drink was intoxicating ale called 'Cuirm'. Basically, it was made from barley or wheat as the base. The grain was converted to malt 'Brac' and then dried in a kiln until hard.  The ground malt was made into a mash with water, boiled and strained until complete. Most families made their own and later the Roman Governor commented on the vast amount drunk on feast-days.

It is probable that the dominant tribe in the area of Osmington were the Durotignes who defended Dun's Castle against the Second Augusta Legion in 43 A.D. The legion had been raised in the area of Strasbourg and was commanded by Vespian who later became Emperor.

In the Iron Age and the first century A.D, Britain was mainly an agricultural society, existing by subsistence farming, although corn was listed as a British export to Europe.

With the coming of the Legions the Roman army consumed enormous amounts of grain, of the order of 20,000 Tonnes per annum has been estimated and a permanent consumer of agricultural produce became established. The 'Annona Militaris " or compulsory requisitioning of grain and other goods became a tax calculated as a percentage of the crop. Dorset supplied most of the wheat for the Caerleon Command of South Wales.

In the 3rd and 4th centuries, retired legionnaires and auxiliaries became farmers, and horticulture was introduced, along with bee keeping as a supplementary occupation.

At Poxwell (Old English: Poca's Well), towards the end of the 3rd century, a rudimentary half- timbered, rectangular, building was constructed in the lee of a field terrace. It contained corn drying kilns and also a furnace for roasting iron ore. A good deal of pottery was found indicating that people lived there. The parent estate (Villa) is not known but the building was probably to provide accommodation and workspace in one of the more remote parts of the estate.

Also at Poxwell, there is a ring of stones, possibly contemporary with Stonehenge, which has also been associated with Druid practices.

The Barbarian Conspiracy of the 360s and the agricultural recession, led to outlying bands of estate workers being brought in and Poxwell was abandoned about this time. It might indicate that the ploughing of marginal land was discontinued.

Inflation and debasement of the coinage caused Diocletian to issue an Edict in 301 AD that sought to fix ceilings for prices and wages. The basic agricultural wage in the fourth century for a days labour was 25 Denarii and four days pay would buy nine litres of wheat. A shepherd received marginally less and a baker twice as much. A barber could charge up to 2D and a Vet 6D for hoof trimming. An elementary teacher charged up to 50D per pupil per month. So requiring fourteen pupils to equal the income of a farm labourer. A teacher of Rhetoric and Logic charged five times as much. A pair of breeches cost 20D and 120D for a pair of farm workers boots, hobnails cost extra!

Around 405 to 407 A.D, Constantine took most of the remaining army units to Gaul. So Rome, her armies scattered and her dominions fallen found a new organisation through which her influence could continue. The officers no longer wore the helmets of commanders and were no longer Legates of a Legion. Instead they wore the mitres of bishops and were legates of the new ecclesiastical power. They carried the same message of a single community in Europe. United now not by the Eagles but by the badge of Christ. But if the Christian faith was to serve as a unifying force, it had itself to be unified. Rome could no more permit conflicting beliefs, than in earlier times, she could allow local commanders to develop independent policies.  From the third to the fifth century, the Church of Rome was occupied in stamping out heresy and imposing dogma and unity of belief.

The sixth century brought the Saxon invasions and settlement and St. Agustin's expedition establishing the Sees of York and Canterbury. In the seventh century, the Viking excursions along the shores of Britain, while the Synod of Whitby in 663 A.D. endorsed the dominance of Roman Christianity over the Celtic church, which was to continue to the Reformation.

The Viking invasions, around 866 to 871 A.D, further divided the already divided country but, as the Vikings established Danelaw in the east, under the Saxon chieftains, Wessex replaced Mercia as the paramount power. The Treaty of 886 established separate kingdoms and Wessex was paying Danegelt the enormous sum of £36,000 per annum.

Alfred, King of Wessex (871 - 899 A.D.) led up to the conquest of Danelaw in 900 A.D. and was followed by Athelstan who became King of Wessex and Mercia in 925 A.D.

In 935 A.D. Athelstan founded the Benedictine house for forty Cistercian monks and lay brothers at Milton (Saxon - 'The Mill Place'), and five years later, in 940 A.D, by Royal Charter founded the Manor of Osmington which was given to the Abbott of Milton along with the wrecks on the Osmington shore.

In 978 A.D. the Viking invasions resumed and it is recorded that in 982 three Danish long-ships raided Weymouth.

By the reign of Aethelred, in 982 A.D., the tenth century records at Milton Abbey of

'Osmyntone Village' showed that it was divided into two parts: 'Superior' and 'Inferior'. This followed the Roman pattern. The Province of Britain had also been split into two: Britannia Superior and Inferior. The 'Superior' included most of the South: London, Caerlon and Chester under the governorship of an officer of superior, Consular rank. The 'Inferior' North included York, Lincoln and the Wall commanded by a Praetorian officer. It would suggest a connection between South and North. In the village of Osmington Superior there were listed; one free tenant, nine Virgatorii, twenty-one half Virgatorii and twelve Coltarii.  A 'Virgate' was roughly 30 acres.

It is not clear where the divide lay in Osmington but, if one associates 'Inferior' with nether, or north and 'Superior' with over or south and adds the Saxon word - 'Ton or Tone', meaning a farm or village, then Netherton Farm has its roots in the Tenth century.

It is at least possible that 'Superior' south included the Mills and the shore, as we shall see later.

Under the Saxon rulers, the kingdoms were structured for the purpose of governing and collecting taxes and by Alfred's time, an effective system had been established which was to serve the Norman French, to conduct the Doomsday Census so efficiently and in so brief a period.

