Book of British Villages [antikvár]

Abbots BromleyAbbotsbury staffordshiredorset 6 miles south of Uttoxeter (page 430 Bc) A Butter Cross on the village green is a reminder of the days when Abbots Bromley was a markét town. The six-sided timber building marks the spot where, as far back as the 14th century, local people did their trading in butter and other produce. There are several fine houses in the village, particularly in Bagót Street where the Bagót Almshouses date from 1705. Abbots Bromley was in the Forest of Needwood in medieval times, and continues traditions associated with the forest. The Horn Dance is performed on the Monday after the first Sunday after September 4 and starts at 8 a.m. outside the vicarage. The horns are kept in the church throughout the rest of the year. The six sets of reindeer horns are of Saxon origin, but the dancers wear Tudor dress as they dance their way around an 8 mile circuit of local farms. The deer-men carry the horns on their shoulders and are accompanied by a Fool, a Hobby Horse, Maid Marian and a Bowman. The Horn Dance is probably an ancient version of a 'beating the bounds' ceremony. Richárd II hunted in the forest, and was often the guest of the Bagót family. As a reward for providing him with good hunting, Richárd gave the Bagots a herd of goats whose descendants, known as Bagót goats, are in a special park at Blithfield Hall. The house was built by the Bagót family in Elizabethan times. The Church of St Nicholas stands slightly downhill from the village, and although of medieval origin has a Queen Anne tower with a balustraded top. The ceremóniái horns are kept at the east end of the north aisle. Near the church is the school of St Mary and St Ann, a public school for girls. It was founded in 1874, and became part of the Woodard Foundation in 1921. ----^---- Abbey riches The great, grey, buttressed gable of this enormous 14th-century thatched barn looms over Abbotsbury. In medieval times it swallowed a tenth - or a tithe - of everything the villagers grew or raised in their farms and fields. The barn förmed part of a rich Benedictine abbey, now a min, its size testifying to the power of the abbot, zoho levied titties from a wide area around. Beyond is the 15th-century Church ofSt Nicholas, inside which is a marble monument to one of those powerful abbots. 8 miles north-west of Weymouth (page 421 Ca) St Catherine's Chapel, set on the summit of a steep 250 ft hill, commands the large and spreadout village of Abbotsbury. The chapel - built in the 14th century with thick stone walls, sturdy buttresses and a heavy, barrel-vaulted roof - overlooks the barns, thatched cottages and orange-stone houses that make up the village. Somé of the buildings' stones came from old monastery sites, and the area's meadows and gardens abound in mullioned windows, ageblackened timbers, ancient stone roof-tiles, and paving on raised footpaths - most of them halfburied in ivy. The abbey which gave the village its name was founded in the middle of the llth century. Today, with the exception of the half-ruined but imposing Abbey Barn, little remains of the abbey and its related buildings. The tithe barn was built in the 14th century, and measures 272 ft by 31 ft. It is one of the largest buildings of its kind in Britain and, together with an adjacent pond, marks the nucleus of the abbey site. Near by is the 15th-century Church of St Nicholas, which contains a marble monument of an abbot, dating from the early 13th century. To the west of the church are several large, post-Reformation houses - including Abbey House, Abbey Dairy House, the Old Manor House, and the Vicarage. Abbotsbury lies in a sheltered, green valley about 1 mile from the coast. Just beyond the encircling hills is the northern end of Chesil Beach, a massive rampart of pebbles piled up over the centuries by strong tides and stretching 17 miles from Bridport to Portland. Behind the beach is a long, narrow and brackish lagoon called The Fleet, and for the past 600 years the western corner of the lagoon has housed a colony of swans, which feed on a rare grass in the area, Zostera marina. Each May, hundreds of crammed-together nests, each occupied by a pair of swans, provide a fascinating sight. The Swannery is open to the public - as are the 18th-century gardens on the Beach Road west of the village. The gardens are so sheltered from the sea winds, and so frost-free, that subtropical plants grow there in the spring. Unusual shrubs flourish later in the year. A mile-and-a-half to the north-west of the village is Abbotsbury Castle, an Iron Age earthwork set on a hill and covering somé 10 acres.