Following the indications afforded by the Bishop's registers the ravages of the pestilence are apparent on the coast early in November, when many vacancies begin to be noted in the coast towns. Bridport, East Lulworth, Tynham, Langton, and Wareham had all been visited by this time, whilst before the end of the month the epidemic had crossed the county and appeared at Shaftesbury. On December 3rd two vicarages in the south, quite close together, Abbotsbury and Portesham, received new incumbents. At Shaftesbury appointments were made to St. Laurence's on the 29th of November, to St. Martin's on the 10th of December, to St. John's on the 6th of January, 1349, and to [p080] St. Laurence's again on the 12th of May. At Wareham, the small alien priory became vacant before November 4th, for on that day the King appointed a successor to Michael de Molis, lately dead,[132] and appointments were made to St. Martin's, Wareham, on the 8th of December, to St. Peter's on the 22nd of December, to St. John's on the 29th of May, and to St. Michael's on the 17th of June. Three changes were registered as having taken place at Winterbourne St. Nicholas, between December 27th and May 3rd. As far as can be judged by the dates of these institutions it would appear as if a fresh outbreak of peculiar violence occurred towards the end of April. The Bridport Corporation records show that four bailiffs held office in 1349, in place of the usual two, on account of the pestilence.[133] In common with most places in the land, Poole, which was then of sufficient importance to be called upon to furnish four ships and 94 men for the siege of Calais, suffered greatly from the pestilence, and received a considerable check to its prosperity. "At Poole," writes Hutchins, "a spot on the projecting slip of land, known as the _Baiter_, is still pointed out as the burial-place of its victims."[134] And the same writer adds that the country did not entirely recover for the next 150 years; since, in the reign of Henry VIII., "Poole and other towns in Dorsetshire" were included in that numerous list of places whose desolated buildings were ordered to be restored. Before the close of the year 1348 the pestilence had spread itself far and wide in the western counties of England. The diocese of Bath and Wells, and that of Exeter, the former conterminous with the county of Somerset, and the latter comprising those of Devon and Cornwall, were infected in the late autumn of that year, and all over the west, as the old chronicle relates, the sickness "most pitifully destroyed people innumerable." [p081]