The name Osmington was probably coined before the creation of the Manor as discussed above. 'Os' may have been the abbreviated name of a Romano-British or Saxon chieftain.  'Men' is a form of the Saxon word 'menna', meaning a 'hill'. While, 'ton' is the Saxon word meaning a village, farm or place as suited the context. Hence literally the hill village of Os.

Doomsday bore out the earlier records. Following the Norman invasion in 1078, Osmond the king's Writer, William the first's nephew, a priest and Chancellor of England was installed as Bishop of Salisbury.

Nine years later in 1086, he supervised the compilation of Doomsday. He died in 1099 A.D.

The Doomsday record of Osmington states: 'In the Hundred of Culliford Tree. (Culliford Tree (Colq: Gullivers Tree) is a group of 26 round barrows, about 1.5 miles N.E. of Bincombe Church, in a bowl where the Hundreds met. It may have been the dividing line between tribes in pre-Roman times.

Doomsday continues: 'Pre 1066 Osmentone' confirming the use of the name prior to the Conquest. Then completes the inventory: "Tax for ten Hides. Land for ten ploughs, Four in Lordship. Two ploughs, three slaves (the practice of placing oneself into slavery to another in payment of a debt) sixteen villagers, seven smallholders. A Mill pays 5/-. Value: £8".

A Hundred was one hundred Hides, a subsection of a Lordship. Hides had replaced Virgates and was a measure of land that could support one free family. It could vary between sixty and one hundred and twenty acres, according to the locality. As the hill terraces 'Lynchettes' are, probably prehistoric although similar contouring occurred in the Middle Ages, their presence around Osmington may have determined the size of a Hide in the district.

The Mill is thought to have been located at the base of Spring Bottom Hill. The first water mills, for grinding grist, were built by the Romans towards the end of the second century B.C. The earliest had no gears and had an energy output equivalent to a donkey mill or half a horsepower. The Romans then developed vertical, undershot waterwheels, fitted with blades which drove the upper millstone through 90 degree gearing and increased the power six-fold to about three horsepower. A seven foot wheel driving the millstone at forty eight revolutions per minute could grind 150 kg of corn an hour or 1.5 tonnes in ten hours. Two slaves with a rotary handmill could grind about 7 kg per hour or 70 kg in ten hours. So over forty slaves would have to be employed to grind the same 1.5 tonnes in ten hours. By Doomsday a total of 5624 water mills were recorded in England and many were still in use in the 18th century.

But there were disadvantages to watermills in times of drought or prolonged frost. In the 12th century medieval engineers turned their attention to harnessing wind power and adapted the mechanism of the water mill with remarkable success. It has been recalled that, before Mr James Champ retailed beer at the Crown (now the Smugglers), around 1840, the premises had been a mill. There are also recollections of the mill being driven by sails and both may have been true at different periods or seasons. There is a record that in 1318 Nicholas le Wayte held two mills and lands here and one of his fields was called 'Mulaker'. In 1692, a Richard Thrasher of Portesham, Miller, died leaving his son Robert the inheritance of a house, which he purchased from John Hardy of Osmington, Miller. Taylors map of 1765 shows the site of 'Old Mill', the implication being that it was then disused and it is described on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1811 as 'Osmington Mills'. A mill was also recorded in 1227 at Ringstead (O.E. hring-stede, the place of a ring or stone circle or maybe a salt pan). The mill belonged to the Manor of East Ringstead.

In 1086 Osmund also established a college of Canons at Salisbury and about the time that Thomas a Becket was murdered at Canterbury in 1170, the first place of worship was built at Osmington by the lay brothers and monks seconded from Milton Abbey. 'Monks passage' or 'Abbots path' as well as 'Monks walk' above the church may be shadowy recollections of those times.

About a century after the Conquest, monks who had obtained a grant of lands containing springs, often installed a very elaborate and complete water supply to the refectory, kitchen, baker's house, brewer's house, guest hall and bath house. 12th century standards of hygiene were high and there is some evidence that a less sophisticated system was built in Osmington. Where the 'Stable Bar' now stands is thought to have been the site of the monk's bathhouse. Fed from a nearby spring, the bathwater flushed the 'rere-dorter' or 'necessarium' into the nearby Preston River (now Jordan) down Back Lane open ditch.  The 'facilities' were approached via the Orchard - Monks Passage and along the boundary once called Back Lane but now Chapel or Gables Lane.

It was about this time that the Norman Monks introduced cider making into England and orchards certainly existed in the area.

Reputedly a culvert of Roman design (although there is no evidence of Roman occupation) was excavated in Church Lane when the main sewer was installed. Fed by a spring, it flowed north on the eastern side of the lane before swinging west across the track, opposite the church, to a cistern at the junction with the Old Road. Now a niche in the wall opposite the Post Office, it followed the route of the Jordan downhill and to the village green at the junction between Sutton Poyntz Road and White Horse Hill. Thus the cottages built along the way had access to fresh water at the front and a sewer at the back from an early period.

Only in 1797 was the "Company of Proprietors of Weymouth Water Works" formed, to bring water from Preston into the town.

In 1855 a private Act of Parliament was passed to take water from Sutton Poyntz. At that time three pumps existed in Osmington. One at the corner where the road west to Sutton Poyntz branched from the White Horse Hill Road, on Netherton farm. The pump still exists, made by A. Syea of Pentonville. The second was at the Post Office crossroads, the site of the mediaeval cistern and a third to supply the cottages below the Plough Inn that were burnt down in the 1920's.

A private water supply had been installed in 1888 by Mr Joe Brutton, Brewer of Yeovil, who also installed a ram pump on Hall's Farm to lift water to a reservoir on White Horse Hill.  The system and pipes were maintained until the turn of the century.  (See Appendix A to see how a ram pump works). Subsequently a petrol driven pump was installed delivering 3,500 gallons per hour.

