6 THE OLD TOWN OF MILTON ABBEY. 



Wood) over the tower to take a nest from the head of the stack- 

 pipe. Hardy then threatened to cut the rope unless Wood 

 promised to give him two out of the four eggs! It must be 

 admitted, reluctantly, that the Grammar School boys were an 

 undoubted nuisance to Lord Milton. They lived within a 

 stone's throw of his mansion ; they broke into his privacy and 

 seclusion ; they scoured his gardens and plantations in every 

 direction ; stole his fruit and disturbed his game. Records 

 exist of the expulsion of some boys bearing the most honoured 

 of Dorset names for persistent stone-throwing down chimneys, 

 and for stealing cucumbers from the Abbey gardens and game 

 fowl eggs for the purpose or rearing birds to compete in 

 fighting. In the Abbey Church the Grammar School boys sat in 

 a large gallery which stretched from the rood loft to the west 

 wall. This gallery was pulled down by Lord Milton's orders as 

 soon as he had removed the school. The Head-Masters and 

 Assistant-Masters of the school, being in Holy Orders, 

 frequently held the position of Vicar or Curate of the Abbey 

 Church. Among them was John Hutchins, the County Historian, 

 who was Curate of the Abbey and Assistant-Master of the 

 school. The only relic existing of the old school is a portion of 

 a pitch-pine desk with the names and initials of some of the 

 boys cut upon it (Roger Whinnell, William Gleed, &c.). 



When pulling down the old town Lord Milton, fortunately, 

 spared St. Catherine's Chapel on the hill beyond ; but it was he 

 who turned the chapel into a cottage, tampered with the chancel, 

 and erected the imitation Norman west front. 



An opinion of an inhabitant of the old town, who was one of 

 Lord Milton's henchmen, is not without interest, even though 

 the opinion may be biassed : " The old town of Milton was a 

 very wet, unhealthy place, being flooded every winter, and ague 

 was very prevalent. I have always thought that Lord Milton did 

 quite right in pulling it down. It was the most wretched place 

 in existence." This may be true, but the majority of inhabitants 

 did not so think. They regarded Lord Milton's action as a 

 cruel piece of tyranny, and they resisted it with stubborn and 



