xlviii. CAME AND OWERMOIGNE. 



trying to fit all the stone circles into the same theory, and imagining that they 

 were all to be accounted for in the same way as Stonehenge and Avebury. The 

 great advantage of having a club like theirs was that they could go and see such 

 places as they had visited that day and could then set to work to try to determine 

 the problems raised ; and that could only be by surveying and digging. 



The HON. SEC. mentioned the popular tradition concerning 

 the derivation of the word " Poxwell " that it means the well of 

 Puck, and he defended it in an ingenious and interesting 

 manner. Mr. MAJOR and Mr. WHISTLER agreed with him in 

 believing the pretty and popular tradition to be correct. 



OWERMOIGNE COURT. 



At Owermoigne the party were cordially welcomed at the 

 Court by Mr. G. Cecil Cree and Mrs. Cree. On the lawn, 

 Mr. CREE said : 



The name Owermoigne, according to Hutchins, is derived from the old name 

 of the place, " Ogres," and from the family of Le Moigne, who held it very early 

 after the Norman Conquest. Thus we get Ogres Le Moigne, which has become 

 Owermoigne. In the reign of Edward I. Kalph Moigne heJd the manor of Owers 

 by service of sargeiity in the King's kitchen. In Richard II. 's reign Sir William 

 Stourton (who received his name from Stourton, in Wiltshire) married the 

 daughter of Sir John Moigne. John, his son, the first Baron Stourton, held the 

 manor of Ore amongst others. This manor remained in the Stourton family 

 until 1703, when W'illiam Wake, D.D., afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 purchased it with the advowson from Edward, Lord Stourton. He conveyed 

 them to Sir Theodore Jansen. In Hutchins's time the place belonged to 

 Williamza, daughter and heiress of William Jansen, who afterwards became the 

 wife of the Honourable Lionel Darner, youngest son of the Earl of Dorchester. 

 At Mrs. Darner's decease in 1827 the manor was sold to John Cree. A great deal 

 of Owermoigne was cultivated on the common field system ; but this was altered, 

 and divided into farms by Act of Parliament in 1829. The old map shows you 

 something of the common field system. My late father and Mr. Cumiington, of 

 Dorchester, opened two barrows here one on the downs and one on the heath. 

 These both contained urns of clay, filled with ashes. They are now in the 

 Dorset Museum. Part of an old British entrenchment remains in Heathfield 

 Plantation, about a mile and a-half north of the village. Traces show it was 

 originally 100 yards long by 50 yards wide, oval in shape. In Browiijolm's 

 Plantation is a large barrow, and one side of an entrenchment 120 yards long. 

 A hundred years ago Owermoigne was a great haunt of smugglers ; in fact, all 

 the community smuggled. From what I have heard, the church tower was one 