In 1942 mains water reached the village and in 1969 the Dorset Water Authority was established that became the Wessex Water Authority in 1974.

Private sewerage systems had been installed at Osmington House, with its own filter beds, behind Gardeners Cottage.  Effluent being drained into the Jordan stream.  Osmington Lodge had its own well house and pump. Main drainage to a new sewerage works was offered to the village in the I970's. This is now being connected to Sutton Poyntz by a new pipeline and the Osmington works closed.

It took 150 years for gas to reach Osmington. Weymouth Gas Works Company having been established in 1836. It was reconstituted in 1867 as Weymouth Gas Consumers Company. The Southern Gas Board resulted from nationalisation in 1948 and in 1986 villagers were offered the benefits of North Sea Gas.

By 1279 in the reign of Edward 1st, (1272 - 1307), it is recorded that  "The Vicar of Osmington (Presumably in absentis as the first encumbant is listed as 1303) enjoyed the Tithes of the Manor". We know this from the records of 1319 when the Bishop of Salisbury admonished the Abbot of Milton for; "Causing the monk Richard de Cherynstor (Charminster?) to carry away the Tithes, contrary to the Endowment which the Vicar had enjoyed above forty years".

In 1291 the Rectory belonged to Milton Abbey and was valued at 10 Marks (Norse: 'Mork'). A mark equaled I3/4 or 67p.

On the 2nd November 1302, the first Clerk was encumbered as Vicar of Osmington and Rector of Ringstead; the appointee was John de Ringstede. He was followed in 1309, by William de Churchehulle. (A full list of Vicars may be found on the North wall of the Church). There is a record of 1318 of an estate at Upton (Higher farm) and perhaps, the 'Superior' part of the village estate of Osmington. Brother Richard de Osmyngton became Abbot of Cerne Abbas and died in 1356. The Rectory at Ringstead was united with the Vicarage of Osmington in 1498.

By 1300, Italian banking techniques had reached a sophisticated level.  Letters of payment which could be cashed abroad, non-negotiable Bills of Exchange and double entry book keeping were being employed. The Bardi and Perruzzi families had settled in England to collect the Papal Taxes and were loaning vast sums to Edward 1st. By buying Cistercian wool production a year or two ahead, they displaced the Flemish merchants who did not have the capital to compete. So the European textile workers emigrated of their own free will, to England bringing with them knowledge and skills. Cloth making became a major industry in the West Country as a consequence.

Up to Victorian times 'Gentleman' and 'Esquire' had quite distinct meanings, which were little misused. There is no exact definition of a Gentleman but it has always meant a man whose superior position was matched by birth and breeding. An Esquire however, except for cadets of Noblesse, who were Esquires by birth, attained the designation as applied to solicitors and all who held a Commission from the Crown. The title 'Captain' was not a rank but an independent commander of a ship. He appointed his officers not the Crown who, therefore were not esquires. A Justice of the Peace, Preventative Officers and a Common Hangman were also Esquires.

'Yeoman' to had a definite meaning, being a man who worked for himself. He was often of the same birth as the minor gentry. He drove the plough himself and lived in his kitchen. It is very common from 1600 to 1800 to find the eldest son of a farming family a Freeholder and Gentleman while his younger brothers are just copyhold Yeomen.

Finally the younger sons of younger sons became Labourers and so described themselves.  But they may have been of some local standing for all that as cadets of the old line.

Very rarely did the country gentlemen and the yeoman class, marry outside it. The farming families saw too much of the realities of mongrel breeding to take risks.

'Husbandman' means little more than an agricultural worker and usually little more than a householder. 'Clerk' before 1800 always meant a Cleric. Up to 1600, few non-clerics could read and write and this applied to country gentry up to 1700 and to yeomen up to 1800.

There is practically no spelling before the 18th century and quite educated men spelt their names differently in the same document.

It is difficult for us, living in the industrial 20th century, to imagine how nasty, perilous and short life was for our forbears. "A bello, fame et peste libra nos Domine" was the most common invocation of medieval England. People born around 1820 were at the dividing line between what we think of as normal and what people before had known as normal.

Most people had had to be content with the position on the social scale into which they had been born. The 'Gentry' ran the country, either from Parliament or more directly from their estates, where they controlled the district as Justices of the Peace and general benefactors.  Below them the Freeholders ploughed an independent and often profitable furrow. While the masses of labourer toiled to earn rather less than was needed to support life. Such, apparently, was 'The Will of God'. The natural order of things that had existed beyond memory.

In 1096 at one monastery, there were 52 servants for 66 monks, not including the gardeners, a blacksmith and other labourers. By 1393 26 monks were served by 40 domestics.

Long before the so-called, "Black Death" of 1665, the entire period between 1350 and 1500 was wracked by plague. Osmington did not escape unscathed and in 1349 two priests died in the village in the same year. No record of the lay mortality can be found.  Nor is the burial ground known but it was usually located outside the habitation for fear of infection.

The Greyfriars of Lynn recorded: "In 1348 in Melcombe in the county of Dorset, a little before the Feast of St John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol, came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from Gascony the seeds of that terrible pestilence and through him, the men of that town of Melcombe were the first to be infected".

Actually several ports received the plague simultaneously as there were constant comings and goings of knights and their retainers to France.  Knights owed Edward III so many days a year ' Knights Service' and Edward was engaged in his favourite sport, fighting the French and the ports saw men setting out to serve their time and coming back a few weeks later.

