How Middenshire met its end

Years passed, and the responsibility for the Middenshire archives remained with the Thuck family until, at last, the duty fell to our William. He took his task very seriously, spending much of his adult life collecting information on every aspect of his home, its history, settlements, people, flora, fauna and customs. This blog is largely based on a perambulacion which Thuck undertook in 1664, and during which most of the descriptions, customs and stories that have found their way into this volume, were obtained. Apart from being an archivist of squirrel-like intensity, he still found time to carry on the business of a full time printer/publisher (of which more later), keep an extensive diary, write books on any number of subjects, and indulge his hobbies of producing engravings and woodcuts. Throughout his long incumbency as County Remembrancer, Thuck often bemoaned Middenshire's ostracism. Although he entertained the wish that the Monarch would one day discover the truth of the business that had condemned Middenshire to oblivion, he was realistic enough to realise that there was little likelihood of this. As time wore on, Middenshire passed out of mind. It was only in the immediate area, and particularly in those coastal parts of South Dorset from which the muddy, sprawling county could be seen, that its existence remained common knowledge. It became the butt of many cruel jokes. Thuck, a veritable magpie, collected the lot.

I have not yet spoken of the 'dreadfull day of Doome' mentioned in Thuck's letter. The time has now come to explain Middenshire's vanishing act. The answer is very simple; it was swallowed up by the sea. This disappearance should not be seen as anything very surprising, or indeed, unique. There are many examples throughout Britain of towns and villages being inundated by the sea; witness the fate of Lyonesse, the land that lay between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; and, more recently, the disappearance of Dunwich in Suffolk. Even today, despite our ingenuity in the face of hostile nature, many areas of East Anglia are still fighting a losing battle with the sea. In common with these present day areas, the Shire was fairly low lying. From the open sea it resembled nothing so much as a half submerged green whale. Much of its coastline was made up of deposits of mud and silt, and the land behind it was in some cases below sea level. These parts were subject to frequent flooding, being described as 'bogsome and marishy,' and of little or no agricultural use. Throughout the centuries, enterprising local engineers had constructed ingenious dykes, sluices, drainage channels and sea defences, in an attempt to keep the ravages of the tides at bay. Until the end of the seventeenth century, they enjoyed some measure of success. However, in 1692, (a year which, some pointed out, was ill-favoured, since its numbers added together totalled 18, or 'thrice six, the marke of the beaste') there was a major disaster in the eastern (and more low lying) part of the shire. An undersea earthquake (possibly related to the one which flooded Framlingham in far distant Suffolk) caused a great east to west surge in the English Channel, a surge which was made even worse by a storm. This by itself would have been sufficient to swamp the coastal areas of the shire. However, coupled with the fact that the earthquake also caused the almost instantaneous lowering of the land by several feet, the eastern part of Middenshire was utterly destroyed by the encroaching sea, with only a handful of survivors from Winkwood Pisham and Gargley left to tell the tale. Continuing the tradition of looking after their own, the West Middenites (whose own buildings suffered severe damage, but who fortunately sustained only light casualties) made land available to their dispossessed neighbours and helped them to rebuild their shattered lives. But the end was clearly in sight. Many saw the inundation as a punishment for past misdeeds, and were convinced that the next great storm would spell the end of both West Middenshire and their own lives. Submerging their suspicions about the world beyond the Causeway, they began to leave the shire. At first, the exodus was small, but that trickle of refugees soon became a flood.

When, in 1697, a great storm arose at the time of a spring tide, the shire's remaining sea defences were at last breached and what was left of Middenshire sank beneath the waves. When the end finally came, there were only a few souls left in Middenbury and Pendlebury. Unfortunately, Thuck's diary, otherwise so rich in detail, (he tells us he was the last person to leave the shire before it disappeared, on the back of a donkey called Gideon) does not tell us the actual date on which his home was swallowed up by the sea. We can only conjecture that it occurred on the 26th of November 1697, the day upon which Isaiah Stone's hat blew off in nearby Portland.