VOL. XVIII. (i) ABBOTSBURY 35 



of the flora to the occurrence of the Lias clay at Seatown. The cUffs slide 

 badly, sometimes in such masses as to hold up quantities of water. In one 

 such instance, a considerable marsh had formed below the cliff top, and an 

 ordinary marsh flora had collected : — Equisetum maximum, the Willowherbs, 

 Apiiim nodiflorum, Veronica Beccabitnga, Sedges, and others. 



ABBOTSBURY 



Wednesday was given up to a visit to Abbotsbury. Leaving Bridport 

 about 9-30 a.m. the Members arrived at Abbotsbury about 12 o'clock. The 

 road is an up and down one, but the drive was very pleasant, and fine views 

 were obtained of the sea and coast-line from near Isyme Regis to Portland. 

 At the commencement of the steep descent from near the old earthwork called 

 " .\bbotsbury Castle " the village of Abbotsbury came into view — the church 

 and well-known tithe-barn, St. Catherine's ruined chapel on the hill, the 

 waters of the " Fleets " (impounded by the Chesil Beach) and Portland in 

 the distance. Before lunch the church, tithe-barn and remnants of the 

 monastery were visited.^ [L.R.] 



"MoN.\STic Buildings. — If we did not know that the phrase referred 

 to something very different, we should say that the proverb ' as sure as God 

 is in Gloucestershire,' pointed to the great number of Religious Houses in 

 our County, compared with others. I do not think the statement is true, 

 speaking of the Religious Houses as a whole, and certainly if one has in mind 

 the early — say the pre-Norman ones — it is false. The pre-eminence is with 

 Dorset in this respect. If we have four or five Houses of Saxon foundations, 

 Dorset had nine founded during the Saxon period. Abbotsbury, Cerne and 

 Milton continued after the Norman Conquest to be Benedictine Abbeys. 



The character of the remaining six (for there were nine of the pre-Norman 

 establishments) was altered. One, tlie Abbey of Cranbourne, survived as a 

 Priory dependent upon our own great Benedictine Abbey at Tewkesbury. 

 Coker, in his Survey of the Countie of Dorset, quoting the Register of the 

 Monastery (unfortunately destroyed with the mansion house of the Strange- 

 ways at Abbotsbury — a destruction we shall later on refer to), says that 

 '"here was built in the very infancie of Christianity among the Britains a 

 Church to S. Peter by Bertufus,^ a holie priest to whom the same Saint had 

 often appeared and among other things gave him a Charter written with 

 his own Hande.' The Apostle professed in the Charter, ' to have consecrated 

 the Church himself and to have given it to Name Abodesbury.' 



Afterwards King Knut (Canute) came on the scene — this would be 

 between 1017 and io35^and gave Abbott to Sir Ore, his housecarle or steward 

 of his palace. 



This Sir Ore, or Ore, or Orcus, Orcy Orking, or Urce, with Tola or Thola, 

 his wife, gave, so we read, other lands (granted to them by Cnut) ' to the 

 Church of St. Peter at Abbots, long before built but then decayed and forsaken 

 by reason that the Rovers from the sea often infested it.' 



The date of the foundation differs by 18 years according to the authorities 

 I have examined. Reyner in his history of the Benedictines in England, 

 gives the year 1026, and so does Dugdale and Tanner, who adds that Orcus 

 instituted a Society of secular Canons here, which he or his widow changed to 

 a Monastery of the Benedictine Order in the reign of Edward the Confessor. 



[I. In his Presidential Address to the Club on January 21st, 1913, Mr Butt gave an outline 

 of the history of the Monastery and details of St Catherine's Chapel. These observations are printed 

 in this account of the excursion, as it is thought desirable to have all the matter relative to the 

 Bridport Excursion together. — L. R., Ed.] 



2. Others give his name as BertuUus. 



D 2 