In many country districts between 30% and 50% of the population died of either the plague or cholera and the glazed sewer pipe, introduced around 1830, did more for public health than all the medicine before or since.

For the survivors it brought about higher standards of living as a country gentleman: John Gower writing in 1375 described the 'deplorable' situation as "The world goeth from bad to worse, when shepherd and cowherd for their part, demand more for their labour than the master bailiff was wont to take in years gone by. Labour is now so high a price that he, who would order his business aright, must pay five or six shillings now for what would have cost two in former times. Ha: Age of ours, the poor and small folk demand to be better fed than their masters. Moreover they bedeck themselves in fine colours and better attire. Whereas were it not for their pride and privy conspiracies, they would be clad in sackcloth as of old."

An external menace to the whole of Europe was the changing climate. Whereas favourable conditions had assisted, unfavourable ones were to have an adverse effect so appalling as to trigger the medieval depression, which lasted 150 years, right into the Renaissance. The trend that had begun at the beginning of the 14th century became dramatically apparent, notably in the years 1315 to 1317. During this brief period from Scotland to Italy, from the Pyrenees to Russia, the whole of Europe suffered weather conditions so appalling that they stunned the continent. In the summer of 1314 heavy rains ruined the harvest, which provoked a rise in the price of corn. Torrential rains fell from 11th of May 1315 and all through the summer and autumn.

Economic historians have made an accurate measurement of the yield of wheat per annum of the 50 Manors of the Bishopric of Winchester and found that over 150 years, the average germination rate to be 3.38. In 1315 the deviation was as low as 2.47 (- 35.7 %). For 1316 it was lower still at 2.I (- 44.9 %). At last in 1319 it picked up and reached 5.07 (+ 32.3). The bailiffs wrote down the climatic conditions in their manorial records and accounts and the documentation is shockingly vivid. It has been suggested that the malnutrition suffered by those who survived the famine lowered their resistance to the plague bacillus.

The horse like the tractor that superseded it was not adopted everywhere at the same time. As with the tractor there were prejudices against the horse. It went against the tradition to only use oxen for ploughing. A horse in the middle ages involved a substantial investment and its upkeep cost were considerably more than an ox. Horses required oats and this raised a problem for the farmer who had to specially grow them.

In the 12th century it was estimated that the horse in winter ate a halfpenny a day of oats for 28 weeks, costing 8s 2d whereas the ox only ate 2s 8d worth for the same number of days. In summer they cost about the same in grass: 12d. But shoeing a horse cost between 6d and 9d. While the horse and the ox exert, roughly the same pull, around 120 lbs, the horse moves 50% faster at about 3.6 ft per sec to the 2.4 ft per sec of the ox. Therefore producing 50% more foot pounds per second; 432 against 288 ft lbs per second. Horses also had a greater endurance and could work two hours a day longer.

Walter of Heneley's treatise on estate management and farming in the 14th century reveals a very modern approach to agriculture. In fact Lords of the Manors needed trained estate administrators with knowledge of farming, accountancy and the law. So, Oxford ran a 'Course in Business Management ' including letter writing, formulation of writs, deeds and accountancy.

The new techniques increased the average yield from about x 2.5 to approximately x 4 by the end of the I4th century. But it took another 400 years and the agricultural revolution of the 18th century before yields rose substantially above those of the I4th century.

In the 1640's the Law of Strict Settlement ensured that estates passed intact from generation to generation while Equity of Redemption made the mortgage a secure form of investment and a respectable way of raising money. This led to a rapid and sustained rise in agricultural production and of productivity. The knowledge had already existed and once the cash began to flow, it could be widely applied. During the next century, farmers and landowners exploited the techniques; the elements included stockbreeding, drainage, fallow crops like turnips and clover and the use of natural and artificial fertilizers.

Most of the enclosures had taken place by the end of the 17th century and marketing was assisted by the absence of internal tolls and England was the largest free market in Europe.

Enclosure had brought hardship and rural poverty to a head and forced society to use the Poor Law to underwrite rural incomes. Prior to 1730 unemployment varied between 25 and 40%. Almshouses were built for the aged and parish relief preceded private charity. In 1699 the average income was estimated at £8 to £9 per annum, with labourers and cottagers at just over £3 per annum. By 1780 they had doubled in real terms. As horses replaced oxen there were huge increases in meat consumption and food was exported. Even by 1830, 90% of the food was homegrown.

In 1822, the Rev John Fisher, Vicar of Osmington and friend of the painter John Constable wrote " Nothing here but farmers breaking and sales of cattle. Wheat £10 5s 0d a load. Yet the greatest plenty of provisions of all sorts.  In short a strange anomaly, ruin and plenty ". Again, in June 1830 he wrote. "Summer has set in with its usual severity. The rains have swollen the rivers and swamped our meadows. The uncut hay is all muddled and every paddock is spoilt with what they call 'cows heel'. This is the third consecutive year this has happened and in consequence, all my Gillingham farmers are ruined and seven of them are breaking stones on the road ". John Fisher was vicar of Osmington for 19 years and died in 1832 aged 44 years.

As the gun-smoke of the Napoleonic wars cleared, the velvets, silks and stains were discarded for the serge and bombazine of the 19th century. The days of the very powerful and wealthy were drawing to a close and the day of the plutocrat, railway baron and the 'pink pill' merchant were nigh. In 1873 to ship a ton of grain from Chicago to Liverpool cost £3.35. By 1883 it had dropped to £1.20 and was still falling. In a decade the price of home wheat fell from 56/- a quarter to 31/- and over one million acres when out of production. More than 100,000 labourers were driven off the land and added to the swelling tide of emigrants to the New World. In 1861 the population of Osmington had been 448.  By 1901 it was down to 334, a drop of 25%.

