The lost County

On the 26th of November 1697, Isaiah Stone, gent, of the village of Southwell on the Isle of Portland, recorded in his diary:

Much winde. Much raine. My hat was blowne off.

This bald statement is the only record we have of a fierce storm, coupled with an unusually high spring tide, that is believed to have raged along the south coast of England on that day. And it was this storm, I think, that saw the final inundation and destruction of the County of Middenshire.

If you haven't heard of Middenshire you're in very good company. Until just over twenty years ago, no-one knew of its existence. Then, in 1988, a chance discovery by a group of archaeologists roused a flurry of excitement in the normally calm world of historians and geographers. The unlikely source of the excitement was the overgrown and disused churchyard of a forgotten place of worship in Dorset. The ruined remains of the church of St. Uncumber, patron saint of bored housewives, was deep in undergrowth near the village of Osmington. Its existence was, of course, known about, but it had not previously been the subject of historical or archaeological research. The church, built around 1430, was the religious hub of the smallest parish in Dorset, if not in England. In its heyday, its priest ministered to the inhabitants of nine houses, the tithes of which were valued at two shillings and fourpence annually. It took almost 270 years (and a turnover of almost as many priests) for The Church to do the sensible thing, and amalgamate St. Uncumber's with the neighbouring parish. Even then, this was only because the last priest went mad, and his two predecessors were convicted of smuggling, and all because of the beggarly living they had been given. By the middle of the twentieth century, the only access to the church was via land that belonged to an eccentric recluse, who resisted all requests from Dorset archaeologists to allow them to cross his property. When he died in 1988, allegedly from a surfeit of beef dripping, the land was passed to his only living descendent, who knew nothing about the ruins. He set about obtaining planning permission for a housing estate on his newly acquired land. The details of the plans came to the notice of Dr. Steve Mowbray, senior archaeologist with the South Coast Museums Service, who contacted the owner to advise him of his legal obligation to allow the site to be excavated prior to any work taking place. The new owner having readily agreed to this, Mowbray petitioned the Church Commissioners for permission to carry out a survey and some superficial excavation of the church. In fact, he was given a great deal more. The Commissioners, having no plans to restore the church, entered into an agreement to hand over the church and the parcel of land on which it stood to English Heritage, who obtained for it Grade 1 Listed Building status. The Commissioners made arrangements for the church to be de-consecrated, and the bodies buried in the churchyard to be moved. Then, in an almost unprecedented step, they gave Dr. Mowbray permission to examine the contents of the coffins at the time of their exhumation.

In my next post, I'll tell you what the archaeologists found.