THE OLD TOWN OF MILTON ABBEY. 5 



cheese, weighing about one pound. It could be ruckled ; i.e., 

 rolled along the ground. Hence its name. In the evening the 

 " Lent-crocking" began. Those people who had not given the 

 children anything when they came "a-shroving" were then 

 rewarded by having pieces of broken crockery and pans and 

 other missiles thrown at their doors. In this way real damage 

 was often done. The practice of shroving is still continued in 

 the present village of Milton ; it is one of the customs which 

 have survived the demolition of the old town. It exists in other 

 Dorset parishes, but is gradually dying out. 



The Abbey churchyard was a very large one. Its area was 

 about three times the area of the Abbey Church. The sports 

 which took place in it have been already mentioned. It was 

 also used as a public flogging place for offenders against the 

 law. Lord Milton, when he decided to pull down the old town, 

 had all the headstones in the churchyard removed, broken up, 

 or buried. In converting the churchyard into lawns, many 

 bones of parishioners were turned up and irreverently treated ; 

 and the superstitious tradition in the present village is that, in 

 consequence of this, Lord Milton died of a gruesome disease. 

 There was an ancient cross in the churchyard, called the 

 "Druid's Cross." Its exact position was 12 feet from the south- 

 east angle of the south transept of the Abbey Church. It is 

 hardly necessary to add that it perished with the churchyard. 



The old Grammar School, founded by Abbot Middleton in 

 1521, was also pulled down by Lord Milton and banished from 

 the parish. It found a home in Blandford, where it still 

 flourishes. In its Milton days it was one of the chief public 

 schools in the south-west of England. It had, as a rule, , 

 between 80 to 100 boys, mostly boarders, sons of the leading 

 county families. There were several boarding-houses for the 

 boys in Milton, and the existence of the school helped on the 

 prosperity of the town. When Hardy (afterwards Admiral Sir 

 Thomas Masterman Hardy Nelson's friend) was at the school 

 it is recorded that he mounted the Abbey tower one day with 

 another boy, and they let down the Head-Master's son (James 