Village life centred around the Church, the pump and the Beer Tavern. Nearly every village had its own brewery and hearsay has it that in Osmington it stood where the Phoenix is now.  It was the middle age custom to sell beer on Church grounds and to use the profits for charitable purposes. It was known as 'Church Ale' and the organiser as 'Robin Hood' for obvious reasons.  But the habit got out of hand in the 16th century and was stopped. Perhaps this accounts for the first pair of bells that were cast and hung in the Church in the I4th century. They are inscribed: 'Angelus Gabriel' and ' Ave Maria'.

In 1266 Henry III had regulated two grades of beer and decreed that it should be sold at 4 gallons a penny. The Assize of 1277 regulated the measures that should be used.

Plague and cholera continued to flare up through the 15th century. Firstly in 1431 to 1439 and again in 1461 to 1479.  During the lull in 1456, Bishop Osmund was canonised St. Osmund.

Towards the end of the 15th century (the date is uncertain) a Tudor house was built alongside the Church (parts remain today on the north side) as a seat of the Warham family who held the Manor under Henry VII. Archbishop William Warham could not have spent much of his time in Osmington. Nominated by Pope Julius the Second in 1504 as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was sent on legal business to Rome and Antwerp by the king who had appointed him Lord Chancellor. He helped to arrange the marriage of Henry VII to Margaret of Savoy and crowned Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in 1509. Wolsey replaced him as Lord Chancellor in 1516 and from 1518, when Wolsey was made Papal Legate; there was friction between them. Warham was forced by Henry VIII to advise Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage with Queen Catherine and in 1531, a year before he died, when the clergy were obliged to recognise the King as supreme head of the church, Warham added "So far as the law of Christ will allow". He befriended Erasmus and was a patron and benefactor of the new learning, though entirely unsympathetic to Protestants.

Following Henry's abolition of Papal authority in England in 1534 and the dissolution of the Monasteries during 1536 to 1540, the Manor of Osmington was stripped from Milton Abbey and granted to John Ashley, Master of the Royal Jewels. Later, passing into the possession of the Wood family. The present Lord of the Manor is the Rev Canon E.C. Kemp, a descendent of the Wood family.

In 1590 the Weymouth and Melcombe Bridge was built and a year later, " The farm and capital messuage (that is the dwelling house and lands assigned to its use) were granted to George Watkins". It is not clear which farm but because of its age it was possibly Netherton Farm.

The oldest building still extant, in the village is the 'Dorset Longhouse' on Charity Farm, to the East side of Lower Church Lane. Originally built in Elizabeth's reign, it housed the farmer's family and the animals and is dated towards the end of the 16th century. It is a listed building that is shortly to be restored and a technical description has been prepared by Dorset County Council's Planning Office.

The attached building set at right angles to the northeast, was originally a barn extension added in the 17th century and subsequently was used as a forge. In the intervening period the buildings have been significantly modified and the existing roof and brick chimney are 20th century additions. Originally the roof was thatched. The building has two storeys and combined the family living accommodation with the byre. There is a common entrance and passage right of centre that led to the byre in the south end. Separated from the living quarters by a timber partition. The living room kitchen was heated by an open fireplace embrasure backing onto the entrance passage. The stairs to the upper floor were on the rear wall in a projecting embrasure, with access to the living room between the stairs and the fireplace. The river Jordan that has its headwaters near the Wareham road is now confined in a ditch and in parts underground must have run in front of the Longhouse.

1597 saw the second pair of church bells cast and hung with the distinctly English inscriptions of "Praise ye the Lord" and "Thinke ye on God". About the time that the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for New England in 1610, the Manor of Osmington had come into the hands of Lord and Lady Petre. This was the time of Civil War. In 1643 Parliamentary forces of Cromwell's Roundheads controlled the area, under Sir John Trenchard. A year later in 1644, Royalist forces under Sir Lewis Dyve re-took control. It can be assumed that the Petres favoured the wrong side because the farm and rents were sequestered and became the property of the Sheldons. In 1634 the Tennier of Glebe lands of the Vicarage of Osmington amounted to 6 acres. Between 1650 and 1652 John Blaxton, Vicar had "an augmentation out of Lord Petre's impropriation". These were troubled times and it was noted that on 4th August 1624 Mr John Blaxton's corn was set afire by his adversaries in the night time.

In 1582 Pope Gregory X decided at last to act to revise the Julian calendar. More than three centuries after Francis Bacon had appealed for a change. It was decided that October 5th would become October 15th and that the last year of a century would not be a leap year, except when the date was divisible by 400. Thus was the Gregorian calendar created by which we still live.

Mechanical clocks made a significant contribution to shaping the modern world and to navigation. On churches and cities in the I4th century clocks started to strike equinoctial hours which in itself was a revolution in measuring time, with far reaching consequences. In their turn, Egyptian, Roman and Islamic water clocks had indicated unequal, or temporal hours. In all these and other civilisations the days were divided into hours of light and hours of darkness generally periods of twelve hours each. The hours were counted from sunrise to sunset and from sunset to sunrise so that, except at the equinoxes the lengths of day and night differed according to the season of the year. In England at about 5I degrees north, sunrise to sunset varies between 7.5 and 16.5 hours. Thus an hour could vary between 38 and 82 minutes. The water clocks that preceded the equinoctial, mechanical clocks had an attendant who each morning, would divide the day into twelve hours and set his clock to enforce the division of time. Ringing a bell on the 'hour'. There are rumours of 'a great bell' in Osmington church tower.

