An Abbey, the Arts, and the Athelhampton Ape

The twelfth and final volume of Hutchins Extra Illustrated contains fewer parishes than the preceding volumes as many of its pages are made up of the appendices and index, but there are still many interesting items to be found in it.

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There is a large amount of material relating to Milton Abbas, including a portrait and biography of the painter Thomas Beach, who was born in the parish; and a portrait and coat of arms of John Tregonwell who played a major part in Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and in the dissolution of the monasteries and who bought Milton Abbey in 1540. There is also and a document from 1705 relating to Jacob Bancks, the owner of Milton Abbey who was a patron of Hutchins.

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There are several portraits of Mrs Anne Seymour Damer (nee Conway), along with a letter written by her in 1817.

Anne married John Damer, the son of Lord Milton in 1767 when she was 18. The marriage was not a happy one. John Damer’s extravagance, including his habit of wearing three expensive outfits in one day, meant they were soon in debt despite Anne’s considerable wealth. They had no children and separated after seven years, with Anne going on to pursue her interest in the arts. John Damer continued to wrack up huge debts and shot himself in 1776 after his father refused to help him with his money problems.

Anne was a renowned sculptor in her time and wrote the novel Belmour in 1801. She spoke fluent French, travelled extensively and was friends with Josephine Buonaparte.

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As well as portraits and letters this volume also contains a picture of the telegraph station at High Stoy. This was part of a line of telegraph stations erected in the early 1800’s to get messages quickly from Plymouth to London during the Napoleonic war.

There were six shutters on each station that could be opened and closed in 63 different formations, which are also shown in the drawing. These were used to represent the 26 letters of the alphabet, the numerals 0-9 and some frequently used words. Each station was manned by an officer and two other men, one of whom was always on duty, marching back and forwards to look through the telescopes facing each of the adjoining stations. A message could be sent from London to Plymouth in less than fifteen minutes using the line of stations.

They had some initial trouble with the system because the shutters were occasionally blown into the wrong position by the wind, but in 1808 by Henry Ward, a clockmaker from Blandford, noticed the difficulties and invented a sprung clutch which solved the problem. He was awarded ten guineas by the Society of Arts for this idea.

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In this volume you can also find notes on the Dorset dialect. This begins by giving information about pronunciation, such as F’s sounding like V’s and the habit of adding ‘ee’ or ‘ey’ on the end of the verbs to make words like ‘diggey’ for to dig and ‘milkey’, meaning to milk. This is followed by a list of Dorset words. Some of our favourites are ‘drong’, meaning narrow lane, ‘lipping’ meaning wet or rainy, ‘miff’, meaning a quarrel or coolness and ‘scramm’d’ meaning numbed or cramped, which can also be applied to anything small.

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Finally, we would like to mention the manuscript copy of the visitation of Dorset that took place in 1565. A visitation was when a herald visited the county checking and recording the coats of arms being used by the families of the county. We have a printed copy of the 1565 visitation in our local studies library, but it does not include the illustrations of the coats of arms included in the manuscript version. We especially liked the animal that sits on top of the Martyn family’s coat of arms, which we thought looked like a sad bear, but is actually an ape. This reflects the family motto;

‘he who looks at Martyn’s ape, Martyn’s ape shall look at him.’

The family is reported to have had a pet ape as well and the ghost of that ape is said to haunt their family home at Athelhampton.

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That brings us to the end of our blogs on ‘Hutchins’ Extra Illustrated Edition’. We hope you have enjoyed reading about a few of the interesting documents that can be found within them. You are welcome to visit the History Centre if you would like to the learn about the many other additions that we were not able to include in these blogs.

Look out in the new year for blogs about Reverend Hutchins and A.M. Broadly, who was responsible for grangerising these volumes, and about the four volume book about King George III at Weymouth that has also been grangerised by Broadly.

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This blog is part of our monthly series on the 12 extra-illustrated volumes of “Hutchins’ History and Antiquities of Dorset.”

Part one: An introduction to the history and antiquities of Dorset.

Part two: The Pitt family, a piano player, and a plague of caterpillars.

Part three: Coastline, Castles and Catastrophe

Part four: A Phenomenon, Fake News and a Philanthropist

Part five: Antiquities, Adventurers, and an Actress

Part six: A Gaol, a Guide and a Man of Great Girth

Part seven: Physicians, fires and false allegations

Part eight: Graves, Grangerising and a Man who wore Green

Part nine: Desertion, Drinks and a Diarist

Part ten: Music, medical miracles, and mills

Part eleven: Courtiers, Criminals, and Cuttings

 

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