Near Warmwell Cross is Warmwell House, an interesting Jacobean
residence that was for some time the home of John Saddler, the famous
Cromwellian jurist, who was despoiled of all his property at the
Restoration. Another interesting old house is that of Owermoigne, the
manor of which, then called Ogres, or Owers, was held by William le
Moigne "of our lord the King in capite by the service and serjeantry
of being caterer in the King's kitchen, and keeper of his larder". A
fine feature of the house is a range of beautiful and original
thirteenth-century windows, in the solar on the first floor. This is
the "Nether-Moynton" of _The Distracted Preacher_, where stands the
church to which Lizzy guided Stockdale. A recent restoration has swept
away the gallery stairs beneath which the illicit cargoes were hidden,
but the tower within which the smugglers lay concealed is much as it
was when described in the story.
[Illustration: LULWORTH COVE]
Another way to reach Lulworth is to take the turn by the Red Lion that
leads through Winfrith Newburgh, a pretty little village, but of no
particular interest save for an old manorial custom by which Robert de
Newburgh held Winfrith "by the service of giving water for the hands
of our lord the King on the day of his coronation; and to have the
basin and ewer for the service aforesaid". At the coronation of James
II a claim was made by the lord of the manor to perform this service,
but the claim was not allowed. We find also that the tithing man of
the neighbouring village of Coombe Keynes was obliged to do suit at
Winfrith court leet; and, after repeating the following incoherent
lines, was mulcted in the sum of threepence:--
"With my white rod,
And I am a fourth post,
That threepence makes three,
God bless the King, and the lord of the franchise;
Our weights and our measures are lawful and true.
Good-morrow, Mr. Steward; I have no more to say to you."
Coombe Keynes is situated a mile or so to the south of Wool, its chief
claim to notice being the singularly beautiful pre-Reformation chalice
preserved within the church, a building that was extensively restored
in 1860. The chalice is one of three pieces of pre-Reformation church
plate that now remain in the county, although out of some three
hundred parishes over one hundred have retained their Elizabethan
chalices, while seventy possess Communion plate of the seventeenth
century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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