Until the 16th century the rural parts of Europe lived not only with these temporal hours but also with Canonical hours, which governed the hours in the monasteries. The monastery bell was rung seven times in every 24 hours. By making the churches ring their bells at regular 60-minute intervals, the mechanical clocks were a decisive step towards breaking the liturgical practices. The Church of Rome made no objection to clocks being installed on the facades of their churches.  They knew that time is money!

In 1627 Henry Fowler of the town of Weymouth, wrote "We have in Dorset a curious sidelight of evidence that the water clock was used in Osmington 4 miles from Weymouth, in Queen Elizabeth's reign (1558 -1603)". Edward Warham the Squire of that parish, who died in 1601, seems to have his tomb prepared in his lifetime. In the inscription on which he recorded the liability of glass water clocks to sudden breakage.  The meaning of this inscription was a mystery until I discovered the identical wording engraved on a clock of the same period belonging to Mr St George Littledale. The clock now spring driven was converted form an Elizabethan water clock.

On the monument in St. Osmund's, cut vertically on the left side, was the following:

Perhaps the water clock attendant had lost his job.

Between 1510 and 1630 religious and political persecution in France and the Low Countries drove Walloons and Huguenots to pour into England. Bringing with them new skills and technologies. The development of new industries such as glass, horology and silk making were, essentially due to the immigrants.  Queen Elizabeth's clockmaker was French but by 1680 England had an unchallenged lead in clock making.  Clocks were made in Dorset and an important market for them, were the village churches.  The simple, slow moving mechanisms were very enduring and in Osmington there is a note that in 1817: "Cart and horse and man, 2 days carting the clock into Waimought and bring back a gain 10/-. Gillingham's bill for repairs of the clock £2/5/8". It would seem that a new clock was installed in 1840 supplied by Vincents of Weymouth.  Wound once a week it still keeps the hours today.

Schools exercise a radical monopoly on learning by re-defining it as education. It was not always so. Francis Bacon, friend of Thomas a Beckett, had observed; "There are two modes of acquiring knowledge namely by reasoning and by experience". Later 'Education' was to be described by Voltaire as "This presumptuous neologism of pretentious school-masters". John Amos Comenius, a Moravian bishop of the 17th century, is considered to be one of the founders of the modern school. In his Magna Didactica he outlined the assembly line production of knowledge by his proposal for 7 or 12 grades of compulsory learning. Thus the industrial mode of production was first rationalised in the manufacture of a new, invisible, commodity we call " education'.

Usually in the 17th and 18th centuries, a day school was run in the Vestry of the church and the muddle of 18th century education had some healthy features. Some of the schools for the poor children were very good, with enterprising teachers and a wide curriculum. Many of the Grammar Schools taught science 100 years before the great Public schools where the classics remained paramount.  Dorchester Grammar School was in Sir Nappers Mite. A charity built in 1636, where I spent my first term of secondary education. It is now a popular coffee shop. Osmington village school was built in 1835. Supported by voluntary contributions, it had room for up to 70 mixed boys and girls although the average attendance was 40. The first schoolmistress was Julia Spinney and the school log books and photographs, from 1884 to 1936 are lodged at the County Records Office.

Reference was made previously to refugees from the Low Countries that arrived in England in 16th and 17th centuries. Amongst them were the 'Anabaptists', variously called the left wing of the Reformation, by insisting on the primacy of Scripture and the separation of church and state. The designation 'Anabaptist' covered various groups on the continent in the 16th century and first appeared as 'Zwickham Prophets' in Wittenburgh in 1521. Swiss brethren also appeared in Zurich in 1525. Both refused the baptism of children and introduced the baptism of adult believers. They also taught doctrines of non-resistance and rejection of Christian participation in the magistry. 'Zwickham Prophets' also taught the doctrine of 'inner light' which reappeared in England later as the 'Quakers'

The 'Anabaptists' were vigorously denounced by both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants and tens of thousands of Dutch non-conformists died in the 16th century. From this persecution also emerged the Mennonites, after Menno Simons (1496-1561) a parish priest of Friesland who renounced connection with the Roman Catholic Church in 1563; they are now an important community in the prairie states of America.

There were Anabaptists in England as early as 1534 but throughout the 16th century their views were mainly confined to the refugees from the Low Countries, while they made a significant contribution to the development of agriculture and industry. By the 17th and 18th centuries non-conformists, including Baptists, were often described as Anabaptists but the name had become one of abuse with evil associations. It is rumoured that the Anabaptists in Osmington in this period were buried in unmarked graves south of the churchyard, in the strip of land that separates the yard from the Vicarage. As occurred to John Wesley in Preston.

In 1662 John Wesley, grandfather of the great evangelist: John Wesley (1703-1791) was offered a home at Preston where he lived in retreat for some two years before preaching to the villages. He died there in 1670 and was buried in an unmarked grave. There is no doubt that he visited and knew Osmington as his papers referred to: "The grand old trees of Osmington".

After the establishment of Methodism, in 1784 his grandson John Wesley made provision for the continuance of the: 'Yearly Conference of the people called Methodists', by nominating, under a Deed Poll, 100 people who it declared to be members and by laying down the method by which their successors were to be appointed. The Conference had powers to appoint preachers to the Chapels, the ownership of which was vested in Boards of Trustees.

With the revival of Methodism in the late 18th and 19th centuries, preaching was commenced in Osmington in the open air. Mr Daniel Wallis took his stand at the crossroads (opposite the Post Office) and proclaimed repentance, later Mrs. Dunn lent her house for services and drew upon herself rebukes and persecution for her trouble. In 1847 a meeting room was fitted out (In Chapel Lane) and in 1870 it was reported as being: 'Now too small for the congregation frequenting it'. But by the 20th century, the Congregation had waned and after the Second World War its upkeep could no longer be sustained by the Trustees and the remaining adherents. The property was sold and in 1985 was converted into a residence: 'The Old Chapel'.

