Thomas Hardy's DorsetHopkins, R. Thurston (Robert Thurston)
History
Thomas Hardy's Dorset
Hopkins, R. Thurston (Robert Thurston)
Dorset (England); Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928
Toller Porcorum (Toller of the Swine) has a railway station on the
Bridport branch line and is two miles from Maiden Newton. The name is
explanatory, and great herds of swine were once bred here. The affix
serves to distinguish this Toller from its next neighbour, Toller
Fratrum (Toller of the Brethren, _i.e._ monks), which is one mile from
Maiden Newton station. The mansion of Sir Thomas Fulford still stands
and is a fine instance of early seventeenth-century domestic
architecture. The very first things I noticed about this house were the
tall, narrow, thick windows--windows that any man might look upon with
covetous eyes. Such tall stone-mullioned windows are an enchantment,
and, as Hilaire Belloc says, it is the duty of every man to keep up the
high worship of noble windows till he comes down to the windowless
grave. A building with a thatched roof near the house is a refectory,
and appropriately cut in stone on the wall will be noticed a monk eating
bread.
At Wynford Eagle, two miles south, the church still preserves a curious
tympanum of a Norman door. It shows two ferocious and
unspeakable-looking beasts, who are about to fight. They are said to be
wyverns--which are heraldic monsters with two wings, two legs and
tapering bodies. The most remarkable discovery ever made in the vicinity
of Wynford Eagle was recorded by Aubrey in connection with the opening
of a barrow at Ferndown. The diggers came upon "a place like an Oven,
curiously clay'd round; and in the midst of it a fair Urn full of very
firm bones, with a great quantity of black ashes under it. And what is
most remarkable; one of the diggers putting his hand into the Oven when
first open'd, pull'd it back hastily, not being able to endure the
_heat_; and several others doing the like, affirmed it to be hot enough
to bake bread.... Digging further they met with sixteen Urns more, but
not in Ovens; and in the middle one with ears; they were all full of
some bones and black ashes."
The house of the Sydenhams still stands at Wynford Eagle. On the highest
point of the central gable a fierce-looking stone eagle arrests our
attention, and under it is carved the date 1630.
Rampisham is three miles south of Evershot, and the churchyard contains
an ancient stone cross, the decayed condition of which will test the
patience and ingenuity of those who desire to satisfy themselves of the
accuracy of Britton's description of the sculpture--namely, that it
represents "the stoning of St Stephen, the Martyrdom of St Edmund, the
Martyrdom of St Thomas à Becket, and two crowned figures sitting at a
long table, to whom a man kneels on one knee."
The inn called the "Tiger's Head" is of great antiquity; it has stooped
and settled down with age, and, within, the low-ceiled rooms seem
saturated with influence, and weighty with the wearing of men's lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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