Parish Registers often contain entries relating not only to members of the Church of England but also Dissenters. Since the Registration Act of 1695, it was required that notice of all births be given to the Rector, Vicar or Clerk of the Parish. While Lord Hardwick's, 'Marriage Act of 1753 virtually restricted marriages to the Parish Churches, although it did not apply to Quakers or Jews and was ignored by the Roman Catholics.  St Osmunds church records start from 1678.

It is not true that:

Well into the 16th century the country was crossed by a network of ancient Celtic paths, un-maintained Roman roads, bridle and packhorse ways and footpaths. Only the wealthy, itinerant workers such as masons and armies travelled afar and they either rode on horseback, were carried in litters, marched or walked. The common folk rarely moved much beyond the parish and the local town. The 'Kings Highway' was a misnomer, being mainly a skeleton of farm tracks created by wagons and animals, joining cities and towns. From these lateral ways led to manor houses, farmhouses and cottages on the estates. As far as possible the 'roads' and paths followed the contours of the land, avoiding waterlogged valleys and peaks of hills. Where hills had to be crossed the tracks followed a gradient at an incline that was least taxing for beast and man.

The Imperial Post of the Roman Empire had established a courier service linking Rome with the provinces and provided Post Houses at appropriate intervals where riders and horses could be replaced. There the flagging courier could await a returning messenger. Local knowledge of the best routes was as important then as now. This was a pattern repeated by the British in India in the 19th century.

Similar practices continued down the years for Kings Messengers, Royal Progressions, religious dignitaries, travelling monks and tax gatherers. Hamlets sprung up to provide food and shelter along the highway with hostlers, fodder, blacksmiths and cordwainers to serve the needy travellers. Toll roads and bridges came into existence, maintained by local landlords or, by Royal Warrant out of the exchequer. Farm wagons travelled to the local towns, carrying the family, produce and anything for sale. While military detachments with guns, powder and shot moved through the country re-garrisoning the strongholds. Many of the coastal paths have been lost through erosion. Even in the 1920's, Sandsfoot Castle stood well clear of the cliff edge and reputedly, was mile from the sea, when it was built by Henry VIII in 1539.

Changes in farming techniques and Acts of Enclosure changed the tracery of rights of way over common land while new building necessitated a change of route. The villages mostly, developed in valleys and sheltered spots where a reliable supply of water and wood for fuel was readily available. But travel was severely limited by the seasons.  Many roads being impassable in winter and overgrown in summer so that, progress was severely limited to the 'main' roads in the Shires.

Between 1750 and 1790, some 1600 Acts of Parliament were passed to extend and improve the roads and the age of mobility began. The Turnpike companies took control of over 18,000 miles of 'roads' and the Board of Agriculture was set up in 1760 to superintend the road works. Prior to 1760 the approach to Osmington from the East and Warmwell Cross, passed through the estates of John Trenchard who owned Poxwell Manor and the lands of Thomas Pickard, to the top of the Ridgeway now called the White Horse HilI, where it crossed the Parish boundary between Poxwell and Osmington. Before dropping down again, passing the old Osmington Mansion, belonging to Robert Serrell Wood who had purchased the estate in 1745.

At that time both Poxwell Manor and Osmington House faced the north fronting the 'Ridge' road. The road passed westward to Church Lane and the Toll House (now the Beehive) before turning right down Lower Church Lane and turning west again at the village pump, to Sutton Poyntz. (Now signposted as a footpath).

About the turn of the 18th century, a new road was surveyed and Mrs. Burden of Osmington, writing later her memoirs, in 1867, recorded: "My grandfather, Mr Notley, fetched water from Preston in a donkey cart. The main road at that time led from Sutton Poyntz, through Osmington and along the back of Osmington House. This is why, I understand, it is called the Old Road. My grandfather helped to make the present main road.  In fact he was in charge of the job and also built the present Plough Inn. In those days it was on the brow of the hill, at the present time known as 'Sunny Lodge'. My mother was the first to be born at the present Plough Inn. My mother's (older) sister being born at the old Plough Inn". (When this was written in 1867, another John Notley was landlord of the Plough). "There is at the present time a shed with an earthen floor where the smugglers buried their kegs of spirits, till a more convenient and safe time for their disposal. One of the men carrying a tin box accompanied by his daughter would walk to Dorchester presumably carrying her wardrobe, going to her first situation, which in reality was smuggled spirits".

Note: The 'New -Road' authorised via Chalbury Corner was opened in 1812 when the Turnpike returned to being a bye-road.  So grandfather worked circa 1790-1810.  The east Turnpike road, the 'Old Road' through Osmington and Jordan Hill opened in 1760.  Its closure was something else.

Inevitably, the new road and the closing of the old ways caused all kinds of a fuss. Thomas Pickard gave up some of his land to the Trustees of Weymouth, Melcombe Regis and Dorchester Turnpike Roads for the new road and in return was given, he subsequently claimed, sole use of the old road. It was not recorded in the Minutes of the Trustees. The year that the railway reached Dorchester in 1847, a Weymouth branch was proposed via Poxwell. But it was opposed by John Trenchard as it would have passed within 100 yards of Poxwell Manor and the project was abandoned. As the old Turnpike road was blocked off about 1830, the new road led, as it does today, behind and south of Osmington House and is now the A 353.

This caused problems for Yeoman Jobe Gill of Radipole and renter of Mico's Charity Estate.  He complained to the Trustees: 'Since the old turnpike road was stopped up, it required at least ten horses to take a load up from Osmington and he did not keep so many' The Rev John Pickard answered the Trustees of Mico's Estate; 'Despite the loss of the old road, there is still easy access to the Estate'. Yeoman Gill must have seen the reply and responded: 'The road stated to be a few 100 yards beyond Poxwell, I think a quarter mile, on the Weymouth road, is impassible for loaded wagons from the (new) Turnpike to Charity estate and can be of no use to that property. The only road practical in consequence of the obstruction of the old Turnpike Road, by which the upper part of Charity Estate can be reached, is the road leading from the village of Osmington to the White Horse ".

According to the Sherbourne Mercury of 10th October 1808, the White Horse had been dug in the turf that year and had taken three months to complete. It was approved by Robert Serrell Wood who owned the land and the work was paid for by Mr John Ranier.

John Trenchard was indicted by E A Wood in February 1844, because with the road closed except for a small gate at the boundary of Blackway Gate and Pixon Barn on the packway to Warmwell Mills and Culliford Tree, via White Horse Hill, a wall had been erected in place of the gate. Trenchard had applied to the Trustees to stop up the road and was refused as the Trustees had: 'Abandoned it for 15 years'. (Circa 1829) A Writ of Summons was served by William Mayo, Surveyor of Highways for Poxwell with Wood as one of the defendants. But the outcome was not clear as when the Magistrates gave orders to stop up the road in 1845, the case of Mayo v Wood and others was still in progress.

In 185I E.A. Wood pulled down the old mansion and in 1857 a new (present) residence was completed. Its back was turned on the Old Road, the cause of so much trouble, and a long drive was constructed to the new highway.

By 1877 the White Horse had become overgrown and- Mr Jarvis Harker, coined:

The Chronicles continually refer to deeds of charity on the part of princes, churches, the rich and the ordinary folk. When death knocked, people opened their purses more freely, for fear of the devil or, for more reasonable sentiments. Disaster also served to accentuate charity.  In times of plague or famine, to appease God and the Saints or from natural solidarity 'There but for the Grace of God' people donated more freely.

The hospitals noted in their records that: 'Every social class can boast generous souls, full of charity for their brothers'. Amongst them one finds 'the humble maidservant leaving the few pence she had accumulated with savings of many years, as well as rich and powerful citizen'. Henry III had a mania for distributing footwear.

In the 16th century the government developed machinery for the administration and enforcement of charity. In effect then, England produced a national system of poor relief, the great Elizabethan Code of 1597 and 1601.

The easy relationships between the different strata of society that had historically existed crystallized out into a rigid class structure wherein Victorian philanthropy replaced the earlier charitable ethos. Reflected in the 'do-gooder' societies that sprung into existence around and after 1885. Not least among the endless list was 'The Society for the Suppression of Vice'. For suppressing the vices of persons whose income did not exceed £500 a year. At a time when the average income was £25 a year, paid in arrears.

Osmington too had its benefactors.  The eldest being Mico's Charity, founded in 1665. In 1665 Sir Samuel Mico of the George Inn, Weymouth, left the sum of £500 to be spent on the purchase of lands. The profits from this to be used to pay 20/- a year to 'A good divine' for preaching a sermon in Melcombe Regis church (St. Mary's) on the Friday before Palm Sunday and the rest to be distributed between 'Ten poor and decayed seamen of sixty years and upwards, belonging to Weymouth and Melcome Regis'. He also stipulated that as many as able of the seamen should attend the sermon. The £500 was first let out on loan but, in 1718, the Aynes Estate at Osmington was purchased and sub-let to Mr Clapcott. The name of the estate was changed to 'Charity Farm' and the charity has survived to this day.

In 1826, Mrs. Susanna Toogood widow of the Rev C Toogood, left a legacy of £200 in trust for the poor of the village. The story is given on a tablet in the church tower: "Mrs. Susanna Toogood, relic of the Rev C Toogood, late of Sherbourne in this county, by her Will dated 6th, May 1826, left the sum of £200 to the Parish of Osmington; the interest thereof to be annually laid out by the Minister and Churchwardens of the said Parish; the one half part in the purchase of long warm cloaks, for such old women of Osmington as they shall think most deserving and the other half part in the purchase of Coats, Blankets or Rugs for such poor old men as they shall also consider most deserving of the same. Such distributions to be made in the month of November every year".

Major E. A. Wood, brother of Robert Serrell Wood the Third of Osmington House left a legacy, circa 1892, of £200. Initially invested in London to provide beef for 6 old men of Osmington. Later this was amended so that the interest should be distributed, by the Vicar to the poor of the Parish.

APPENDIX A

How Water Rams Work.

The water hammer effect, due to the momentum of a long column of moving water in a pipe is turned to advantage in the hydraulic ram. Invented by Thomas Montgolfer, it utilised the momentum of a relatively large flow, under a low pressure to raise a smaller quantity to a greater pressure.

Although not classed as a pump it may be thought of as one if the moving water column in the supply 'drive' pipe is considered as the plunger which, actuated by its own acquired energy, forces the water in the chest up the delivery pipe. Running day and night, without any other external source of power, it was used to fill reservoirs in rural areas.

Water from a source of supply, usually a small stream, was led with a moderate fall through the drive pipe into the injection port. At low velocities the water flowed freely to waste via the outer port or 'pulse valve', arranged to open downwards under its own weight.

When the flow reached a sufficient velocity, the pulse valve lifted sharply against its seat. The momentum of the moving water column, thus suddenly arrested caused an instant pressure rise in the chest, forcing open the inner valve and driving water up the delivery pipe. Both valves had an adjustable lift and the flow into the drive pipe was regulated at source by a sluice.

Appendix B

19^th & 20^th Village Commerce - Goods and Services

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